Social media marketing is more important than ever, with visual social media taking the lead on the traditional text-based channels.

1. Instagram Vs Pinterest -
Visual Marketing For Your
Business

2. Social media marketing is more important than ever,
with visual social media taking the lead on the
traditional text-based channels. The majority of
social media platforms utilise imagery and videos to
boost their content, however the most effective way
to make the most of visual marketing is through social
media channels that generate imagery and videos
specifically.
With regards to image based social media, there appear
to be two distinct platforms, which seem similar in
offering identical services. These two options are
Instagram and Pinterest.

3. We will discuss the main points of interest for both
platforms, and see how Instagram and Pinterest
compare. Therefore, hopefully working out which
visual platform would be most beneficial to boost your
brand.

4. Users
Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social media
networks, currently weighing in with approximately 70
million regular users. Also, Pinterest is unique in
offering an audience that is predominantly female at a
majority of approximately 68%, with the largest
gender difference of any other social media channel.
Pinterest users also tend to be slightly older in
general.

5. In comparison, Instagram has a phenomenal 200 million
active and regular users, with approximately 45 million
photos shared and 1 billion photos "liked" every day.
Males and females are more evenly represented on
the platform. The application is also most popular with
younger users, and has the same core demographic of
18-34 year olds as Pinterest.

6. Engagement
As far as user engagement, Instagram far outweighs
the engagement rate of Pinterest, possibly due to the
fact that Instagram has over double the amount of
active users. Additionally, Instagram's user
engagement has over 50 times the engagement rate of
Facebook, as well as 20 times the engagement of
Twitter, according to recent research.

7. However, as far as accessibility goes for both
Instagram and Pinterest, Instagram does seem to be
more difficult to access, as the platform is only
currently available through a phone application.
Although Instagram makes it possible to view the site
online on a computer, you are limited in what you can
do on the computer.

8. Content
The main difference is in the content you can generate
onto your personal and business Pinterest and
Instagram accounts. Instagram promotes original
content, and encourages users to create photos that
they can edit with filters and other photo altering
tools on the application. Whereas Pinterest allows
users to curate other users' content onto their own
profiles as they wish, so long as they keep the
sources.

9. Also, if you wanted to upload content onto Pinterest,
they give you the option to Pin from outside websites,
via the URL, or upload from content on your computer.
Some outside websites also make their images able to
be "Pinned" straight from their pages, and add a
"hover-on" button, which appears when you pass your
mouse over the image.

10. Linkbuilding
Linkbuilding is far more easily utilised on Pinterest.
When you click on their images, it takes you to the
website source. This also makes it a lot easier to
upload written blog articles from your site, as you can
"Pin" the main image from your website, and add the
description, so that the image links back to the
article.

11. Pinterest is one of the main social media channels that
can create the most referrals and links to your
website, and studies have shown that the network
often generates more referrals than Twitter, for
example.
On Instagram, the images aren't able to have a link
source when you click on them, either on the phone
application or the website. Also, if you add a link into
the description, you are only able to click on this on
their phone application currently. This means that the
channel doesn't add to your business as far as
linkbuilding.

12. Winner
Both Instagram and Pinterest are popular photo-based
platforms, with similar audiences who are interested
in attractive, original content. However, for people
who believe that they are inherently similar, that is
not entirely true, as there are clear differences
between them.
Basically, it completely depends on your needs and
requirements as a business, as to which one to choose.
Or, if you are still stuck with your decision - choose
both!

13. Resources:
http://hypez.com/buy-instagram-likes
http://ezinearticles.com/?Instagram-Vs-
Pinterest---Visual-Marketing-For-Your-
Business&id=8625118

14. Thank
you for
reading!