In today’s episode, the 2019 Pinterest recap, we are going to wrap everything up in a bow and talk about what we’ve seen on Pinterest over the past year.

We’ll share some of what’s happened behind-the-scenes at Simple Pin Media, and make some predictions about what we think we will see in 2020. 

In case you missed it, we just released our new 2020 Ultimate Pinterest Planner. Get it today and share a pic of you using it on Instagram (use the hashtag #simplepinplanner). 

Happy Birthday Pinterest! 

Pinterest is coming up on its 10-year anniversary. 

The idea for Pinterest was hatched in December of 2009, and the first prototype was launched in March 2010.

I was first invited to Pinterest in August of 2010. My world has changed so much since Pinterest was born. At that time, I had 3 much younger kids, and my husband had just lost his job (read more in the Simple Pin Story post). We used food stamps to buy our Christmas gifts that year. It was humiliating and humbling, and it prepared me to speak into the lives of other people. 

Our lives are so different in 2019 vs. 2009. We have learned to be thankful in plenty and thankful in want. 

Pinterest 2019 Recap

 

Social Media Predictions for 2019

Let’s look at the social media predictions that Social Media Today predicted for 2019: 

• A growing importance of personal branding to business branding – Pinterest users are looking for things that are personal to them, so putting a face to a name can be a powerful tool.


 

• Long-form content for making an SEO impact – Yet another reason to be sure your descriptions and board names are filled out and are keyword-optimized! 


 

• Acceleration of personalized marketing – It’s no secret that lifestyle images do better across the board. So it isn’t a shock to hear that people are searching for relevant content that is tailored to them. 


 

• Video’s prominence as the preferred form of content – we saw Pinterest video explode across the board this year, as it became more and more accepted and attractive to pinners.


 

• “Pay to play”: The path to more exposure – Pinterest went public this year! Promoted Pins are going to become more important as Pinterest continues to grow. 


Bottom line: The predictions were spot on!

Pinterest Changes Summarized By Pinners

Next, we went to our Facebook group and asked members to share the changes they saw over this last year. 

Related: Pinterest Changes Fast: How to Keep Up

One of the things that was pointed out right away was the sheer number of glitches we experienced. 

 

There was a profile design change with video and tab options. In our opinion, all of these changes are are a win. Keep in mind though, that not a lot of people will visit your profile unless you give them a direct call to action there. 

We saw the disappearance of communities. No one really used these “Facebook group” type of places on Pinterest, because it’s not a place where people are usually going to seek out conversation. 

 

We were introduced to story pins this year. We devoted a podcast episode to story pins, but because they are still very much in beta, we were asked to table the episode for a while.