If you’ve been following my articles you’ll know by now that I love using the latest research and techniques about how to use Pinterest effectively.
As a Pinterest consultant one of my jobs is to calculate, on behalf of my clients when to pin so I maximize the odds of getting my images repined.
I have come across case studies that claim they know the best times or days to pin on Pinterest. Although Pinterest’s algorithm has changed the way pins are showing on a pinner’s smart feed it’s still prudent to pin when your audience is on Pinterest. According to Piqora by pinning content while your followers are active on Pinterest, you can boost repins by 36%.
From my experience as a Pinterest account manager I can tell you is that it’s not black and white and there are a few things you need to consider before you start pinning your heart out.
The scrapbooking social network skews especially toward higher-income consumers, and especially women. Here are additional insights to Pinterest’s target audience:
1) According to comScore out of Pinterest’s 72.5 million US visitors, 71% are women as of December 2013 but TechCrunch reports that men account for a third of new signups. In 2014, the number of male users in the US grew by 73%.
2) According to Pinterest they are seeing a 50-50 split between male and female Pinners in emerging markets like India, Korea and Japan. More men use Pinterest in the U.S. every month than read Sports Illustrated and GQ combined.
A Pinterest spokesperson tells WebProNews “We’re not only growing among males, but on the coasts, monthly active usage is much higher than other parts of the country. For example, New York is growing 50% faster than Minnesota and DC 78% faster than Utah. The fastest growing states are Hawaii, New Jersey, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island.”
On the gender note, the top interests followed by men include (in order): men’s apparel, technology, travel, gardening, recipes, gadgets, design, luxury cars, tattoos, and camping. Trending searches by men include: men’s short hair, cinema 4d, ham radio, cool watches for men, men’s tattoo ideas, fixed gear, shoulder tattoo men, hifi, rat rod, and kayak fishing.
Pinterest also shared some high-growth categories (% from 2013-2014):
- Geek: 175%
- Cars & Motorcycles: 134%
- Men’s Fashion: 122%
- Architecture: 119%
- Gardening: 91%
- Humor: 88%
- Health & Fitness: 84%
% growth in categories from 2012-2014:
- Geek: 1414%
- Cars & Motorcycles: 844%
- Men’s Fashion: 787%
- Architecture: 657%
- Health & Fitness: 531%
- Gardening: 572%
- Humor: 427%
3) The Association of Magazine Media reports that Harper’s Bazaar was the top magazine brand on Pinterest with 4.7 million followers, while Better Homes & Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, This Old House, Real Simple and Health also fell within the top 10.
When it came to the brands experiencing the most growth on the platform, many were actually male-focused. Wired is clearly making a major effort to build its Pinterest audience—it had a nearly 150 percent increase in followers between August and October. Meanwhile, men’s brands like The Family Handyman (up 55 percent), Popular Mechanics (up 37 percent) and Sports Illustrated (up 30 percent) are also seeing rapid Pinterest expansion.
4) In 2014, Tumblr and Pinterest captivated the youngest audiences; 70 percent of these users are between the ages of 16 and 34.
5) 65% of Millennial mom’s use Pinterest.
Bottom line: It really depends on your business and your audience. Here are some things you need to figure out so you can maximize your time on Pinterest:
Step 1: Who is your target market?
Focus on understanding your audience. Determine when your followers might be on Pinterest and schedule your pins around that time.
- What do they read, watch, attend and listen to?
- What do they really like or find interesting?
- What’s their age and gender?
- Where do they live?
- What is their lifestyle?
- What are their interests?
Your target market might be spread out across various time zones so that will definitely have an effect on when you should be pinning. To find out where the majority of your followers are from use your Pinterest analytics tab called Your Audience.
Step: 2: Start thinking about how they spend their day.
Is your typical audience a 9 to 5 working woman or a stay at home mom? For example a working woman will have a lunch break, then possibly go to the gym after work, have dinner, deal with her children, then watch the nightly news. This looks to me that she might be on Pinterest before she goes to bed. But then how does she spend her weekends? You need to think about that too which is maybe why Pinterest is busier during the weekends. I can tell you right now that for me as a B2B company weekends are NOT the best days for me to get the most repins.
Let’s see how often pinners are using Pinterest:
- 17% of Pinterest users visit the social media platform daily
- 9% of Pinterest users visit the social media platform several times a day
- 29% of Pinterest users visit the social media platform weekly
- 52% of Pinterest users visit the social media platform less than once per week
What this means is that you need to be pinning on a consistent basis so you’re not missing them when pinners are engaged.
Step 3: Consider these case studies and statistics.
According to several case studies the best time to post on Pinterest is either between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. or 8 p.m. and 1 a.m., but you’ll want to avoid the late afternoon between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., when many families are busy with kid’s activities, dinner and kids bath time. If you’re asking what time zone, that would depend on where your target audience resides. If you’re not sure I say pin on both PST & EST time zones especially when you’re just starting out on Pinterest.
Step 4: Pinterest posted on their blog about which categories receives the most engagement on each day of the week:
Monday: the week starts with good intentions in fitness
Tuesday: next up, gadgets are all the rage in technology
Wednesday: need a little something to get through the week —- inspirational quotes
Thursday: threads lead Thursday with fashion
Friday: GIFs bring some comic relief to the end of the week with humor. Humor is one of the fastest growing categories on Pinterest and holds the top spot on Friday. More than 3 million humor Pins are saved each day. And, in the five months since the GIFs launch, more than 400,000 GIFs are Pinned everyday. Here are some of the most Pinned GIFs:
Saturday: summer vacations are top of mind with travel
Sunday: the week closes with food and craft ideas
The bottom line:
The best time to post on Pinterest is when your audience will see it. And this is going to be unique to you and your business. No matter what you need to experiment. Be mindful of holiday seasons and long weekends for the most obvious reasons as pinners are mostly likely busy preparing and celebrating so not a whole lot of pinners will be active on Pinterest.
Another option is to use a 3rd party analytic tool like Tailwind to find optimal days and times to pin based on when your audience is most engaged.
Most of all make sure you use a Pinterest scheduling tool like Robovy. Spreading your pins throughout the day versus pinning them all at once will get your more exposure which will result in more repins and followers.
What days and times did you pin in the past that resulted in the most repins? Please comment below.
If this is overwhelming for you and you feel like you are going around and around with Pinterest and not getting anywhere contact me, a Pinterest account management expert about my Pinterest management services or to learn more about how you can be more effective on Pinterest check out my Pinterest Marketing Course for Business. Chapter one is FREE.
Read more: Optimizing Your Content on Pinterest and Instagram