One of the best comparisons of Instagram and Pinterest that I have heard is that Instagram is about sharing, where as Pinterest is about discovering. When it comes to these two giants of social media marketing, this is one of the crispest comparisons you can get. But if you are a business owner who is looking for a good vehicle for online reputation management of your company, your products, and your services, then this is nearly not enough. You need to have a much better idea of both these platforms, and understand their utility in the context of your business and your requirements, so that you can decide which is better for you.
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I am here to help you do just that today, with this five minute read. I am, of course, assuming that you do not live under a rock, so you are moderately aware of what Pinterest and Instagram are, and will jump right to the comparison that can help you decide which is better for your business.
But before that, let me take a moment to point out one similarity which could save you a lot of time. Both Instagram and Pinterest are overtly visual platforms, and depend more on attractive pictures rather than descriptive text. This would mean that if your business is not one that depends on visuals for conveying its message, then you shouldn’t waste time and effort on either of these two social media marketing platforms.
The most obvious difference, yet one that is often overlooked, is that Instagram is almost exclusively meant for use on a mobile phone. Pinterest, on the other hand, can be accessed on both desktops and mobiles. Another thing you might find it difficult to believe is that more sale conversions on e-commerce sites take place on desktops, even though mobile usage is so much more common nowadays. On that count, Pinterest might give better bang for your business’s buck.
Let us now look at the average user profile of both these online reputation management platforms. In sheer numbers, Instagram has over a billion active users, whereas Pinterest has less than 300 million active users. The average age of Instagram users is also less than that of Pinterest. This could indicate that Instagram might have more users who have better spending capacity. But on the other hand, Pinterest has more women users, and online shopping is considered more of a female game, so there you have it.
Moving on to slightly more technical aspects, Instagram does not allow users to add links into posts. They can, at best, add links to their profile bios. Instagram has also allowed links to be added to Instagram Ads. Sharing of links in particular, and content sharing in general, is much more up Pinterest’s street.
Moving on, hashtags are an integral part of Instagram, but less so on Pinterest. The right hashtags can help a business owner connect much better with the target. One reason for reduced importance of hashtags in Pinterest is because Pinterest works on the principle of pinning posts to a specific board, so some kind of hashtag filtering is already built in to the structure of Pinterest.
I discussed above the four main points of difference between Instagram and Pinterest in order to help the reader understand which could be better for him or her. The reality most business owners or webmasters have come to realise is that there is never one completely correct choice for any business. It is very rare for a business to have a structure that makes a particular social media platform completely valueless. Therefore every business should opt for a judicious mix of Instagram, Pinterest and other platforms.
