← Back to blog
Social Media StrategyNovember 14, 20258 min read

Everyone's ignoring Pinterest. That's exactly why you shouldn't.

F
Flaunt Team
November 14, 2025

Pinterest in 2025: bigger than most brands think

Pinterest reported over 500 million monthly active users as of 2024 - a number that surprises most marketers who still think of it as a niche platform for wedding mood boards. Fashion and beauty are among the platform's strongest categories, and Pinterest's own research indicates that the majority of its weekly users have made a purchase based on content they discovered there.

What makes this significant is the nature of Pinterest's intent. People on Instagram are scrolling for entertainment. People on TikTok are being served content. People on Pinterest are planning: a seasonal wardrobe update, a new skincare routine, a hair transformation. They are actively looking for ideas and products to act on. That intent profile is different from any other major social platform.

What makes Pinterest different for discovery

Content on Pinterest has a fundamentally different lifespan than on other platforms. An Instagram post may drive engagement for 24-48 hours. A TikTok video's shelf life is similarly short. A Pin, by contrast, can drive traffic for months and even years after it is posted. Pinterest's search and recommendation algorithm continues to surface well-optimised content long after the original post date.

This compounding effect changes the economics of Pinterest content. The investment in a well-optimised Pin - a high-quality image, a keyword-rich title and description, a link to the relevant product page - pays dividends over time in a way that most other social content does not. For fashion and beauty brands, this means Pinterest content is an asset, not a consumable.

Shopping on Pinterest

Pinterest has invested heavily in shopping features over the past several years. Product Pins link directly to product pages with real-time pricing and availability. The Verified Merchant Program gives approved brands a badge that signals trustworthiness to shoppers. Shopping spotlights and shoppable collections allow brands to present curated selections rather than individual products.

For fashion brands, Pinterest's visual search tool (Pinterest Lens) is particularly relevant. Users can point their camera at an outfit, a colour or a texture and Pinterest will surface visually similar products - including shoppable listings. Brands whose products are in Pinterest's product catalog are eligible to appear in these results, giving them access to a high-intent search query they do not need to generate through content.

Pinterest Predicts: trend intelligence you are probably not using

Each year, Pinterest releases its Pinterest Predicts report - a forward-looking trend forecast based on search growth data from its platform. Unlike trend reports that describe what has already peaked, Pinterest Predicts identifies categories where search is growing strongly before those trends hit mainstream awareness. The report has a well-documented track record of predicting fashion and beauty trends that subsequently took off across other platforms.

For content and product teams, Pinterest Predicts is free trend intelligence that most brands are not systematically using. Building content around rising Pinterest search categories before they peak gives brands a window of lower-competition, high-intent discovery.

Pinterest SEO: why your descriptions matter

Pinterest is a search engine as much as it is a social platform. Pin titles, descriptions, board names and alt text are all indexed and used to surface content in search results and recommendations. This means keyword strategy - the same discipline you apply to Google SEO - is directly applicable to Pinterest.

For beauty brands, this means writing Pin descriptions that include the ingredient names, skin concerns, product types and aesthetic terms your audience actually searches for. "Hydrating serum for combination skin" in a Pin description will surface that Pin when users search for that combination. "Check out our new launch" will not.

A practical starting point: look at your most-searched terms on your own website (via Google Search Console) and your most-clicked keywords in Google Ads, and use these as the foundation for your Pinterest keyword strategy.

Getting started: a practical checklist

  • Set up a Pinterest Business account if you have not already - this gives you access to analytics and Pinterest's shopping features.
  • Apply for the Verified Merchant Program to get the trust badge and access to expanded shopping features.
  • Connect your product catalog to enable Product Pins with live pricing and availability.
  • Create keyword-optimised boards that reflect the categories your audience searches for: by skin concern, product type, aesthetic, season.
  • Commit to a weekly posting cadence - even 5 Pins per week, consistently, compounds over time. Pinterest rewards regular activity.
  • Read Pinterest Predicts and build at least one content series around a rising trend identified in the report.

Pinterest is one of many channels where your content needs to show up consistently to win. Flaunt's distribution agents help brands publish and optimise across every relevant channel - from Instagram to Pinterest to your own site - without the manual overhead. Try it free or book a demo.