What Is Pinterest Used For? A Guide for UK Businesses

At its heart, Pinterest is a visual discovery engine —a place people go to find ideas, inspiration, and, ultimately, things to buy. It's less like a traditional social media platform and much more focused on planning and purchasing. Think home renovations, weekly recipes, fashion finds, and dream travel destinations.

It’s easy to dismiss Pinterest as just a digital scrapbook for hobbies or a simple image-sharing site. While it’s fantastic for collecting ideas, its real power is in its role as a visual search engine.

This is where users actively hunt for solutions, plan their future projects, and stumble upon new brands they love. It’s a world away from platforms built around sharing personal updates with friends and family.

Here's a simple way to think about it: on most social platforms, a user says, “Here’s what I’m doing right now.” On Pinterest, they’re saying, “Here’s what I want to do or buy in the future.” This future-focused mindset is an absolute game-changer for businesses.

The diagram below breaks down how these two groups—individuals and businesses—use the platform for different, yet perfectly complementary, reasons.

While people are there to get inspired, businesses are there to connect with them at that exact moment of discovery. This creates a powerful commercial ecosystem built on shared interests, not social connections.

For individuals, Pinterest is the ultimate organisational tool for life's moments, both big and small. They create collections, known as 'Boards', to plan weddings, gather recipes, design living spaces, or find their next holiday spot. It’s a space for aspiration and organisation.

For businesses, it’s a direct line to an audience with serious commercial intent. In the UK alone, Pinterest is a visual discovery powerhouse, with 15.5 million active users as of early 2025—that’s around 22% of the population. This makes it a non-negotiable platform for British brands looking to reach people who are actively seeking out new ideas and products.

To see this dual-purpose in action, the table below summarises the core differences in how individuals and businesses approach the platform.

Understanding this split is crucial. Individuals use Pinterest to find answers, while businesses use it to become the answer.

Ultimately, this dynamic is why social media is important for your business in so many ways, but Pinterest offers a completely unique angle by focusing on that initial spark of inspiration and planning.

It gives a brand the chance to become part of a customer's journey from the very beginning.

Before you can really see what Pinterest can do, you need to get your head around its three core parts: Pins , Boards , and Idea Pins . These are the building blocks of the entire platform. Getting how they work together is the first step to making any real impact.

Think of it like organising a big project in real life. Your whole Pinterest profile is the project, but you need a way to keep all your ideas and inspiration from turning into a chaotic mess.

That’s where Boards come in. They’re basically digital noticeboards or project folders.

A Board is where you save and organise your Pins, grouping them around a specific theme or interest. For a business, this is your chance to categorise what you know and what you sell in a way that just clicks with your ideal customer. Boards let you create separate collections that speak to different needs.

Imagine a UK-based interior design firm. They could create distinct Boards for different styles or rooms:

• Minimalist Living Room Ideas: Perfect for clients who love clean, uncluttered spaces.
• Cosy Country Kitchens: To draw in anyone dreaming of a rustic home makeover.
• Small London Flat Solutions: Directly targeting city dwellers desperate for clever storage and design hacks.

Each Board turns into a carefully curated gallery, showing people what your brand is all about and making it dead simple for them to find exactly what they’re looking for. This is how you attract followers who are genuinely invested in what you do.

If Boards are the folders, Pins are the individual documents you file inside them. A Pin is a single visual bookmark—an image or a short video—that links back to an external website. It’s one specific idea, one product, one piece of inspiration.

When someone saves (or 'Pins') your content to one of their own Boards, they're creating a visual shortcut straight back to your website. This is what drives the traffic. A single Pin can be saved by thousands of people, creating a source of visitors that just keeps on giving.

This incredible longevity makes Pins an absolute goldmine for businesses that want sustained brand visibility.

Finally, you’ve got Idea Pins . These are the most dynamic format on the platform, acting like mini-stories or step-by-step guides. They mix video clips, images, text, and music into a multi-page format that keeps people hooked right there on Pinterest.

Idea Pins don't have a direct link like standard Pins, but they are brilliant for building brand awareness and creating a community. For instance, a Manchester-based bakery could create an Idea Pin showing '5 Steps to the Perfect Sourdough Starter', using quick video clips and text overlays. This move showcases their expertise and builds trust, making people far more likely to follow them and eventually buy their products.

Getting to grips with Pins and Boards is one thing, but truly understanding what they can do for your business is where the game changes. For UK businesses, a smart Pinterest strategy isn't just another box to tick—it delivers real, long-term results that are tough to get anywhere else.

It shines in three specific areas where most other marketing channels just can't keep up. Pinterest is built from the ground up to drive website traffic, spark organic brand discovery, and generate e-commerce sales. Every single Pin you create is another door opening to your website, a permanent signpost guiding genuinely interested people straight to your products and services.

And unlike the blink-and-you'll-miss-it nature of other social feeds, a Pin’s influence doesn't fizzle out after a few hours. That longevity is its secret weapon.

The single biggest advantage of Pinterest is the incredible lifespan of its content. A tweet is history in minutes, a Facebook post runs out of steam within a day, but a Pin can keep sending referral traffic your way for months, sometimes even years , after you post it.

This happens because Pins are found through search, not just scrolled past in a feed. As long as your content is relevant to what people are looking for, it will keep showing up, pulling in new audiences long after you’ve forgotten about it.

This creates a steady, compounding stream of traffic that helps your business grow without you needing to be constantly pushing it.

To really grasp the value of this, let's look at how quickly content disappears on other platforms.

This table makes it crystal clear: while other platforms offer short-term engagement, Pinterest is playing the long game, making it an invaluable tool for sustainable growth.

Here’s the thing about Pinterest users: they’re actively looking for new ideas. This means they are wide open to discovering new brands. They aren't just mindlessly scrolling past content from accounts they already follow; they're searching for things like "UK garden design ideas" or "sustainable wedding favours."

This search-first behaviour levels the playing field completely. A small, independent furniture maker in the Cotswolds has just as much chance of being discovered as a massive high street retailer. If your Pin provides the exact inspiration that user is looking for, you win.

• Reach a Receptive Audience: People are in 'discovery mode', making them far more likely to engage with and remember a new brand they find.
• Compete on Quality: Success comes down to the quality and relevance of your ideas, not the size of your ad budget.
• Build Authority: Consistently sharing useful, inspiring content positions you as an expert in your niche, building trust with potential customers before they even land on your site.

For e-commerce brands, Pinterest is an absolute powerhouse. With features like Product Pins , businesses can make their entire product catalogue shoppable, right there on the platform. These aren't just normal Pins; they automatically pull in real-time pricing, stock availability, and product details straight from your website.

This creates a seamless path from inspiration to purchase. A user can go from spotting the perfect lamp for their living room to clicking through and buying it in just a couple of taps. It dramatically shortens the customer journey and boosts conversion rates by catching shoppers at the very moment they're most inspired.

Here’s the secret to getting real, long-term traction on Pinterest: stop seeing it as just another social media site and start treating it like a visual search engine. This is a game-changing shift in mindset. It forces you to put Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) at the heart of your strategy.

Mastering Pinterest SEO is all about making sure your content pops up the moment users are actively searching for ideas, products, or inspiration that you offer. The process isn't a million miles away from optimising for Google, but with a crucial visual-first twist.

Get this right, and you’ll go from passively hoping for a few likes to actively placing your brand right in front of a motivated, ready-to-act audience.

The first step in any decent SEO strategy is to get inside your audience's head. What are they actually typing into that search bar? What problems are they hoping to solve? What kind of inspiration are they looking for?

Let's say you run a holiday cottage business in Cornwall. Don't just target obvious terms like 'holiday cottage Cornwall'. Think about the entire planning journey. Your potential customers might be searching for 'dog-friendly UK beaches' or 'best Cornwall family activities' weeks or even months before they book.

Tapping into these broader keywords captures an audience much earlier in their decision-making process. It positions your brand as a helpful resource from the get-go, building trust before they're even thinking about pulling out their wallet.

The good news? You don’t need to look far for keyword ideas. Pinterest itself gives you all the tools you need to find out what its users are searching for.

• Use the Search Bar: Start typing a broad term into the Pinterest search bar. See those colourful little bubbles that appear underneath? Those are popular, related searches, giving you a direct line into your audience's mind.
• Explore Pinterest Trends: This is a goldmine. The Trends tool shows you what's gaining popularity on the platform, and you can even filter by region (including the UK) to spot rising search terms that are perfect for your business.

Once you've got your list of keywords, it’s time to put them to work. The aim is simple: signal to Pinterest's algorithm exactly what your content is about, so it can show your Pins to all the right people.

You can get a deeper understanding of the basics in our simple guide explaining what SEO is and how it works , but on Pinterest, the key is to weave your keywords in naturally.

This tells Pinterest that your profile is an authority on a specific subject, which boosts the visibility of every single Pin on that Board. Of course, to really maximise your reach, knowing the best times to post on Pinterest is another crucial piece of the puzzle. It ensures your perfectly optimised content goes live precisely when your audience is most active.

When you think of Pinterest, what comes to mind? For most people, it’s recipes, fashion inspiration, and dreamy home decor. It's a common assumption, and it’s why so many businesses in more specialised or less “visual” industries write the platform off completely.

They think their audience isn't there. But they’re missing a huge opportunity.

The reality is that with a bit of creative thinking, almost any business can carve out a valuable space on Pinterest. The platform is, at its heart, a visual search engine. It’s where professionals, hobbyists, and key decision-makers go when they’re actively looking for ideas and solutions, not just pretty pictures.

Your success on Pinterest isn’t dictated by your industry. It’s defined by your ability to turn your expertise into visually engaging content that solves a problem for a specific audience.

The secret is to shift your focus from direct product promotion to providing genuine value through visual storytelling. If you don't sell physical products, this is your chance to shine by creating things like infographics, checklists, or illustrated guides that break down complex information.

Take a B2B software company, for example. Pinning screenshots of its user interface is a fast track to nowhere. Instead, they could capture the attention of industry leaders by sharing:

• Insightful Infographics: Turning industry trends, data, and key statistics into compelling, shareable visuals.
• Visually Engaging Case Studies: Using a mix of images and short video clips to tell a client’s success story, focusing on the problem and the brilliant solution.
• Checklists and Templates: Creating genuinely useful resources like a pinnable ‘10-Step Project Kick-off Checklist’.

This strategy doesn’t just sell a product; it positions the company as a trusted authority. It builds a connection with potential customers while they are in the research phase. If you're looking to build a presence in a niche market, learning how to create a faceless video for Pinterest can be an incredibly effective way to share expertise without needing to be on camera.

Let's bring this to life with a few UK-based examples. Imagine a motorsport team at Silverstone. They're sitting on a goldmine of visual content. They could build a seriously passionate following by sharing behind-the-scenes race day clips, detailed technical diagrams of the car, and slick driver profile graphics.

Even a highly specialist trade supplier can win here. Think of a plumbing parts wholesaler creating detailed visual guides on 'How to Identify Different Pipe Fittings' or a showcase of a complex commercial installation. This content is pure gold for industry professionals, apprentices, and serious DIYers—a highly targeted and valuable audience.

In the same way, travel and tourism brands can see fantastic results on the platform. You can dive deeper into how to master social media for tourism in the UK with our dedicated guide.

Ultimately, these examples prove a simple point: any business with expertise to share can turn Pinterest into a powerful channel for growth.

One of the first questions we always get is, "How much time does this actually take?" It’s a fair point. You’re busy running a business, not trying to become a full-time Pinner.

The good news is, you don’t need to be glued to the platform. A smart, consistent routine is far more effective than sporadic, all-day pinning sessions.

Here’s a realistic breakdown:

• 1–2 hours weekly for planning and batch-scheduling your new Pins.
• 15–30 minutes daily for a bit of live engagement and pinning fresh content.
• A quick review every two weeks to see what’s working and what’s not.

If you’re just dipping your toes in, aim for 3–5 Pins a day . That’s a solid starting point.

This usually takes about 15 minutes of your day, and that includes writing good, keyword-rich descriptions. The real time-saver? Batching. Block out an hour or two on a Monday, create all your Pins for the week, and you’re set.

Once you’ve found a rhythm, you can start to scale things up without feeling overwhelmed.

Measuring your return on Pinterest isn't just about hard sales numbers; it’s a mix of different signals.

You’ll be tracking the obvious metrics like clicks and saves, but the real magic happens when you see how those translate into on-site conversions. The best way to do this is by hooking up Google Analytics and using UTM parameters on your Pin links for crystal-clear attribution.

Think of it this way: time and cost are your investment. Leads and revenue are your return. A simple formula to keep in mind is: (Revenue – Cost) / Cost × 100% . That’ll give you your ROI percentage.

We hear this a lot, especially from service-based businesses who think it’s just for e-commerce brands selling physical products.

The truth is, both can absolutely kill it on Pinterest. The platform is built for planners, dreamers, and explorers. If your content helps people with those things, you’re in the right place.

E-commerce brands have a direct line to sales with things like Product Pins, but service businesses can generate high-quality leads by sharing valuable content.

Ultimately, if you can inspire or solve a problem for your audience visually, Pinterest is for you. It’s a powerful engine for discovery, planning, and buying, no matter what you sell.

There's no single "best" format; it's about using the right tool for the job.

Standard image Pins are still your reliable workhorse for clear, simple ideas or product shots. But if you want to grab attention and tell a deeper story, that’s where video and Idea Pins come in.

1. Standard Pins: Perfect for buyable products or linking to a single blog post.
2. Video Pins: Brilliant for engaging tutorials or showing off a bit of behind-the-scenes personality.
3. Idea Pins: The go-to for step-by-step guides or multi-part narratives that keep people tapping.

A healthy mix of all three means you’re catering to different user habits and showing up in more places across the platform.

It’s easy to make a few classic mistakes when you’re starting out. The biggest one is treating Pinterest like Instagram—overloading on hashtags or just posting pretty pictures without any thought for SEO.

Instead, keep your descriptions focused and packed with the keywords your audience is actually searching for. Another one is posting the exact same Pin over and over again; this can get you flagged as spam.

Check your analytics once a month. See what people are saving and clicking on, then do more of that. It's that simple.

Absolutely. Service-based companies can use Pinterest to build authority and generate a steady stream of leads without ever feeling salesy.

Think about it: an accountant could share an infographic on "5 Tax Deductions Every Small Business Misses." A marketing agency could offer a "Content Planning Checklist." These Pins provide immediate value, build trust, and encourage people to click through to learn more. It’s a much softer, more effective way to attract clients.

You don’t want your profile to look stale. A good rule of thumb is to refresh your older, evergreen Pins every 3–6 months .

This doesn't mean starting from scratch. Just create a new image or video for that same link. This simple act can breathe new life into underperforming content and tells the Pinterest algorithm that your profile is active and fresh.

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