Brands on Pinterest to Inspire Creative Storytelling

Highlights

In this blog post we’ll look at the following brands:

• Anthropologie
• Papier
• Buzzfeed
• Zoella
• The Feedfeed
• Etsy
• Squarespace
• Free People
• Fenty Beauty
• Airbnb

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In today's digital stage, brands tell more visual stories with Pinterest as consumers turn to this platform for auditory and visual content. The platform can help guide brand storytelling and infuse it into your everyday communications to enhance the user experience.

Visitors to the Louvre are provided with a book of images of the masterpieces housed in the museum so they can "spot" them in the actual buildings, thus enriching their experience. 

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That concept can translate to your brand's Pinterest page in helping visitors "find" masterpieces (or at least enjoy the visuals) through images of your products, industry insights, and creative visuals. 

When it comes to social media storytelling, brands often get caught up in the idea we can only do excellent storytelling s done through writing. Pinterest shows how images and video can carry stories powerfully and memorably.

Specifically, with the advent of Idea Pins, the platform has been exploring a new way of telling stories.

According to Pinterest's first announcement for the feature: "The name Idea Pins encaptures what makes this Pin format for creators special — ideas and inspiration. Idea Pins give creators the elements they need to tell their story."

In this piece, you'll be inspired by 10 of the best brands on Pinterest who use storytelling to grow their presence on the platform.

Anthropologie

A masterful example of storytelling on Pinterest comes from one of the most proactive brands on the platform (and a personal favourite). 

Anthropologie truly shines for the versatility of its content and the heavy focus on Idea Pins since day one of release. From behind the scenes to spotlights, you can see a variety of case studies for the brand.

Papier UK

Idea Pins are one of the best ways to inspire storytelling on Pinterest, and clearly, stationery brand Papier understood the assignment. A great example of "series" is the collection of "stationery stories" from famous designers delivered engagingly through Idea Pins.

Buzzfeed

Buzzfeed experimented with a whole new way to use Idea Pins by providing short reviews and tutorials for products, cool gadgets experimenting with its Pinterest turning into a shopping channel.

Easy to achieve and replicate, this strategy can be incredibly effective in telling stories through native video content with little effort.

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Zoella

UK-based publication Zoella has been experimenting with Idea Pins for a while. Still, my favourite take comes from re-using some of its Instagram stories takeovers and turning them into short interviews for its Idea Pins.

It's a great reminder that we don't always have to create something new, and often repurposing content by adapting it for Pinterest can be a powerful way to become more efficient.

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The Feedfeed

Food accounts are unsurprisingly popular on Pinterest due to the popularity of recipes on the platform. 

The Feedfeed has become one of the most significant accounts within its niche due to the flexibility and drive to experiment with native features. They mastered Pinterest by tapping heavily into Video content for storytelling by showcasing the step-by-step recipes and mouth-watering results from the creations. 

In this case, a video is as effective as a thousand words.

Etsy

Using storytelling in various formats and content adaptation, Etsy also has proven to experiment widely with its strategy by telling different stories tapping into a variety of needs. 

From sellers' spotlights to traditional how-tos, Etsy incorporates visuals and videos to create compelling stories with its Pins, with a heavy focus on Idea Pins. Etsy also heavily relies on trends, special dates and holidays to enrich its content calendar, making it topical and relevant. 

Squarespace

Squarespace's approach to storytelling on Pinterest is slightly different but highly effective. 

Squarespace uses Pinterest to reshare short snippets of video and audio content repurposed from podcasts and video series, creating highly engaging Idea Pins with little effort. The combination of video and audio-only Idea Pins creates a fun contrast while making it easier to re-use as much content as possible.

Free People

Free People is another brand playing with short mini-series and behind-the-scenes video content on Pinterest with quite a high level of success. 

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The choice of showcasing a variety of content and relying on video truly mimics the ethos of the brand as a lifestyle company (as per their bio, "The Free People woman lives free through fashion, art, music, travel and everything in between.")

Fenty Beauty

Another excellent example of repurposing comes straight from the world of beauty. Fenty Beauty by RIHANNA is among the best brands at creating video content for social media.

Fenty makes good use of cross-promotion by featuring videos from YouTube and Instagram Stories as Pins on Pinterest. The consistent tone of voice and the focus on user-generated content makes its storytelling relatable and compelling. 

Airbnb

Let's be honest. The best stories take us on a journey. It's not surprising to see Airbnb among brands who nail the Pinterest game. 

Using graphics and videos as powerful tools to tell stories of the community, Airbnb has reinvented its Pinterest strategy by providing snippets of inspiration around some of the community's favorite hot spots.

They also use overlay text in their Pins to make it easier for Pinners to engage with the content.

Bonus: Pinterest

Yes, we had to go there. The company truly practices what it preaches by providing a combination of inspiration for the community and spotlighting Pinners through engaging video content. 

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Idea Pins shine within this strategy, which is all but surprising. Education and championing are a big part of Pinterest's content strategy.

Now that you know how to use Pinterest to inspire creative storytelling, it's time to start.

Start by defining what kind of stories you want to share, and don't forget to look at what you already have for inspiration.

Be sure to include a mix of images and videos and be sure to update your ideas regularly. With a little effort, you'll be able to create a strategy that captures your brand's story and inspires creativity in your followers. 

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[Photo by Diva Plavalaguna from Pexels]