I want to make it clear that I’m not talking to people who’ve never used Pinterest in this podcast (even though I encourage you to take notes). Instead, this episode is for the creators who used to love Pinterest and broke up with it for…reasons. Maybe you’ve been thinking about using Pinterest again but aren’t sure if there are people on the platform, what the current user experience is like and if it would be worth the time and effort to reengage with the platform. I’m you by the way. I’m a creator who has been thinking about reach, growth and marketing a lot and I keep going back to Pinterest. I feel like there’s an opportunity on the platform that many creators aren’t aware of but first I want to talk about the problems on the platform. There are several issues with current day Pinterest despite that, I’m saying “Yes” to the platform in 2026. I’m going to walk you through my thought process.
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The Pinterest User Experience
If you do a quick social media check, you’ll notice that Pinterest users are frequently expressing frustration with the platform. In fact, I popped onto Pinterest while working on this episode so that I could give you a better sense of what it’s currently like to use the platform. I used both my laptop and my phone.
- The content that I’m being served on my home feed I actually really like. I think that it’s a pretty accurate mix of the things that I find interesting.
- There’s A LOT and I mean A LOT of backlinks to products.
- There’s a TON of sponsored posts and advertising in general
- I’m thinking there are a lot of dead links to posts that no longer exists
- A lot of pins to old or outdated content
I think these problems originated during two key moments.
What I would like to call Pinterest’s Great Algorithm Reset-You know, when they broke the algorithm and it basically stopped sending traffic to people’s websites. Why they decided to do this when Pinterest is LITERALLY a search engine is beyond me. However, this decision leads me to what I would like to discuss today.
The second key moment was the first Helpful Content Update that broke the Google experience for frequent users of the platform who were using SEO as a key way to direct people to their websites. I do want to say that these are my personal opinions and that I plan on testing out my theories in 2026. I plan on committing to Pinterest for 1 year specific to three of my projects.
Before I get into that here’s what I’m thinking and speculating.
- Original content posted onto Pinterest has dropped significantly on the platform. You know back in the day when bloggers were pinning daily or at least weekly? That was fresh original content being added in real time, all the time onto Pinterest. Because of that gap in original content, sponsored content and spam like behavior has proliferated on the platform.
- Because of the concurrent changes to both Pinterest and Google, written content was devalued and creators naturally shifted to using other platforms such as YouTube to build their brands.
- There is an increasing demand for original written content because of all things-AI related search. AI actually depends on original content so that it can share results with users. AI generated content is still pretty bad and easy to spot (even though people ARE consuming it)
- People are looking for a noise free platform to find what they’re looking for and while the bots and products on the Pinterest platform does count as noise to me, being able to just scroll a feed and find what you want is still a huge deal.
The question that I would like to ask you is the following: How Can People Find What You’re Helping People With?
Here Is Where The Opportunity Lies
(On Pinterest)
Here are some things that we need to be aware of and I do want to point out that this data was sourced from DataReportal.com, Printful and Business of Apps
- 78% of the Pinterest User base is in the U.S.
- 578 Active users in Quarter 2 of 2025
- Largest Demographic: Ages 35-49 and we assume that this is primarily women because 71% of the users are Women. Second largest demographic is GenZ (and growing) (Pew Research)
- Pinterest attracts a high income clientele earning over $100,000 a year
- 82% of Users use the mobile app
- Upcoming trend predictions are fairly accurate
- Top 3 countries for Pinterest usage
- USA
- Brazil
- Mexico
- Pinterest ad reach continues to grow and ads are show to convert at a higher percentage
Two other data points I want to make a point of sharing are the following: Outfy.com showed that ad conversions are higher and that content shared on the Pinterest platform has a significantly longer lifespan as compared to content shared on traditional social media platforms.
What the Data Is Telling Me
Creators are sleeping on Pinterest and I totally understand why. They pulled the rug out for under us the last time. Will it be worth our time to begin pinning again? The short answer is “Yes” with some cavaets.
- Not every content category will work well on the Pinterest platform. The ones that I’ve identified that I believe should do well are:
- Travel and Location
- Fashion
- Decor-And I’ve seen a report that said Decor does the best on the platform
- Food
- Online Marketing-If you’re creating content about newsletters, emails, podcasting, social media, building an online brand
- Romance and other books
- Parent focus content
- Fitness
- Outdoors and adventure related content
- I have three projects that land squarely in those content categories
- Creators Getting Paid-Online Marketing and Business
- Square State Colorado-Travel and Location/Fitness and Outdoors Content
- My Romance project-Romance books
Pinterest Incentivizing New (Organic) Content
This is my 2026 prediction related to the Pinterest platform. It desperately needs new content. How do I know? I use Pinterest to research different things related to the content that I do. The number of times that I’ve found articles written and pinned in 2019, 2023, etc. is wild to me. Things have changed. If you have posts that are still up-at least refresh and update them and pin them again so that the content is now accurate. Pinterest needs new original content.
Once you signal that you’re going to be pinning regularly the platform absolutely is incentivized to reward you so that you, the creator, gets traffic. Then word of mouth will bring more content creators back to the platform. People are tired of all of the social media noise and are looking for a place where they can flip the pages (like when you used to read a magazine and get right in front of what they’re looking for) I think the imbalance between aged search results an marketing content is providing the perfect opportunity for creators who can commit to a Pinterest pinning strategy for the next year.
- AI needs fresh content and LLmodels can’t provide real world context about the change to a city once a building has been demolished, or the ongoing impact of construction to a beloved local gift shop.
- Creators may be asking questions about how to grow a newsletter and are finding social media to be too noisy. They want clear answers, not chatter.
- The people on Pinterest are action driven and many have money to purchase whatever it is you’re selling if you’re making sales.
Finally, I personally am looking to drive traffic to my Square State Colorado website and begin earning ad income with that project sometime this year. I love the idea of being able to market in a more anonymous way on at least one platform. I’m also excited to see how things go pinning back to my other content platforms. Either way, I’ve decided to give this experiment a year and I will report back to you throughout the year. I do want to mention that I experienced success on Pinterest prior to the Great Pinterest Algorithm change. Crossing my fingers! What are your thoughts? Would you consider pinning your content onto Pinterest again? Or, are you doubling down on a different platform?
The Creator Income Collective
At the end of 2025 I quietly launched my new membership “The Creator Income Collective” the goal? Help creators make more money by being in community and learning how to better grow and monetize their lists. Members of The Creator Income Collective also gain access to the following resource: SUBSCRIBED-a growing list of creator newsletter or email lists that you can reach out to collaborate with if they say “yes” and your communities and projects align. Head to creatorsgettingpaid.com/membership to become a part of the community today. It’s purposely priced at $9 a month because I want this to be the easiest “Yes” you’ve said to a professional development tool for your online brand this year. Looking forward to meeting you!
