Over the past year, Pinterest has emerged as a popular platform with Gen Z. This group represents over 40 percent of the image-sharing and social media platform’s global monthly active users. If you are wondering, what is Pinterest, well it’s a platform where you can post and share inspirational and aesthetic images and videos to their virtual boards. Pinterest is regarded for creativity, data tracking, and diversity.
According to a study by Voxburner, about 73 percent of Gen Z use Pinterest, 35 percent use it every week, and 82 percent use it to browse personal interests. It highlighted that 72 percent of the pinners use it for fashion content, 63 percent utilize it for home décor, 54 percent for beauty content, 47 percent for art & design, and 38 percent for food and drink. Ruby Soave, Head of Influencer Marketing at Student Beans, said Pinterest is often overlooked but is a fantastic way to engage Gen Z, who are increasingly using the platform. She pointed out that product and creator functionality has already begun an impressive upward swing.
Rachel Hardy, Director of Consumer Product Marketing at Pinterest, said Gen Z’s momentum on the platform has increased in the past year. “We believe this is mainly driven by personal exploration as Gen Z users come to Pinterest to form and explore their identities. They talk about it as a place to figure out what they like vs. being told what to like without the scrutiny or judgment they feel in other places. They’re developing their aesthetic, collecting resonate quotes, curating mood boards, and dreaming about their futures.”
Hardy believes Gen Z’s growth is driven by new features Pinterest introduced, like Collages – a new immersive format designed to help Pinners visualize ideas using the platform’s advanced visual technology to cut out products and create interactive collages. “As we have scaled Collages on Pinterest, we have observed that 72 percent of Collage creators are from the Gen Z cohort. They also save Collages at three times the rate of other Pin types.”
She highlighted that a lot of users, especially from Gen Z, come to Pinterest for self-expression, to forge their identity. “As they get older, they’re using Pinterest for many of the same reasons older cohorts do – recipes, decorating their first apartment, and planning events from birthdays to weddings. They have the deepest engagement and save over two times more ideas than other generations.”
Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at research and advisory firm Forrester, pointed out that Pinterest is on a content graph algorithm, as with TikTok. It customizes the feed based on content users like, in contrast to Meta’s Instagram, which is based on the people they follow, thus popularity with Gen Z.
Malik Ducard, Chief Content Officer at Pinterest, said one major thing that differentiates a person coming through the front doors of Pinterest as a user from coming through the front doors of other platforms is that they have an intent. “They’re not coming for an ephemeral experience. They’re planning an outfit for a birthday or their festival attire. And they come back to it.” Ducard believes there’s a major opportunity for brands and retailers to capture that intent, and help guide that pinner from top-of-the-funnel discovery to actually making a decision and ultimately a sale.
Furthermore, Pinterest has invested in tools like trend search for brands and users to search for the latest trends. During Pinterest’s third-quarter earnings call, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said Pinterest is the rare business where the interests of users and advertisers are aligned. “It’s proven to be true as we continue to post double-digit revenue growth and have achieved an all-time high for global MAU. The changes we made have set us up to a stronger and more efficient company as we double down on momentum in 2024.”
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