Get to Know Pinterest Categories

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Pinterest is the third-most popular social media platform among adults in the U.S, with about 200 million monthly active users. Marketing with Pinterest is an important opportunity of which your business should certainly take advantage. More than two-thirds of Pinterest users say they’ve discovered a new brand through the platform, while an impressive 93% say they use Pinterest to inform their purchasing decisions. Make Pinterest work for your brand by pinning like a pro. Start by getting to know Pinterest Categories.

Who Are You Targeting?

Pinterest marketing works best when brands tailor their advertisements and content to their target audience, or the consumers most likely to purchase their products or services. Pinterest might be the right platform for your marketing efforts if you’re trying to appeal to this platform’s most common users. According to the Pew Research Center, the following demographics are the top frequenters of Pinterest in 2018:

• Women (41%)
• Caucasians (32%)
• Age group 25-29 (39%)
• $75,000+ (39%)
• College+ (40%)
• Suburban (31%)

Using Pinterest categories to your advantage will make sense if you’re targeting consumers who align with these demographics. Otherwise, you might want to consider marketing through other social media channels. If you’ve decided that Pinterest is the perfect platform on which to spend your marketing resources, it’s time to explore Pinterest 101. Effective Pinterest marketing depends largely on using categories to your advantage.

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What Categories Are Available?

Using Pinterest’s fullest potential as a marketing tool for your brand takes an understanding of the myriad categories available to businesses and consumers. Pinterest has 36 total categories for users to explore. When you use Pinterest for business, you can create “boards,” or collections of items that you save for later. Creating a board requires choosing an appropriate category. You can choose from the following:

• Animals and Pets
• Architecture
• Art
• Cars and Motorcycles
• Celebrities
• Design
• DIY and Crafts
• Education
• Entertainment
• Everything
• Food and Drink
• Gardening
• Geek
• Gifts
• Hair and Beauty
• Health and Fitness
• History
• Holidays and Events
• Home Décor
• Humor
• Illustrations and Posters
• Kids and Parenting
• Men’s Fashion
• Outdoors
• Photography
• Popular
• Products
• Quotes
• Science and Nature
• Sports
• Tattoos
• Technology
• Travel
• Videos
• Weddings
• Women’s Fashion

It’s important to cultivate your Pinterest presence in a way that allows consumers to discover your content and save it for future purchases. The best way to do this is to select the appropriate categories for your boards and company content. That way, consumers can see your content when browsing for a category, such as “Home Décor.” Users searching for ideas could lead to a sale if your content appears in the search results.

Which Categories Should You Choose?

Choosing your categories can seem simple; after all, your products and services probably have a relatively narrow niche in which they exist. The broadness of many Pinterest categories, however, opens the opportunity to check off more than one box for almost all items. If you sell bathrobes, for example, your Pinterest categories could include Everything, Gifts, Hair and Beauty, Men’s Fashion, Products, Weddings, and Women’s Fashion. The following are the five most popular Pinterest categories in 2017, according to Statista:

1. Art, Art Supplies, Hobbies (48%). Consumers use the platform most often to search for ideas and products relating to arts, crafts, hobbies, and DIY projects. These categories can cover a range of industries. These categories include pins about painting, artwork, how-to craft projects, household tips, sewing, quilting, gardening, and tons of crafts.
2. Flowers, Food, Drinks, Gifts (47%). These categories encompass flowers and gifts for others, including unusual presents you wouldn’t find on other sites and DIY gift inspiration. The food and drink categories offer thousands of recipes for unique, tasty, and often aesthetically-pleasing dishes and beverages, as well as related products such as dishware and cooking utensils.
3. Home, Garden, Pool/Spa (45%). Pinterest users commonly use the platform to look up ideas and products to decorate their properties. The Home Décor category has pins such as things homeowners can purchase, organization tips, and DIY décor ideas. Gardening has helpful tips and lists for avid gardeners. Pool/spa offers unique design ideas and products such as slides, jacuzzies, etc.
4. Health and Beauty (45%). Pinners use Hair and Beauty and Health and Fitness categories to browse through tips and products relating to self-care. Hair and Beauty would be an appropriate category for businesses that produce makeup, hair products, nail products, etc. Health and Fitness is where Pinners go to look for health tips, symptoms of sicknesses, and ways to improve their health and physical fitness.
5. Clothing and Apparel (37%). Pinterest statistics show that 47% of millennials have made purchases on Pinterest and 55% of all U.S. online shoppers name Pinterest as their favorite online shopping platform. Take advantage of this enormous consumer base by marketing your clothing products under this category. Your women’s and men’s fashion can appear on the page every time target users search through the Clothing and Apparel category.

The goal of your categorization should be to achieve as many discoveries and pins as possible. The more categories your products can fit into, the more visible they will be to Pinners. Placing your items in just one category, or the wrong categories, can reduce the number of times your items will appear on the search feed. Fit your content into as many Pinterest categories as you can for maximum visibility. If enough users pin your items, you could even make it into the Popular category.

How Your Business Can Make the Most of Pinterest Marketing

Categories are an important and complex part of Pinterest marketing, but they are just that – a part. The full picture is even more complicated. Luckily, hundreds of business owners before you have done the hard work and figured out how to master Pinterest marketing. Use the following tips and tricks to get best ROI for your Pinterest campaigns:

• Implement Pinterest onto your website. Make it easy for your customers to save your items to boards on Pinterest by adding the button to your website. This is a simple change that could help introduce and spread your products on Pinterest.
• Use the platform often. Log into your Pinterest business account and pin things often to keep your account current. Pin at least once per day, at peak times for the most traffic. Pin holiday-themed items or promotions 45 days in advance of the holiday.
• Accompany text with high-quality visuals. Fill out the description field and include keywords naturally. Then, use a high-quality image to create your pin. Pinterest is mainly a visual medium that requires high-resolution images. Insert captions on your photos for more user engagement using a photo editing app.
• Establish your Pinterest presence. Don’t use your Pinterest account as a one-way street to accumulate followers and get pins. Start following boards and accounts on your own, including non-competitive and complementary brands in your industry. Like and comment on pins to help create your online reputation.

Pinterest categories are just the beginning of a successful marketing strategy. To maximize your returns on a social media marketing investment, work with a management services provider. Vizion Interactive’s social media marketing (SMM) services provide comprehensive management of all social accounts, including Pinterest. Our SMM experts can create a strategic approach to social posts, shares, and engagement to boost brand awareness. We can help you master Pinterest categories and more. Call (888) 484-9466 to learn more about our SMM services today.