We are wading into Pinterest business waters today, talking about Pinterest stock with Maria Gallagher from The Motley Fool’s podcast Market Foolery. 

We haven’t talked about this aspect of Pinterest before. Since going public in 2019, Pinterest has experienced a massive surge in popularity. When it comes to stock prices, it’s interesting to explore what those numbers mean for us as Pinterest marketers. 

At the time this podcast airs, we’re honing in on business foundations in the Simple Pin Collective. When you join, you gain access to the full learning library, regular coaching calls, and a built-in mechanism for accountability. It’s the best place to learn about all things Pinterest — with people to cheer you on as you grow. 

Introducing Maria from The Motley Fool

Maria’s job is to help people know where to put their money. After completing an undergraduate degree in psychology, she had an opportunity to complete a six-month internship at an investment firm focusing on marketing. During that time she fell in love with the stock market. Learning about how the stock market worked as well as the various companies was fascinating to Maria. 

She started her personal investment journey after she graduated and started interning at The Motley Fool. She has now been working on their investment team for two years. 

ESG (environment, social, and government) investing is Maria’s favorite type of investment. It’s the mindset that doing well as a company and doing good for the world can go together. Maria looks at sustainability reports to see what the companies are doing for their employees and communities. She wants to know that the company will do good for others, not just for her as a shareholder. 

How has Pinterest Stock Evolved?

 

Understanding the Pinterest Platform 

Pinterest stock had a lackluster performance immediately out of the gate in 2019. Its value began to rise in 2020 as investors began to realize just how useful the platform is and how many people utilize it. 

It is also incredibly useful for advertisers. Ninety-one percent of Pinterest users say that Pinterest is a platform filled with positivity and 89% of users say that they leave the platform feeling empowered. Pinterest has promoted positivity by refusing to air political ads on its platform.

Once stock market analysts started to learn more about these aspects of the Pinterest platform, Pinterest stock value increased. 

Network Effects

Network effects are really important for a platform like Pinterest. A Network effect is a phenomenon in which increased numbers of people or participants improve the value of a good or service.

During the pandemic, Pinterest nearly doubled their user-base. Since advertisers tend to flock to the places where more people are hanging out, Pinterest benefitted from this explosive user growth (since it generates revenue from ads).

We have seen this network effect play out with Facebook and with sites like Match.com. 

Related: The Transition from Facebook Marketing to Pinterest Marketing

As we move forward, it is super important for Pinterest to keep growing its user-base. The more users it has, the better for everyone involved on the platform. 

Pinterest had 442 million users at the end of last quarter — 343 million of those users are international. The fact that such a significant portion of users are international is another aspect of Pinterest that makes it appealing to investors. 

This allows the investor to see that it is a relevant platform that can span across various languages and cultures....