Back in 2021, Pinterest introduced a new feature called Idea Pins. Pinterest’s Idea Pins consist of videos or photos grouped together in a format similar to Instagram Stories. These pins appear in the Watch feed of the Pinterest app, almost like the For Your Page on TikTok. Idea Pins are also displayed in the Create section of a brand’s Pinterest profile.
In a press release, Pinterest said Idea Pins make publishing “high-quality, long-lasting, and savable content” simple for content creators.
“With these updates, we’re highlighting the people behind the content and encouraging Pinners to follow creators and engage with the ideas they find,” the press release said.
As you’ll see with the brands below, Idea Pins can be used to tell a story, promote products, give tutorials, and engage with users. Here’s how these 10 brands are using Idea Pins.
10 Brands Using Pinterest Idea Pins
1. Fenty Beauty
Cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty uses Idea Pins to promote the brand’s products and showcase the brand’s inclusivity. The company does this by showing photos of the products and how they look on different skin tones. Fenty also includes videos on its pins of people of color applying makeup and creating different looks.
One of the biggest concerns facing the cosmetics industry is a lack of inclusivity. Many people of color with darker complexions often struggle to find makeup that matches or complements their skin tone. By using Idea Pins to show variety and how POC look in Fenty products, the company sets itself apart from other cosmetic companies and presents itself as a solution.
2. Oh Joy
Lifestyle brand and design company Oh Joy is the most followed account on Pinterest with 15.2 million followers. Its founder, Joy Cho, uses Idea Pins as a way to speak directly to the company’s audience and give advice on fashion and home decor. For example, in one pin Cho promotes jewelry from Jared. She speaks directly into the camera and tells her audience how she was able to coordinate the jewelry with her outfit.
Cho then encourages the audience to click through her pins to see more of her favorite Jared pieces and the outfits she matched them with. In other Idea Pins, Cho gives her audience a tour of her home and explains the thought process behind her decor. This is a great way to build audience engagement and to form a bond with viewers.
3. Food My Muse
Food My Muse is a foodie account that posts recipes and restaurant reviews. The account is run by former restaurant owner Nadia Aidi. While Aidi posts a variety of food-related content, she uses Idea Pins specifically to post videos with step-by-step instructions for different recipes.
She also includes the full recipe in the description of each pin. This kind of content is great for visual learners and it shows off her expertise as a chef — establishing her credibility as an expert foodie.
4. Mejuri Jewelry
Mejuri Jewelry uses Idea Pins to post photos of its jewelry pieces and categorize its content by theme. In a way, Mejuri uses Idea Pins to create different lookbooks. In one Idea Pin, for instance, Mejuri creates a lookbook showing Pinterest users the different ways they can stack bracelets. Another lookbook consists of Fall 2021 trends, and another Idea Pin uses photos to show how gold and silver jewelry can be styled together.
This method of using pins shows the jewelry Mejuri offers and gives potential buyers practical information about how to style them for any occasion.
5. Etsy
For its Idea Pins. Etsy leans heavily into video content that gives a behind-the-scenes look into small businesses on Etsy’s website. One Idea Pin includes a sequence of clips showing how one Etsy seller named Tori Lynn paints and glazes a ceramic mug. Another pin is a time-lapse video of another seller named Veruschka converting parts of their home into a workspace where they handmake and ship out their products.
This type of content doesn’t just promote the products found on Etsy, it also highlights the many businesses and artists selling their wares on the site. In doing so, Etsy attracts both potential buyers and business owners looking for a platform.
6. Vogue Magazine
Vogue Magazine uses Idea Pins to promote its magazine cover stars via candid videos from the photoshoots. The magazine’s latest Idea Pin, for example, features photos and footage of Serena Williams and her daughter, posing for the magazine’s cover and playing on a beach. Other pins feature celebrities like Rihanna showing her baby bump as well as photos from the Met Gala.
Vogue’s Idea Pins appeal to its audience’s love of celebrities and fashion, and the pins establish Vogue as being at the center of pop culture.
7. Bustle
Most of Bustle’s Idea Pins consist of repurposed content from other platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. This method is helpful because it gives older content a second life on Pinterest. TikToks of celebrity interviews and short anecdotes from YouTube are frequently uploaded as Idea Pins, showing off Bustle’s variety of pop-culture content.
8. Free People
Most of Free People’s pins start with a video of a model wearing the fashion retailer’s clothes and demonstrating the different ways the clothing items can be styled. The video is then followed by photos of the products in different colors and in different outfits. This method makes all the Idea Pins similar and uniform, so followers know what to expect.
Similar to Mejuri Jewelry, Free People also organizes its pins by style and creates a digital lookbook that showcases its clothing and accessories.
9. The Little Bazaar
The Little Bazaar is an online store selling boho-style clothing. Like most fashion accounts on Pinterest, all of The Little Bazaar’s Idea Pins consist of photos of models wearing their clothes. However, some models are also customers who submitted photos and videos of them wearing the products.
This form of user-generated content is great because it shows Pinterest users how the clothes look on real people and it would encourage people to submit their own content as well.
10. Lulu’s
Almost all of Lulu’s Idea Pins consist of fashion and lifestyle how-to’s, such as “How to Style a Corset Top” and “How To: Macha Gin Fizz.” However, what I enjoy most about Lulu’s Idea Pins is the cover images. Each cover image includes Lulu’s logo as well as large texts giving a quick explanation of what the pin is about.
This use of Idea Pins is aesthetically pleasing, organized, and helps Pinterest users navigate to the kind of content they’re looking for.
Idea Pins present more opportunities for brands to get their content on Pinterest users’ feeds, expanding brand awareness. However, brands should also see these pins as a chance to create engaging content that tells a story and provides value.
How-to’s, lookbooks, behind-the-scenes footage, and user-generated content are just a few examples of the many ways you can incorporate Idea Pins into your marketing strategy.