Since Pinterest launched in 2010, pinning has found its way into the pop culture lexicon, and the site now boasts over 454 million monthly users. The website has led to the rise of virtual mood and vision boards, recipes galore, and DIYs ranging from easy-to-execute to downright impossible. Despite Pinterest’s role as a powerful social media platform, it’s escaped the scrutiny placed on other giants, such as Facebook and Twitter. This can be attributed to the format, which makes it easy to avoid conversations, and to the fact that the content on Pinterest tends to be more innocuous than other platforms, at least on the surface. However, Pinterest has been making moves in the past several years to easily earn it the title as the most positive place on the internet. Let’s dive into how Pinterest is curating a positive and healthy community on the platform and why you need to be keeping an eye on it.

Who’s On Pinterest?

The user base of Pinterest is primarily described as moms who like DIY. However, their massive community is diverse and generally breaks away from other social media platform demographics. Over 77% of users are female, with age ranges evenly distributed. Additionally, over 28% of all social media users maintain an account on Pinterest, where they primarily use it for purchasing inspiration. Pinterest users are active on the platform, with over 260 billion pins saved and more than 5 billion boards created.

What’s It Like?

Pinterest’s communities are vast and often intermingled. While TikTok can boast more separate communities, like BookTok, FoodTok, and NoodleTok (is it a bones day?)—Pinterest’s users overlap. There are countless options to explore on the platform, including fashion, recipes, fitness, home decor, beauty, art, tattoos, and news. As of January 2021, the top topics on the platform include:

Home décor
DIY and crafts
Entertainment
Education
Art
Women’s fashion
Food and drinks
Beauty
Event planning
Gardening

All Social Media is Toxic, Right?

Pinterest isn’t immune to most common pitfalls impacting other social media channels. It’s been used as a tool to spread misinformation, including falsehoods about COVID-19, the 2020 election, medicine, and mental health. The platform has long been accused of fostering impossible and unattainable standards for young women and girls. There are communities within the platform promoting dangerous behaviors, such as disordered eating, medication abuse, or “cures” for conditions that cause long-term harm.

These are problems that plague many platforms. However, Pinterest has taken a hardline approach to these issues and has implemented several measures to reduce misinformation and discourage dangerous behavior.

In March of 2021, Pinterest announced new measures to combat vaccine and COVID-19 misinformation, prohibiting ads that offer COVID-19 cures and treatments, curating expert-lead search results related to the pandemic, and further enforcing their health misinformation policy on the platform.

To build upon the misinformation policy, Pinterest has taken great measures to combat misinformation on the platform across various topics. Through the use of AI, machine learning, and human moderators, Pinterest is removing content on the platform that “may harm Pinners’ or the public’s well-being, safety or trust.”

Mental Health on the Platform

It’s no secret that there are detrimental mental health impacts associated with social media use. Often, social media users curate profiles and personas that show an ideal and perfect life, leading to harmful comparisons, especially for young people.

Pinterest has launched several initiatives to improve mental health and provide a healthy reality check to its users. In October of 2021, Pinterest launched Pinterest Havens, a board that encourages users to “explore the relationship between mental health and rest.” This has also been paired with an IRL installation in Chicago to bring awareness to burnout—utilizing art and community programming—and donating to local Chicago community nonprofits. Pinterest also launched a self-care tool, which is presented when searching for key phrases related to emotional and mental health.

In July of 2021, Pinterest made a big move as the first social media platform to ban all weight-loss ads. Social media often exacerbates disordered eating, with communities dedicated to encouraging this behavior and ads promoting weight loss products compounding the issues.

Representation

White and wealthy women are often put on a pedestal as a standard to attain, a trend that is evident across all social media platforms, pop culture trends, and media. Pinterest has recognized this and is working to ensure that its platform is inclusive and representative of all its users.

Earlier in 2021, Pinterest launched a hair pattern search option with a focus on BIPOC users. This tool will enable BIPOC users to find hairstyles that fit their hair texture, shape, and needs more efficiently. By creating a dedicated tool for its users of color, Pinterest has shown that it is dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment where all users can find their needs met.

Pinterest also launched a creator fund designed to elevate creators from underrepresented communities. With this fund, creators must sign their “Creator Code,” which requires creators to fact-check, practice inclusivity, and be kind.

Is It Working?

There is no straightforward answer as to whether Pinterest’s strategy is working. It’s hard to quantify positivity and negativity on a digital platform, and many of these changes are in their infancy. However, all of this action has posited the platform as a leader in social media moderation. Making these bold and public moves signals to users that the platform does care about the health and well-being of its users and is taking action to protect them.

Should Your Brand be on Pinterest?

Brands have been slow to adopt Pinterest, finding the format not overly intuitive towards spreading their brand messaging. However, establishing your brand on the platform is an excellent opportunity to reach a broad and diverse audience looking for inspiration and ideas. 50% of Pinterest users have indicated that they have bought products after seeing a promoted pin. Pinterest users tend to skew towards those with a higher income, with 41% of users earning more than $75,000 per year, further cementing Pinterest as a part of the e-commerce ecosystem.

Pinterest has a very active community that often goes onto the platform with a goa—whether to get a recipe, find a solution to a household chore, buy gifts, treat themselves, or have some fun. That positions Pinterest as an excellent platform for businesses looking to connect and inspire their audiences. The photo-forward nature of the platform gives brands a perfect opportunity to showcase their products and services in a fun and creative way.

How Can YMC help?

If you’re interested in establishing your brand on Pinterest and other social media platforms, we’re here to help. At YMC, we specialize in connecting brands with Gen-Z and Millennial consumers, and we’d be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you. Contact us today!

YMC’s interns work closely with our team, learning about marketing to Gen-Z and Millenials from many different angles. Our Summer 2021 intern, Kelsey Thorpe, is a rising senior at American University, majoring in French Studies. Check out Kelsey’s take on making your next campaign on campus a total success!

Potential for Campus Events

As college students prepare to return to campus after over a year of virtual classes, there will be many opportunities for brands and organizations to promote themselves to a broad audience and spread brand awareness. Most college students are tired of learning and socializing in an online environment, so their return to campus presents an opportunity to harness the college students’ excitement for in-person experiences.

Engagement is Essential

Events are one of the most engaging and fun ways to spread brand awareness. A perfect example of this is Maybelline’s College Campus Pop-Up Tour. YMC worked directly with its campus partners to host a Maybelline experience in high traffic areas of campus that allowed students to experience and sample their products. They were able to distribute retail coupons and hand out over 23,000 free samples to students.

It’s also important to consider that students are more likely to stop and chat or even engage on social media if they hear about your brand through other students. This is where campus ambassadors come in. Having students help promote and market your brand will help you gain more traction, as they have the best insight into what’s happening on campus and can easily tap into different student groups. You can also build out gifting campaigns utilizing college student ambassadors and influencers to boost UGC. Makeup brands, like e.l.f. Cosmetics use this strategy to showcase their products by giving TikTok and Instagram influencers products to use on their social media channels. Word-of-mouth is one of the easiest ways to tell students about your brand, so creating fans is much more efficient and impactful with their help.

Instagram and TikTok Takeover

Instagram has been and will continue to be one of the most popular social media platforms for college students, but now TikTok has proven to be just as influential. It’s no surprise that social media use has increased significantly over the past year—it’s the easiest way to stay connected to your peers during the pandemic.

Insta-graphics that are cute, eye-catching, and shareable are an easy way to promote your brand. Posting stories is easy, and students are much more likely to share a story than a post in-feed. Another great option for utilizing social media is a TikTok challenge. TikTok is continuing to gain popularity, and many of its users participate in TikTok challenges. We’ve seen brands like Kate Spade New York succeed on TikTok by creating the #katespadenyhappydance challenge, in which they used ambassadors to promote their brand and, in turn, increased engagement from Tiktok users.

Make Your Mark on Campus

Experiential events and campus ambassadors are a very effective way of grabbing the attention of college students, showcasing your brand, and making a lasting impression on a college campus! Gen-Z students are craving experiences, and holding a memorable event on college campuses will be guaranteed to make an impression. Google embarked on a pop-up tour to showcase their Chromebooks and Chrome browser. Students and faculty were able to check out Chromebooks for multi-day trials, which created a lot of buzz around their product and brand. Leaving a lasting impression will keep students talking about your brand for years to come and give your company the chance to cultivate loyal fans.

How Can YMC Help?

If you’re interested in developing a campus ambassador program, creating brand experiences and events on college campuses, or optimizing your social media presence to reach new customers, we’re here to help. At YMC, we specialize in connecting brands with Gen-Z and Millennial consumers, and we’d be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you. Contact us today!

TikTok has dominated the social media scene, quickly establishing its spot as the 7th most used social media platform. While Gen-Z dominates the user demographics, Millennials, Gen-X, Boomers aren’t far behind. Many companies have flocked to the app, posting organically and putting ad money behind sponsored posts and hashtags. As your company considers establishing a presence on TikTok, let’s look at one highly effective way to show up: utilizing influencers.

Company TikToks

The meteoric rise of TikTok has led many companies to expand their digital presence to the app. You can find everyone from mega-corporations to small and fledgling businesses carving out a space for their brand. Some of the most popular content includes new product reveals, behind-the-scenes into production processes, team introductions, and fan features. TikTok has been hammering it into brands to create TikToks, not ads. Rachel Karten explored why certain companies are creating an impression on the platform and found that the brands that are succeeding are treating their TikTok accounts as a creative, experimental platform with a personality that extends beyond branding.

Many companies find the delicate balance of content that best encapsulates this phrase, playing off tried and true content strategies from platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. Others are expanding their range with experimental content and interactive approaches while leveraging influencers in new ways.

Influencers and TikTok

Instagram has long been considered the influencer-driven social platform, and TikTok is completely rewriting the rules. Its unique algorithm has given rise to unlikely influencers, breaking the mold of what many would expect an influencer to look like and behave. These influencers have audiences that range from tens of followers to millions, providing more opportunities for nano- and micro-influencers to flourish. Influencer programs are also looking very different on the app, with fans becoming accidental influencers through a mix of TikTok’s enigmatic algorithm and the ability to easily create content that resonates.

Who is Doing it?

We’ve seen some impressive and inventive influencer programs emerge on the app, and YMC has had the privilege of working on a few hugely successful campaigns for great brand partners.

Kate Spade New York has seen a lot of success utilizing influencers on the platform with their #KateSpadeNYHappyDance campaign, earning them millions of views, engagements and putting new faces to an iconic brand.

@jenna_holmes

🕺🏻When in doubt, dance it out.. WITH @katespade! *squeal* so pumped about thisss 😍 #ad #katespadeny #katespadenyhappydance

♬ Happy Dance – Kate Spade New York

Polo Ralph Lauren’s #PoloU TikTok campaign has captured the attention of young audiences, showcasing their newest lines. As the official outfitter of the United States Olympic team and their deep ties to the sports community, Ralph Lauren has been able to use its influencer network to tie into major sports events, like the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games, the US Open, and more.

@dawit.hailu

So excited to be a @RalphLauren #PoloU Ambassador! Make sure you tap the link in my IG bio and stay tuned for more! #PoloSport #Ad #fyp #foryou

♬ Upbeat Indie Folk – Soundroll

Aerie has had an explosive launch on TikTok, gaining a loyal following within two weeks. Aerie launched the #AerieRealPositivity hashtag challenge following their account creation, with mega-influencer Charli D’Amelio kicking off the campaign. The brand capitalized on a loyal following from other platforms, using a mix of well-established and emerging influencers, which showcased their inclusive brand values with real, authentic people.

@charlidamelio

share what you’re doing to stay positive right now by tagging @aerie and #aerierealpositivity #ad

♬ 100% Real Love – PopUpGirl

How Can You Do It?

The first step is recruiting the right influencers. If you don’t have existing relationships or the ability to recruit from your own community, finding the right partner will be key to your campaign’s success. Defining the criteria of who makes a perfect influencer for your brand and campaign goals is vitally important, as these consumers will become the face of your brand to their peers. You’ll also want to ensure they represent your brand’s core values and that their interests and passions align with the products or services you’re featuring so that the content they produce is more authentic to their followers.

While mega- and macro-influencers have millions of followers, often, their engagement is very low. Additionally, TikTok provides an incredibly unique opportunity for micro- and nano-influencers to achieve equal reach. Long story short, never discount the potential of creators with smaller followings. There is a ____-Tok for every niche out there, and each user has their own ability to speak to their selected audience. Expand the breadth of your influencer program to include those that do not fit the mold of what you think a typical influencer is. Ensure that you are prioritizing diversity and inclusivity in your campaign. Consumers take notice of who you select to represent your brand.

What Are They Creating?

Building campaigns that allow your influencers creative freedom is vital to ensure that they can present your brand in the most authentic way possible. Providing them flexibility in the time and day they post is also crucial, as they know when their audience is typically the most engaged. Hill House Home is an excellent example of a brand with an influencer program that gives its influencers freedom to create the content they want, which sends a message that the brand supports the influencers beyond a business transaction. TikTok’s audience responds very well to sponsored content as long as it reflects the established personality of the creator, as opposed to a script from a brand.

How can YMC help?

If you’re interested in building out your influencer program on TikTok and other social media platforms, we’re here to help. At YMC, we specialize in connecting brands with Gen-Z and Millennial consumers, and we’d be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you. Contact us today!