How to Promote an Event on Pinterest

Pinterest was the go-to social media site for images before Instagram became the behemoth it is today. But that doesn’t mean Pinterest has dropped to MySpace status—far from it. There’s every reason for you to learn how to promote an event on Pinterest if you have one in the pipeline.

In this article, we’ll go over…

• Why you should promote events on Pinterest
• What makes the platform different from other social media
• The main demographics that use it
• The kind of events best suited to be promoted on Pinterest
• How to promote your event with Pins, Boards, and Ads

You’ll quickly discover why Pinterest is a hugely popular (and massively underrated) social media platform and why you should consider creating a Pinterest marketing strategy.

Why market events on Pinterest?

Pinterest is the fastest growing social media platform in the world. You’ve probably already noticed how much it dominates the search results on Google.

There are currently over 300 million monthly active users, which is impressive considering that Pinterest only became publicly available in 2012.

Users go on Pinterest to be inspired rather than actively searching for something. That makes it a goldmine for marketers of all stripes. Whether you’re in the business of food, fashion, crafts, or machines, there’s an audience waiting for you on Pinterest.

And yes, that includes events.

What makes Pinterest different as a marketing channel?

Pinterest is mainly a visual platform, so you’ll capture the attention of your potential event attendees with images, videos, and GIFs.

According to Pinterest’s own blog, their platform is a great tool for sending people on to your event website—much more so than other platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

But it’s not just a great tool for marketing.

Pinterest also gives you very valuable insight into what inspires people. You can quickly see which event themes, venues, decorations, food, and drinks grab their attention.

As with LinkedIn, the average household income of Pinterest users is higher than on other social media platforms. That means you have every option to sell both tickets and merchandise.

What types of events are best promoted on Pinterest?

Women make up the majority of users on the platform and over half of all users are aged 25–44. Events that appeal to this demographic will perform well.

Indeed, you can look at these examples to see what other events have done to market themselves. Music festivals, in particular, seems to have a lot of success on Pinterest.

But Pinterest has content in a lot of different categories you could promote events in:

• Art
• Cars and Motorcycles
• DIY and Crafts
• Education
• Entertainment
• Food and Drink
• Health and Fitness
• Humour
• Outdoors
• Science and Nature
• Sports
• Weddings

How to promote an event on Pinterest

Pinterest doesn’t look like your typical social media platform, so it will take some time for the uninitiated to get used to the interface. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll see that you’re not simply limited to pinning images.

1. What are Pinterest Pins?

Pins are essentially just pieces of content. They can be images, videos, GIFs, recipes, infographics, or memes. By clicking on them, you can interact with them and see the source.

When you want to promote your event, you can create Pins that showcase the venue, food, entertainment, activities, and any similar events you’ve organised in the past.

With Place Pins you can also mark the physical location of the event (plus any nearby points of interest) and add it to your event Board.

It’s a great way to not only provide inspirational content but also gauge which aspects of your event appeal the most to Pinterest users who could end up buying a ticket.

It’s important to stress that Pinterest is a search engine. It is therefore wise to include relevant keywords in your Pins. This will also help your event rank on Google.

Tip: There are social media analysis tools you can use to see which Pins perform the best.

2. What are Pinterest Boards?

Pins are pinned onto Boards, which are collections of Pins that have a common theme. You could have one board for the entire event, or you could divide each part of your event into separate boards.

For example, you could create a Board just for the food and drinks, one for the event venue itself, and one for the speakers and entertainers that will be there on the day.

As an event planner, you have loads of options when it comes to creating boards.

You can even create a Secret Board where you gather all intel on your competitors. You can also create a mood board with all the things that have inspired past and future events. Finally, you can set up a Group Board where attendees can interact with you and the event speakers.

As with Pins, you should include keywords where relevant to make sure your Boards are discovered on search engines. You should strongly consider embedding your Boards on your event website.

Tip: Use this guide to Pinterest Board names to generate more interest from users.

3. What are Pinterest Ads?

Pinterest also offers you the option to promote Pins. Create a Pinterest Business account to set up ad campaigns that will make your event Pins reach more people.

In addition to wider reach, paid advertisements on Pinterest will also give you access to engagement analytics. These insights allow you to tweak the ads as you go along.

The ads page explains the simple process for setting up a campaign:

• Pick a Pin to promote
• Choose a target audience
• Pay for engagements (or website visits)
• Track the results in real-time

Tip: You can use Canva to create great Pinterest graphics in a matter of minutes.

Put a Pin in it!

Now you know how to promote an event on Pinterest, and what options you have when it comes to the content you can post and market.

Do you have any first-hand experience with Pinterest event promotion? Then drop us a comment in the section below and share your thoughts!