Instagram vs Pinterest: Which is the best Social Media E-commerce Platform in 2023?

The growing trend of social media e-commerce has left marketers comparing and asking Pinterest vs. Instagram: which is the best Social Media E-commerce Platform in 2023? Although the question is valid, the answer isn’t that simple.

Visual content (videos and images) is being consumed and shared around the internet In so many amounts that it is becoming the top trend for marketing. People usually prefer visuals over reading to get any information. This widespread trend has made social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest popular among consumers and marketers.

Pinterest is about discovering and sharing ideas via visuals, while Instagram is a platform to share your photos and videos. In this article, I will compare Instagram and Pinterest to help you see Instagram vs. Pinterest: which site can work best to help your business grow in 2023.

Most marketers know about Instagram and how it works, but few understand what wonders Pinterest can do to grow their business.

If you’re also one of them, we will see some factors to consider while determining Instagram vs. Pinterest and deciding which to choose for your business.

1. Site purpose and usage

The purpose and usage of Instagram and Pinterest are different, and most people don’t even know this. However, knowing that difference will help you decide where to invest your resources.

Instagram primarily finds its purpose for its users to:

• Capture photos/images/videos from their smartphone
• Edit and enhance them using color-rich filters
• Add texts and descriptions in the form of captions
• Share them on the platform with others
• Follow other people and brands who share visuals with their consumers

Hence, Instagram helps people to enhance and share their visual content. For effective social media branding, Instagram requires a marketer to be authentic with their followers.

On the other hand, Pinterest lets its users:

• Discover visual content they engage with
• Get inspiration and ideas from those visuals or Pins
• Save those pins to find more content like that in future

In other words, Pinterest brings conversion by directing audiences to external websites to find more exciting and new content related to what they found on the platform. In this way, it brings conversions for marketers with e-commerce websites.

2. Active audience

You’re tired of hovering around and might not get the desired results because you are targeting an irrelevant audience. You must know the demographics of each platform before doing Instagram vs. Pinterest.

Surprisingly, Instagram takes the upper hand when it comes to numbers as:

• It has a whooping number of 1 billion active users each month
• 50% of Instagram users are from the United States
• Instagram has a younger audience as compared to Pinterest, with 68% female users
• On average, 95 million visuals are shared every day

So, Instagram marketing can be the right choice if you target a younger audience.

However, Pinterest isn’t coming slow as:

• It had 445 million monthly active users by the 3^rd quarter of 2022
• Pinterest has the most users between the ages of 35 and 55.
• Pinterest has 81% female users making it best if you target a female audience
• 2 million users regularly save shopping pins

If most of your audience is female and comparatively older, then Pinterest would be a better social media e-commerce platform.

3. Mobile vs Desktop on Instagram vs Pinterest

When doing Instagram vs. Pinterest, it is crucial to know consumer trends on mobile and desktop for both e-commerce platforms. It will help you understand your audience more precisely.

When it comes to Instagram:

• Instagram is mainly used via mobile app, rarely via desktop
• Mobile versatility is one of the biggest reasons people visit Instagram daily
• Sharing visuals is possible only on a mobile.
• You can consume visual content and post comments only on the desktop.

As you can see, mobile is the main reason Instagram is used by so many people worldwide.

Whereas Pinterest turns out to be an allrounder as:

• Pinterest began with a desktop app and shifted to a mobile app
• You can discover visuals and share them both via mobile and desktop
• Huge traffic from desktop

Using Pinterest, e-commerce websites have witnessed more conversions from desktop. However, you must decide whichever you find the best to target your audience.

4. Photo enhancing and editing

Instagram primarily started as a photo editing tool, and that capability has only improved. Instagram lets you:

• Apply colors filters without affecting photo quality
• Adjust photo elements such as contrast, brightness, saturation, highlights, and more.
• Trim videos and apply video filters

Surprisingly, Pinterest features:

• No photo editing tools, either on mobile or desktop

It means you will have to edit photos outside Pinterest before uploading them. However, if you want to download Pinterest images to try some editing outside, you can download them using our free Pinterest image downloader tool.

5. Video content

Instagram has been doing great since it allowed its users to share a variety of visuals. Besides photos, you can also share video content on Instagram lets you:

• Upload videos from mobile and those recorded in the app
• Share live video sessions
• Share videos in your Instagram story

Pinterest didn’t let users upload videos in the past. However, Pinterest has done a great job:

• Marketers can share video pins that have links to e-commerce websites

However, you can download an inspirational Pinterest video using our Pinterest video downloader tool.

6. Link sharing

The next factor in Instagram vs. Pinterest review is the link-sharing feature of both social media e-commerce platforms.

When talking about Instagram:

• It does not allow you to share direct links in your posts, so no traffic to your website
• You need paid ad campaign to share links

However, Pinterest is a great platform to attract traffic to your website. It allows:

• Link sharing and saving
• Linking multiple e-commerce websites rather than just one

Thus, Pinterest is the best option to grow traffic to your e-commerce website. Moreover, you can also learn how to use Pinterest for business and other prolific benefits of using Pinterest as a blogger.

7. Advertising

You can see advertising on each social media e-commerce platform because it gives precise results. So, in Instagram vs. Pinterest, who does the best advertising? Let’s find out!

Instagram-targeted ads ensure precision and versatility. Here are the types of targeted ads you’ll get on Instagram:

• Photo ads
• Carousel ads
• Video ads
• Story ads

You can use the Pinterest ad platform by paying based on the number of clicks generated. Here are the types of Pinterest ads:

• Promoted carousels
• Promoted video pins
• Promoted pins