Instagram and Pinterest are both two of the biggest social media platforms out there right now.
And while their effectiveness can depend on your particular target audience, both are indispensable for a lot of different brands.
But you don't want to just stick the same images on Instagram and Pinterest. It doesn't work well.
The platforms aren't really the same thing at all.
Unlike Snapchat, Pinterest isn't really competing directly with Instagram.
They both serve different purposes for their users — and indeed, even the users themselves are different.
You need to approach each platform separately to get the most out of its marketing potential.
In a recent blog post, AdEspresso explains how the kind of content that does well on Instagram doesn't always move the needle on Pinterest, and vice versa.
Audience
Instagram’s audience is much more diverse than Pinterest’s. It’s also much larger than Pinterest’s.
SproutSocial put together a post with incredible demographic information, revealing that Instagram’s audience:
– Has more than 600 million active users
– 26% of all men online, 38% of women online
– 59% of people ages 18-29 use Pinterest
– 33% of people 30-49
– 18% of people 50-64
– 69% have at least some college experience
Pinterest’s audience, meanwhile, is a much more predominantly female audience (even though Pinterest’s male user base is growing).
As of the publication of SproutSocial’s post, Pinterest’s audience:
– Has 200 million active users
– Has 17% of all online men on the platform, and 45% of women who are online
– 36% of 18–29 year olds use Pinterest
– 34% of 30–49 year olds
– 28% of 50–64 year olds
– 68% had a college degree or higher
Simply put: more women are using Pinterest, and Pinterest has a slightly older-on-average audience than Instagram.
Human Faces
On Pinterest, images without human faces are repinned 23% more often than those that include them.
It’s why you’ll see full body images to show outfits cut off at the woman’s chin.
[image source: AdEspresso]
Instagram is exactly the opposite.
A study by Mashable found that Instagram posts with smiling human faces got 38% more likes than those without them. (Just no duck-face selfies, please).
Preferred Primary Colors
Instagram goes for images with blueish hues as the primary color, and these posts get 24% more likes than those with reddish hues.
Pinterest, however, prefers images with lots of reds; they get twice as many repins as those with other primary colors.
[image source: AdEspresso]
Image courtesy of Curalate.
Number of Dominant Colors
Instagram likes to keep things simple; users prefer images with a single dominant color.
These posts generate 17% more likes than those with multiple dominant colors.
[image source: AdEspresso]
Once again, Pinterest is exactly the opposite. Images with multiple dominant colors get 3x more replies.
[image source: AdEspresso]
You can learn more about how to craft effective social media strategies for both platforms in the full blog post from AdEspresso.
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