Pinterest vs. Snapchat

Confession time. I love Snapchat. But I might love Pinterest more.

If visual social media makes sense for your organization, you may wonder which of the two would be a better fit for your marketing strategy. While Pinterest has more than 335 million users every month, Snapchat isn’t too shabby with 210 million active daily users.

So, which one is the best fit for you? While there are no absolutes, there are definitely times Pinterest is the better choice and other times Snapchat is the clear winner.

When is Pinterest a good choice?

Already have content that’s doing well on Instagram? Want to drive some traffic to your website? Pinterest can be a great way to do that!

Start out by asking yourself, “Does my content already lend itself to high levels of engagement?” Such potentially viral content could include:

• Photography
• Fashion boutiques
• Global or national brands
• Restaurants
• Beauty
• Travel
• Lifestyle
• Animals

What do all of those industries have in common? They lend themselves to fantastic visuals!

If you’re already creating visuals for other social media platforms like Instagram, you can use them as content on your website, pin that content to a board on Pinterest, then you may get traffic from that pin for quite a while. 

When is Snapchat a good choice?

While Snapchat is pretty fantastic, it’s not a great channel for building a brand new audience. But if you already have a core audience and certain types of content, it can be a great channel to deepen that relationship.

What are those “certain types of content,” you ask? Snapchat is great if you want to:

• Showcase events
• Post personal or exclusive content
• Show behind the scenes
• Highlight company culture
• Spotlight sales and deals

Also, if your business is built around one central person—say, a personal coach, a public speaker, an influencer, or a celebrity— Snapchat is another way you can offer members-only content by creating paid subscriptions people sign up for on your website.

Snapchat can also be a good option if you have content that’s already doing well on Instagram, a segment of your audience is younger—13 to 24—and you’d like to grow that audience.

Some of your target market will prefer Pinterest, while others will lean more toward Snapchat. All things being equal, it’s important to pick one you are comfortable with or can get comfortable with.