New rules for running a promotion on Pinterest

Abi Roman

The 150 million active monthly users on Pinterest may seem small in comparison to Facebook’s 1.7 billion monthly users, but they are far more engaged and involved in the platform and what they post.

They also tend to be older and have a higher disposable income that they are prepared to spend on items that they see on Pinterest.  A 2016 study showed that 55% of people on Pinterest genuinely want to shop for products, compared with just 12% of people on other social media. This makes it a great platform for running sales linked prize promotions. If that doesn’t convince you, here are some other facts that make Pinterest a great place to run a promotion:

  • 87% of users have purchased a product because of Pinterest
  • 67% of users are under forty years old
  • The average time spent on Pinterest per visit is 14.2 minutes
  • Two out of three pins represent brands and products

However, until recently running promotions on Pinterest was a bit tricky. In February 2017 the rules and Pinterest’s attitude to prize promotions changed. They now recognise promotions can be a genuinely engaging way to create growth and that ‘promoted content should make the Pinterest experience better for everyone”. In a nut-shell Pinterest simply want to avoid their users being spammed by repeated images and for their experience to be an ‘authentic’ and natural one.

So, running promotions on Pinterest is now quite simple and comes down to these 3 rules:

  1. Don’t require participants to Pin a specific image – Successful promotions encourage creative and authentic entries and behaviour. Give Pinners the ability to choose Pins based on their tastes and preferences, even if it’s from a selection or a given website. Don’t ask Pinners to Pin a specific image as this is viewed as spamming.
  2. Don’t allow more than one entry per participant – Promotions that tempt users to submit multiple entries per person feel less authentic and can seem like spam to other users.
  3. Don’t suggest that Pinterest sponsors or endorses you or the promotion – This is standard for social media promotions and you must also review Pinterest’s brand guidelines for general rules on Pinterest’s assets and content.

Run properly, a Pinterest promotion can be a great way to encourage creativity or to run a voting competition. However, they can also be easy to get wrong. PromoVeritas can help you to plan and implement your promotion ensuring that you have solid terms & conditions, that all data is extracted compliantly and assist with all aspects of competition judging or winner selection. To find out more contact us at info@promoveritas.com or call +44 (0)203 325 6000.