I’m not gonna lie. If you would have asked me a couple of weeks ago, “Which is better for business: Twitter or Pinterest?” I would have immediately blurted out Twitter. You know those automatic responses, like when people ask, “Paper or plastic?” or “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” or “Who’s the best Bond?” An answer just popped in there like “The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man” popped into Ray’s head at the end of Ghostbusters. Everybody knows Twitter. Right? Prior to looking at the numbers, I would have guessed that Twitter has close to the same amount of users as Facebook, when in fact they have nowhere close to the same amount of users. According to Jenn Chen at Sprout Social, 69% of American adults are on Facebook, whereas only 22% use Twitter (Chen, 2020).

Gene Marks with Inc.com points to a 2019 Pew Research survey that found that the median Twitter only tweets twice a month, and that only 10% of all Twitter users make up 80% of all Tweets (Marks, 2019), meaning that most users on Twitter are rarely engaged on Twitter. Ms Chen appears to back this up; the data she presented finds that 58% of Twitter users check in less than once per day, and only 25% check it more than once per day (Chen, 2020). This is all a bit surprising to say the least, but I was equally shocked to learn that 28% of American adults are on Pinterest, making it the third largest social media platform in America (fourth if we’re counting YouTube). Most interesting to me was that their active user base grew 26% from the previous year (Sehl, 2020). And here I was, always joking that Pinterest looked like nothing more than online hoarding for bored women.

Bearing all of these numbers in mind, its safe to say that I am leaning Pinterest’s direction at this point. So, what are some of the reasons that could account for this growth, and what makes it the better platform for businesses? Well, for starters, as Luis Sanchez points out, Pinterest users “have more commercial intent” than Twitter users (Sanchez, 2021). Pinterest users scroll through and gather vibrant images and information on products and services that they intend to, while Twitter is a “text-driven platform where the primary case is for users to have conversations with each other or discover information.” The conversations cover a wide variety of topics that can sometimes cover products, but more often not. Sanchez also feels that Pinterest has stayed a “brand-safe” platform to advertise because, while Twitter and Facebook have been in the news for the topics of bullying, censoring, and/or spreading misinformation, Pinterest has steered clear since Pinterest revolves around images rather than conversations, particularly politics and news.

Another pleasant surprise for me was learning that Pinterest has robust analytics metrics for tracking performance. They track Impressions: The number of times Pins or Ads were on screen. Engagements: Saves, Pin-clicks, and carousel card swipes. Pin clicks and Pin click rate: Number of clicks on your Pin. Outbound clicks and Outbound click rate: Clicks on links that lead to webpage, or other off-Pinterest location. Video views and Saves: Amount of at least 2 second views with 50% of video in view. Average video play time, Total video play time, Played at 95% of length, and 10-second views. Total audience, Total engaged audience, Monthly total audience, and Monthly views (Review Pinterest Analytics, 2021). In addition to all of these metrics, and you can apply a wide variety of filters from sorting Organic content , paid content, device used to view content, and format.

Having such a wide array of filters and metrics allows businesses to better see what is and what isn’t working for them. For example, if certain types or styles of content resonates and gets good engagements, they can decide to make more of that content. All of this leads to more effective and productive marketing for businesses, and leaves me confident in stating that Pinterest is better for businesses than Twitter. Oh, and the correct answers to my questions at the beginning: The Best Bond is Daniel Craig (sorry Sean Connery), Die Hard is absolutely a Christmas movie, and the correct answer when asked “Paper or Plastic?” is, “{sigh} Neither… I left my 87 bags in the trunk out in the lot…”

References

Chen, J. (2020, August 04). Social Media Demographics to Inform Your Brand’s Strategy in 2020. Retrieved from SproutSocial.com: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/

Marks, G. (2019, May 02). Why Twitter Is An Awful Place For Your BusinessTrust Me, Your Customers Aren’t There. Retrieved from Inc.com: https://www.inc.com/gene-marks/why-twitter-is-an-awful-place-for-your-business.html

Review Pinterest Analytics. (2021). Retrieved from Pinterest.com: https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/pinterest-analytics

Sanchez, L. (2021, January 09). 3 Reasons Why Pinterest Is a Better Advertising Platform Than Twitter. Retrieved from Fool.com (The Motley Fool): https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/01/09/reasons-why-pinterest-better-ad-platform-twitter/

Sehl, K. (2020, March 02). 28 Pinterest Statistics Marketers Should Know in 2020. Retrieved from Hootsuite.com: https://blog.hootsuite.com/pinterest-statistics-for-business/