Marketers: What You Need to Know About Food And Drinks On Pinterest

Food and drinks are big business on Pinterest. In fact, a recent study revealed that Food and Beverage is by far the most popular content category, accounting for 20 percent of all Pins among women, who make up the majority of Pinterest’s users. From holiday recipes to entire diet plans, millions of people are turning to Pinterest to discover what they should eat or drink, and get inspired by content that tells them how to make it.

Food and Drink is a dominant content category on Pinterest, according to a new study by the University of Minnesota

For food and beverage brands, participating in and capitalizing on these conversations on Pinterest can be hugely valuable. While Pinterest is a powerful E-Commerce engine, brands that don’t sell directly to consumers might wonder how best to leverage the network. The important thing to understand is that Pinterest is all about action. People browse Pinterest with the intent of doing something, be that buying, building, mixing or baking. So even if your brand doesn’t have a strong E-Commerce component to its business model, Pinterest can still deliver extraordinary value as a channel for inspiration, discovery, and relationship building with your audience.

“We view Pinterest as a tool to educate, empower and inspire our customers, and use it to engage people with top of the trend, valuable content about healthy living and eating,” said Dana From, the social media marketing manager for Sprouts Farmers Market. “This develops our brand and establishes us as a resource that people turn to, which is especially important as we’re growing into new regions where they might not know about our stores. If people already know about us through our Pinterest content, that helps us get into those new markets.”

To help capitalize on this massive opportunity, we’ve created a comprehensive Marketer’s Guide to Food & Beverage on Pinterest, packed with actionable tips and techniques gleaned from some of the top brands in the industry. Just a few of the things you will learn in the guide include:

Content Strategies: Pinners are total foodies, as evidenced by the fact that 57% of Pinterest users have interacted with food related content. This makes it critical for food and beverage brands to regularly update their boards with new photos that will appeal to audiences on the platform. From recipes and DIY guides to detailed analysis of photo creatives, we evaluated what is (and isn’t) working for food and beverage brands on Pinterest.

Our research revealed that showing food and drink products “in the wild” as part of a dinner setting, recipe, etc. is generally more effective than standalone “hero” shots.

Seasons, Holidays, and How to Harness Them: Food is intrinsically tied to seasons, and this creates “low hanging fruit” on Pinterest by providing a built-in context for food related content. Holidays are particularly important for brands in the space, as nearly every holiday has hundreds of recipes, drink ideas, and DIY party planning guides associated with them on Pinterest, from Thanksgiving Turkey to Shamrock Shakes. This provides a perfect opportunity to boost your Pinterest presence by providing quality content that people are already organically searching for, and whenever possible brands should react to and capitalize on these trends and join the conversation.

“Holidays are key, because so many people are cooking at home with their families,” From said. “This creates a chance for really valuable engagement, because people are actively looking for this kind of content as holiday meals and parties are at the top of their mind.”

Seasonal changes are a huge opportunity to provide valuable content, as Libby’s Fruits & Vegetables has done with its “Fuel Up For Fall” boards.

The Power of Promotions: Promotions are a great way to drive engagement on your Pins, traffic to your Pinterest profile or website, gain followers, identify brand advocates and influencers, and more. Regardless of your objectives, the key to success lies in designing your promotion from the ground-up to achieve specific goals. Our guide has detailed information on how to identify and achieve your promotion goals, which type of Pinterest promotion will be best for you, and how to promote your contests for maximum exposure. Holiday promotions are especially effective for food and beverage brands, so be sure to check out our Guide to Halloween Promotions for some inspiration.

For its “Sweet’s the Word” promotion, The Cheesecake Factory followed several best practices when the company chose an easy to enter, fun format, and offered a valuable prize. The results? More than 20,000 participants and thousands of Pins to the company’s profile.

Establishing, Measuring, and Achieving Your Pinterest Goals: Since many food and beverage brands don’t have a direct to consumer E-Commerce component, direct ROI measurement can be difficult. However, Pinterest can still be a powerful tool for these brands.

“If you’re a food brand, adult beverage brand, or brick and mortar grocery store, for example, odds are you won’t be using Pinterest as a direct sales tool,” said Jon Shea, director of operations at Piqora. “So your primary metric for success should be engagement. Pinterest is a network built on intent, so if people are engaging with your content, odds are they have strong intent to act on that, whether that means trying a new recipe or checking out a new restaurant.”

Food and beverage brands have a huge opportunity available to them on Pinterest, and for brands that can tap into these conversations and provide their customers with real, valuable content, Pinterest can be a game changer. The data and techniques discussed here are just a small portion of the resources available in the full food and beverage guide.

Marketers: What You Need to Know About Food And Drinks On Pinterest