Go Viral: Unlock the Secret to 2025‘s Most Popular Pinterest Pins

Should you take inspiration from the most popular Pinterest pins to reach your target audience? Here’s a fact that might surprise you: 85% of weekly Pinterest users make purchases based on pins they see from brands. 

As a marketer, it’s important to acknowledge Pinterest not only as the go-to platform for getting inspiration, but also as a platform that drives real sales. 

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll deep dive into the top Pinterest pins by industry and how you can draw inspiration from them to go viral and increase business results. 

Pin it to win it: A look inside today’s most popular Pinterest pins

Looking at the most popular Pinterest categories will inform your Pinterest strategy to follow the relevant trends. 

While Pinterest can be effective for more than these 12 niches, here are the top categories right now to ensure you implement the best Pinterest marketing strategies. 

1. Home decor

Are you a business that focuses on renovation or sells items that can improve home decor? With over 23 billion pins, home decor is one of the most popular categories on Pinterest, making it a great space to catch the attention of your target audience. 

Here’s an example of a popular pin for the topic “how to make my living room look bigger” in the home decor category: 

2. Food and drink

The food and beverage category has always been popular on Pinterest because it is a quick and easy way to find recipes in your free time. 

If you are a food or drink brand, you can reach a wider audience by sharing cooking tips and recipes. Here’s an example of a viral food pin on Pinterest. 

3. Fashion

Pinterest is the platform users turn to for the latest fashion trends for every season. The category includes all types of styles, from streetwear to bohemian styles. 

Here’s a great example of an organic fashion Pinterest pin that effectively promotes the brand’s clothing items. 

4. Health and wellness

Health and wellness is a popular category among both male and female users who want to improve their mental health, nutrition, and fitness. 

If you’re in the healthcare industry or offer fitness services, this is a great opportunity for you to raise awareness about your organization’s unique offerings. Here’s an example of a popular health and wellness pin that seamlessly promotes their product. 

5. DIY and crafts

Because Pinterest is a platform that sparks inspiration and ideas, users often turn to this platform to find more ways to be creative and express themselves better. 

Here’s a really great example of how KBS Pets created a pin showcasing how to build a flower cat tree scratching post, which was trending at the time. 

6. Beauty

Beauty content on Pinterest often follows inclusive beauty trends and covers makeup tutorials and skincare routines. If your company sells makeup or skincare products, try marketing them on Pinterest. 

Rodan + Fields is an example of a brand that creates great before-and-after pins that encourage viewers to visit their profile and site for the product line. 

7. Travel

Travel is another popular category on Pinterest that covers numerous topics, from budget-friendly travel tips to exotic destinations. 

This category is the most beneficial for tourism, hospitality, and leisure companies to leverage. Here’s an example of a successful travel pin within this category. 

8. Art

Art is an emerging Pinterest category that caters to those looking for creative inspiration and new techniques. 

If you’re an ecommerce business selling art supplies, you can create Pinterest content that teaches users new painting techniques, photography hacks, or art therapy activities. Here’s an example of a successful art pin that ranks well on Pinterest. 

9. Event planning

Event planning pins are very popular, ranging from Halloween parties to wedding planning to themed birthday parties. People who view these pins are looking for unique decor ideas, themes, practical tips, catering options, and visual inspiration that make their event feel extra special. 

Fantasy Sound Event Services excels at using Pinterest to create useful content and share their work ethic, especially in this event planning pin. 

10. Parenting

The parenting category on Pinterest attracts a diverse audience of parents, caregivers, grandparents, and educators who want advice on raising and helping children better. 

Healthcare, education, and ecommerce businesses can tap into these pins if they’re selling educational children’s products or nutritional goods. Here is an example of a great parenting pin by Fat Brain Toys that performs well on Pinterest. 

11. Gardening

Gardening is another popular Pinterest category to consider if your business is in the ecommerce or home services industries. 

This category invites users to take proper care of their plants and try new garden decor styles. In the gardening pin below, we see how Target creates winning pins in the gardening category. 

12. Backyard landscaping

Backyard landscaping is an emerging Pinterest topic that features various tips and design inspiration for different types of backyards. 

Like gardening, this category is beneficial for home services and ecommerce businesses to leverage, whether they plan to showcase their landscaping and lawn care skills or suggest accessories and tools for better landscaping. 

Here’s a great example of an optimized and high-ranking backyard landscaping pin. 

Why Pinterest is a powerful tool for growth

If your brand aligns with the most popular Pinterest categories, advertising on Pinterest can unlock a new and highly engaged customer pool. 

Here are the key reasons why this platform is a goldmine for marketers: 

• Pinterest users want to shop: Many Pinterest users use what they see on Pinterest as inspiration for their next purchase. Statistics show that 85% of weekly pinners have bought an item based on the pins they see from brands. They also tend to have bigger shopping carts, spending 80% more in retail than non-users. 
• It’s a platform for brand discovery: Unlike other platforms, where users search for specific brands, 96% of top searches on Pinterest are unbranded. This creates a unique opportunity to introduce your brand to potential customers early in the decision-making process. You’ll become the solution they didn’t even know they were looking for. 
• Pinterest encourages a fun advertising experience: Advertisements on Pinterest look a lot like typical Pinterest posts by any normal user. This allows you to introduce your products in an authentic, non-disruptive way, creating a more enjoyable experience that encourages clicks and purchases. 

Is Pinterest right for your business? 5 questions to ask yourself

While Pinterest offers huge potential, it’s not a universal fit. To determine if it’s a worthwhile investment for your specific company, you need to answer a few questions. 

Algorithm factors to consider when posting on Pinterest

When posting on Pinterest, it’s important to optimize your pins to align with certain algorithm preferences. Pinterest’s algorithm considers these four factors to determine your pin’s visibility. 

How to go viral on Pinterest in 12 steps

Do you want to be among the top Pinterest pins and effectively sell products on the platform? Implement this step-by-step process to start creating the most popular Pinterest pins. 

1. Identify your audience
2. Evaluate the latest trends
3. Evaluate which peak seasons to post
4. Brainstorm ideas that resonate with your audience
5. Choose your content format type
6. Use Pinterest’s AI-powered features
7. Create high-quality content
8. Optimize your pins for search
9. Include clear calls-to-action (CTAs)
10. Create boards
11. Build a community
12. Analyze pin performance

1. Identify your audience

If you want to be among the top pins in your category, you need to know your audience. Start by considering the category you want to create content for and what your audience within that category would like from your brand. 

To properly connect with your audience, create a customer persona. A customer persona is a detailed profile of your ideal customer, including details about their age, gender, interests, and buying habits. This will make it easier to understand which trends will capture their attention. 

There are several ways to build your customer persona: 

• Use analytics tools: Tools like Google Analytics and Pinterest Audience Insights show you the demographics and interests of your existing audience on your website and Pinterest. You can also review your other social media platform demographics to understand your overall audience. 
• Conduct surveys: Ask your existing audience directly about their interests. You can do this through Google Forms, Instagram Stories polls, or SurveyMonkey. 
• Listen to your audience’s conversations: Find out about your audience’s needs and frustrations online. Check comments on your existing posts, read through relevant niche online communities, and browse comments on your competitors’ posts. 

2. Evaluate the latest trends

Once you have your target audience figured out, use the Pinterest Trends tool to evaluate the latest trends for your pins. This tool shows you the top trends for the month. It also has filters for different period ranges, ages, interests, keywords, and genders. 

Pinterest Trends shows you what’s trending among your particular audience. To get accurate results, you want to make sure you’re logged in with your business account. You can learn more about how to use the tool by reviewing Pinterest’s resource for viewing Pinterest trends. 

Pinterest Predicts is another great resource for 2025 trends. This resource offers insight into various new trending topics and search terms that will be on the rise in the coming months. This helps you plan your Pinterest marketing campaign with upcoming trends before they even start. 

3. Evaluate which peak seasons to post

Next, you want to schedule your pins strategically, especially when you’re posting trendy pins. Timing is critical when it comes to going viral on Pinterest. 

The best times, days, and seasons to post will often vary based on your industry. That’s why we created this table to break down the best timing recommendations. 

While the above guideline is a great one to follow, you want to adjust it based on your specific company’s insights. Here are five factors that determine your best time to post on Pinterest: 

• Your unique audience: Consider which times work best for your specific audience. Chances are, parents, working adults, and students will be online at vastly different times. Use Pinterest’s Audience Insights tool to learn more about your audience’s social media habits. 
• Your competition: Monitor when and how often your competitors post on Pinterest. Their posting schedule will help you better understand when your shared audience is most active. Be sure to mostly consider their high-performing pins and then adjust your posting schedule so that some of your pins are available at similar times. 
• Time zones: If you have more than one audience group in different time zones, consider posting at a time when their Pinterest activity overlaps. Otherwise, you could create separate content for the different locations to enhance your visibility. 
• Current events and trends: Always keep an eye out for national holidays, big industry events, viral memes, and trending topics. Use these timely opportunities to create pins that connect with your audience. 
• Experimentation: Once you’ve analyzed the above factors, test different posting times and check which pins gained the most engagement. You can then plan your posting strategy from there. 

Do you lack the resources and time to post on schedule or determine your ideal posting schedule? 

Companies that offer social media management services will schedule your pins to post at the most effective times of the day based on your particular audience, industry, and current trends. They’ll also track engagement and adjust your pin schedule based on what’s working. 

4. Brainstorm ideas that resonate with your audience

Once you know the current and forecasted trends, your audience, and peak seasons to post, you can start brainstorming valuable pin ideas that relate to your brand and audience. 

For example, if your ecommerce store sells products for DIY projects and crafts, you could create pin ideas for the holidays, like DIY Christmas decorations and DIY Halloween ornaments. Try to make your pins original and interesting. Pinners love fresh ideas and inspiration. 

Start by creating ideas from trending topics on Pinterest Trends. You can then use idea generation tools like TeamAI to brainstorm more creative ideas. You can feed this tool with the forecasted trends from Pinterest Predicts and ask it for creative pin ideas that relate to your audience and brand. 

5. Choose your content format type

After you have your ideas lined up, it’s time to consider the format types that will work best for these ideas. Here’s a rundown of your top choices: 

• Standard pins: Standard pin ads are identical to regular image pins. It is typically best for driving traffic to your website and increasing brand awareness. This is a great option when you simply want to showcase products, objects, or items for inspiration. 

• Video pins: Video pin ads are long or short videos that showcase a process in action. It can teach you how to do something or speak directly to the user. These will autoplay in the user’s feed as they scroll, making it great for building brand awareness. 

• Idea pins: Idea pins are multi-page video content that includes visuals, stickers, and text. You can also use them for paid placement and links for easier conversion. This format is best for brand storytelling and educating viewers with tutorials, recipes, and how-to videos. 

• Carousel pins: A carousel pin is one pin that contains a swipeable set of up to five images. Each image has its own headline, description, and link, which is excellent for collection launches, visual storytelling, and product catalogs. 

• Shopping ads: Shopping ads pull directly from your product catalog to promote the relevant items based on a user’s behavior and keywords. The ad shows the product title, price, and availability, making it perfect for direct product sales and retargeting. 

• Collection ads: Collection ads include a number of featured images or videos that showcase different products. It acts as a lookbook for multiple shoppable items that users could buy to achieve a certain look, lifestyle, or room decor setup. 

6. Use Pinterest’s AI-powered features

Consider implementing Pinterest’s latest AI-powered features into your strategy to improve your reach on Pinterest. 

New visual search feature for shoppable recommendations

Pinterest’s visual search tool is an upgraded feature that allows users to select an object within a Pinterest image and get shoppable recommendations on the app. 

For example, if a user really likes a pair of cherry red platform heels they spotted in an image, they can tap the search icon to find numerous other pairs of the same style or color. The suggestions may also include prices for users to weigh their purchase options. Here’s an example of how this looks on Pinterest. 

If you want your brand to appear in visual searches, upload your catalog to Pinterest. It should include information about your item’s brand name, pricing, color, and size. Adding this information will make it easier for your product to appear for various search queries. 

AI-powered shoppable auto-collages

Another AI-driven feature is Pinterest’s shoppable auto-collages. Collages on Pinterest have already gained popularity among users, which is why Pinterest created a version that allows advertisers to curate and group together product images that work well together. Here’s an example of what this looks like. 

These auto-collages make it easier to persuade your audience to make a purchase because users can access all the items they want from one place. 

Pinterest’s auto-collages are another reason why you want to keep your catalog super up to date on the platform and start grouping them together in Pinterest. The feature is fairly new, so it’s best to add it to your strategy before your competitors do. 

7. Create high-quality content

To create pins that stand out, use high-quality original images and videos. Original visuals make your content look more unique. So, make sure to use good-quality cameras — and microphones, if your videos include a voice-over. 

Vibrant colors with eye-catching text overlays can also help your pins stand out. Just make sure that the visuals and text overlays complement each other. Closed captions could also be helpful for viewers who are watching without sound. 

Another important factor to consider is that most Pinterest users could be browsing from their phones in their free time. This makes it essential to ensure that you optimize your pins for mobile use. Some best practices to optimize your pins for mobile users include: 

• Image and video size: The best size for image pins on mobile includes a 2:3 ratio (1000 x 1500 pixels). Video pins are also more engaging in portrait mode. 
• Text overlay size: The text should be large enough for viewers to easily read on smaller mobile screens. 
• Concise descriptions: Include your keywords and the most important information as close to the beginning of your pin descriptions and titles so that users know they are in the right place. 
• Short videos: If your target audience mostly browses Pinterest in their free time, your video should be concise and get to the point quickly. 

8. Optimize your pins for search

You can reach the right audience by optimizing your pins for search with SEO best practices. 

Start by including relevant keywords in your titles and descriptions. These are the terms your audience will use when searching for content about a particular topic, such as “indoor gardening tips” or “wedding decor ideas.” 

Use a keyword research tool like KeywordsFX to discover terms that are relevant to your pin topic. 

For example, let’s say you’re selling food products and you want to create a pin about dinner ideas. Type the term into KeywordsFX and you’ll receive detailed keyword ideas like “dinner for two people,” “dinner that takes 30 minutes or less,” and “200 calorie dinner ideas.” 

You can use up to 100 characters for your pin titles, but only the first 40 characters will show for users, so make sure to include your keyword in the first 40 characters. 

Your pin description can have up to 500 characters, making it ideal for any other essential information and keywords that engage users and make them want to click. 

You should also add alt text to your images. This is typically an accurate description of the image that helps the Pinterest algorithm understand your content. It also gives your viewers information about the image if it doesn’t load. 

9. Include clear calls-to-action (CTAs)

A high-quality pin without a call-to-action (CTA) is like a storefront without a door. It might attract attention, but it doesn’t invite anyone inside. A clear CTA drives users to take that next step after they’ve gained inspiration. 

Think about your Pinterest campaign goals. Do you want to drive traffic, boost engagement, or generate leads? Here are a few CTA ideas depending on your goal: 

• Drive traffic: To drive traffic, use action-oriented phrases like “Get the full tutorial,” “Shop the look,” or “Read the full blog post.” 
• Boost engagement: You can boost engagement on Pinterest by encouraging users with phrases like “Follow for more daily tips” or “Save this pin for later.” 
• Generate leads: Some examples of phrases that will help you build community and generate leads include “Download our free checklist” and “What are you crafting this weekend? Let us know in the comments!” 

10. Create boards

Create boards to make your pins easy for users to sort through. If Pinterest users find your content really helpful, they’ll probably visit your Pinterest profile for similar pins. 

So if you’re selling furniture and creating pins about home decor, you could have boards named “living room decor,” “bedroom decor,” and “outdoor patio ideas.” You could also have a separate board with subcategories that include all the different types of furniture you’re selling. 

But don’t just pin your own posts. Spruce things up by showing people you’re not just on Pinterest to promote your brand. Save fun and inspirational pins related to your industry — you can even save pins from your followers if you like their content. 

For example, the travel blogger, Jodi Ettenberg, mostly posts pins about travel tips and gluten-free travel that encourage users to read her blog posts. But to keep things fresh, she also shows personality with pinboards named “Broccoli-shaped trees” and “Marshmallows.” 

11. Build a community

To build a steady following of active supporters, you need to show personality and interact with users. Show your audience that you value their input by responding to their comments and messages. 

You can also collaborate with influencers and other brands by creating group boards. This will expose you to their followers, which simultaneously grows your audience. 

You can also host contests on Pinterest to build community. Encourage your customers and target audience to create pinboards based on a theme of your choice. A successful example of this is when Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) hosted a Dream Home contest. 

They encouraged users to create a Pinterest board named “My Better Homes and Gardens dream home” and pin images from BHG’s Pinterest account to build their dream home. The winner would receive $4,000. The campaign was a great success, having received over 11,000 entries. 

12. Analyze pin performance

After you’ve posted a few pins, monitor your pin performance to establish what works and what doesn’t. Learning from your pins allows you to create better content that resonates with your audience, allowing you to continuously go viral with proven strategies. 

You can analyze pin performance by monitoring metrics like your top boards, top pins, impressions, engagement, and visits to your website. CRMs like Nutshell help you analyze pin performance and specifically see which leads came from Pinterest. 

Alternatively, WebFX’s Internet in Real Time tool monitors your pin performance in real time to track how many times users saved your pins. 

Create the most popular pins with social media marketing services

To create the most popular Pinterest pins, you need to know your audience, the latest trends, and how to turn simple pin ideas into actionable content that persuades viewers to visit your website. 

Following the above steps will not only help you go viral, but also create a strong community that supports your brand. 

Does your marketing team lack the time to implement this strategy? WebFX is more than happy to take the load off by implementing it for you! 

Our team of 500 marketing experts know how to craft high-quality organic Pinterest marketing strategies that drive results. We have driven 24 million leads and $10 billion in revenue for our clients. 

Learn more about how you can benefit from our social media marketing services or request personalized recommendations from our team of strategists today.