In June 2018, Pinterest held it’s first-ever conference for creators, called In the Making. At the event they brought together bloggers, influencers, and other creators for a day of creating and learning. One of the best takeaways from the conference is a guide that Pinterest data analysts produce each year about what’s trending, based on what users are searching for and saving. The data is presented as the “Pinterest 100,” and this episode covers some of the ideas that food bloggers may want to know about like trends in food, travel, and home.
You Need to Be on Pinterest as a Food Blogger
There are 200 million Pinners searching and saving world-wide. Isn’t that amazing? The thing about Pinterest is that people tend to go there looking for inspiration and ideas, but they’re actually trying the ideas that they find. So, you want your content to come up when users search, and have it be visually appealing so that they click through and stick around on your site.
As we cover the trends, think about how you might be able to work them into your blog content and editorial calendar. Come up with ideas, consider if you have any existing posts that cover these ideas that you can promote more on Pinterest, or maybe you’ll have ideas unlike anything you’ve done before.
Trends you want to know about
The Pinterest 100 has the top 10 in food covered with the overall trend being “healthy meets tasty” so even if none of these exact ideas work for you, remember the idea of healthy AND tasty, working that concept into your recipes, posts, and the titles on your pins and in your pin descriptions.
The Top 10 Food Trends of 2018
- Swapping greasy chips for edamame and sweet peas
- North African spices including cumin, coriander, and cardamom
- Leveling up your coffee with things like protein powder and maca
- Using plant proteins in your recipes
- Using the air-fryer for healthy frying
- Mocktails!
- Soup recipes with bold flavors
- Using ghee instead of dairy products like butter
- Bye, bye sriracha, hello Korean condiments
- Non-dairy desserts
There are also some mention-worthy trends in travel, home, and parties, so this episode is jam packed with information to help you close out 2018 and beyond.
Remember that you want to stay true to yourself and your brand, but if these trends fit in with what you do, or can inspire what you do, use them! Remember that it’s not just about creating this content, but the content needs to be on Pinterest, so make sure you’re creating visually strong pins with strong descriptions, utilizing group boards, and possible a scheduler like Tailwind to help get your content out there.
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Transcription of This Episode
Welcome to Feast Food blog talk where we share how to take your food blogging to the next level and inspire you to do more with your blog and business.
As a food blogger, sometimes it’s hard to kind what kind of content to create. You know what you like, but you wanna know what your followers like or more than your followers, you wanna know what the world likes. So I’m really excited today to bring you some information from the Pinterest 100. This is a guide that Pinterest created. They had people at Pinterest analyze the data of all of the users to see the trends of what was going up in 2018. What is going to be most popular? And so they created this guide that had 100 ideas.
We’re not sharing all today. You’re going to hear about the ones that are going to be most relevant for a food blogger so that you can know the new types of content you might wanna create or if you already are covering these trends, you’ll wanna make sure that you are covering them on Pinterest and putting your pins out there so that your trends can be found.
In June 2018 Pinterest held its first ever conference for creators called In the Making and I was there. So at this event they brought together bloggers, influencers, some big names who have some really great traffic on their sites and we all came together for a day of learning and creating.
One of the best takeaways was a hard copy guide called Pinterest 100 2018. And so though you’re gonna be listening to this podcast in the last quarter of 2018 or even after, there’s still a lot of great information covered in this guide that we’re going to talk about today.
So though this guide is 100 ideas, we are not covering all 100 here. They talk about things like wellness, women’s trends, men’s trends, what’s happening in parties, in kids and babies. So today we’re going to go over some of the ideas they present that will be most likely to be relevant to you, someone who likely blogs mostly about food or at least a bit about food.
So hopefully you’re going to take some ideas from this that can help you think about your content that you want to create, that’s going to maybe give you some ideas for further developing the content you currently have, and how you might want to put some of that onto Pinterest.
So remember, this information that I’m sharing to you is coming directly from a guide that is published by Pinterest. They’re the ones who have access to the data about what people are pinning and what’s trending and building up in popularity and they were really forthcoming with this information.
So did you know that there are 200 million pinners search and saving worldwide? I was amazed by that. And the thing about Pinterest that they really shared with us is that people tend to go there looking for inspiration and ideas, but they’re actually trying what they find. So if you can pair that maybe to a Google search, people are in the research phase whereas when they get to Pinterest, they’re usually in the I’m-ready-to-do-it phase. I’m ready to actually make the recipe, I’m ready to style my home in this way.
So you want your content to come up when they search for ideas and then you want it to be visually appealing so that they click through to find what they wanna find but then hopefully they also stick around on your site.
So this guide has a lot of great information, but one just sort of shocked me some of the statistics is that there are over 100 billion ideas on Pinterest. It shocked me, but I also believe it. And I mean that’s growing too, right? Every day creators are creating more content, creating more pins, and pinning it to Pinterest.
But what are they searching for? That’s kind of what you wanna know as a blogger, right? You want to understand what are people looking for? What content can I create that people are going to be trying to find?
So this is directly from the guide. Every December our insights team looks back at search and save patterns from the last year. They identify the top trends based on what’s gaining interest year over year, 50% or higher, critical mass, more than 250,000 saves, and a strong upward trend during the final three to six months of the year, not including seasoning specs. The final results is the Pinterest 100, an in depth list of the top 100 ideas to try in 2018. The data represented is global and percentage increases reflect year over year changes in searches or saves.
So again, this is the data that they shared in 2018 but it doesn’t just mean you chuck it at the end of the year. These are trends. These are building. So think about how you can use this information. I’m sure there will be a new guide, but this is the information that we have right now.
So let’s get into these trends. And as we talk about them, think about how you might be able to work them into your blog content and your plan. Come up with new ideas, but also consider if you have any existing posts that cover these ideas that you can promote more on Pinterest. Or maybe you’re not on Pinterest yet and you have a lot of content that’s similar to what we’re talking about today, well, you should be on Pinterest. And maybe some of this will inspire you and you’ll have ideas unlike you’ve ever had before.
So again, the Pinterest 100 guide has ten main categories and then ten trends in each. The first one that they cover is actually food. So here’s what they say. Foodies love Pinterest. With over nineteen billion ideas, this is one of our largest categories and it’s still growing. Since last year we’ve seen a 46% increase in food and drink pins. People are pulling out their smartphones to plan meals and make healthier food choices in the moment. Once they decide what to eat, they want to know how to make it and how to make it fast.
And I totally agree with that. The other day we wanted to make some chocolate chip muffins. My son had this idea and I said you know what, I don’t know if we have anything for it. I knew we had some stuff because we do like to bake, but I didn’t think we had everything. So what did I do? I went to Pinterest. Simple and fast chocolate chip muffin recipe. And things came up and I clicked the one that said fast and easy chocolate chip muffin and turns out we had everything we needed and then we made it.
So people are coming to Pinterest not only doing research. Yes, they do that and they save things, but it’s clicks you want them to get to your site and people are actually taking action on what it is that they find.
So Pinterest this guide says they’ve got the top ten in food covered with the overall trend being healthy meets tasty. So even if these exact ideas don’t work for you and your niche and how you create recipes, remember that the idea of healthy and tasty, working that not only into your recipes and your posts but also when you create these pins you wanna have it on the title that you put on your pins and in your pin description.
So if you are simply using Pinterest where you take a photo and then you upload that to Pinterest or you’re just hoping that people will pin your images, that’s not quite enough. You really wanna make them really visually stunning, visual images, collages are typically very appealing, you wanna add some text overlay on that image and then you really want to have a strong description that captures what they will find when they click through.
All of those things together are going to help your pins get noticed. They’re going to show up more so in people’s search feed if you have some strong keywords for what they’re ultimately looking for, okay?
So let’s get into the top ten food trends that this Pinterest 100 guide has highlighted. So this first one is up 273% and it is snap peas and edamame where people are taking snacks, swapping out greasy chips for fancied up edamame and sweet peas. So again, it’s this idea of healthy and tasty. So for example, if you already have recipes that are healthy snacks, especially using ingredients like edamame or sweet peas and you don’t have these on Pinterest, you don’t have it for people to find, you wanna be putting it on Pinterest. Or if you have Asian inspired food but you don’t really have an edamame snack recipe or you’ve never really tried to do that as maybe some sort of chip replacement, that might be something that you can do.
Number two is sweet heat from Morocco. So this is focused on North African spices like cumin, coriander, and cardamom. So really trying to go beyond basic dishes, adding some flavors, specifically from North Africa and Morocco. And this is up 2579%. So one thing we don’t know is we don’t necessarily know how much that was searched last year compared to this year, but that’s a huge spike. So again, think about maybe building some of these different spices into your recipes, really highlighting that as part of your pin description, or again, maybe creating some new content about that.
Number three, this is super coffee saves the day. So using super foods like maca in your coffee can really help shake things up. So think about if you’ve got recipes that are about coffee but talk about protein powder or other super foods that those are the types of coffee recipes that people are looking for. They really want to find new ways to up their coffee game. This is up 218%.
Number four has to do with plant protein. So up 417% is that people are looking for not just meat options when it comes to their recipes. So things like lentils, hemp, and quinoa, all of these options are really nutritionally strong and according to Pinterest, it says they taste just as good. Now listen, I’m a vegetarian and I’m sure that many meat eaters will not necessarily agree that plant proteins taste like meat, but hey, especially if you are stellar at making these proteins taste like meat, which again, I don’t know that a vegetarian wants their plant proteins to taste like meat, but regardless, people are looking for vegetarian option recipes that are using these plant proteins. So if you’ve got those or they fit into your niche, think about making those.
Number five, diet friendly frying which just sounds like an oxymoron, but this has to do with using air fryers. So I really was not, I didn’t understand what an air fryer was before this, but basically it’s a tool that uses hot air instead of oil to make things extra crispy like french fries. And this is up 1809% from last year. So I think it’s really interesting, again, to think about healthy options that are tasty. So maybe you have a recipe that does us an air fryer. On Pinterest you would wanna highlight the air fryer as part of what your highlighting in the recipe. So it’s not just tasty, crispy french fries, it’s air fryer tasty, crispy french fries, right?
So again, you’re thinking about how you can build these into your recipes, but also how you set them up on Pinterest with your titles and your pin description.
Number six, mocktails. Not cocktails with alcohol, I’m sure those are popular too, but again, this upward trend of 160% is mocktails. So really what they talk about here in this guide is our seasonal ingredients. So if your blog touches on healthy options, you know maybe you felt like I don’t really wanna write about alcohol, that’s not my thing. I don’t feel as healthy or it doesn’t fit in with my lifestyle or my brand or maybe you do write about alcohol. Mocktails are great because I think anytime someone wants to have a party, it’s good to have a cocktail and a mocktail option. So think about that.
Number seven, they say souping over juicing. So apparently up 306%, people are looking for soup recipes. Flavorful nutrients, pureed soup, and this is especially great for people to be healthy, to get in maybe their extra veggies and as the guide says to reset your diet. And as you move into 2019, beginning of the year is especially a time when people are looking for good, healthy recipes. So I think souping could continue really well into 2019.
Number eight, O M ghee. So this has to do with ghee and clarified butter, which are lactose free wonder foods with, according to Pinterest, rich, nutty flavor. This is up 155% so again, if you have recipes already, you want to be playing up that ghee is used in these recipes in the way that you promote them on Pinterest. And if you’re not using ghee, you might wanna check it out. Maybe you have a recipe that uses butter and then you have an option to take the butter out and use ghee.
Number nine, the hottest sauce. So according to Pinterest, sriracha needs to move on over because Korean condiments are where it’s at. So up 222%. So maybe think about changing up if you have some hot and spicy recipes, maybe try highlighting some new hot sauces with that or if you don’t tend to do spicy foods, maybe that’s something you wanna check out because people are looking for some hot recipes.
And then the last one, number ten in the food space, is desserts without dairy and without animal products. So with coconut oil instead of butter or flax seed instead of eggs. This is up 329%. And I think part of this is about health, but it’s also with families that have food allergies. I would imagine that people are looking for different options, you know, just maybe different food preferences.
So as I said, depending on your niche, depending on your brand, not all of these ideas will work for you, but think about those trends and how you might be able to build them into the content that you create or what you push out more of on Pinterest at the end of this year and into 2019. Because again, maybe you have some of this already on your site but if you’re not putting it onto Pinterest, people can’t find it.
Now, because food blogs may also encompass other topics, like maybe you have a lifestyle blog but you also write about food or you have a food blog and you also include snippets of life and how the recipes fit in or maybe it’s travel and food. So I’m gonna highlight, in this guide there are ten from each, but I’m just gonna hit on a couple of other trending topics in some of these more major categories.
So within travel, the Pinterest 100 guide says that travel journals are trending with a focus on bullet journaling. So again, if you write about the travel space, definitely think about journaling and including a post on that and specifically bullet journaling.
Next, people are searching for information on desert destinations like Joshua Tree and Morocco. So think about now, you could combine something like this with a post on those North African spices we talked about that are trending in the food space. So maybe you put together a Moroccan themed party, right? So maybe someone who is looking for Morocco as a travel destination then finds your post or they’re wanting to do a Moroccan themed party because desert destinations are all the rage and they can’t head to Morocco anytime soon, so you know, they’re gonna build some of that into their lives.
The next one I wanted to touch, one day vacays, that’s vacations, are popular. So maybe you can write a post about taking a one day vacation in your town or a place nearby and you can highlight things to do and restaurants to visit. Now again, if you don’t touch on travel at all, you might not want to build these ideas into your blog, but if you do tend to touch on travel, which some bloggers do combine with their recipes and what they share about food, these might work for you.
And then lastly, people are looking for authentic information on places to visit, not just what they can get through the standard guidebooks. So if you do write travel content, share about your real experiences and the local neighborhood.
Now if you also write about your home, so again, if you are a little bit more of the lifestyle type of blogger, here are a few trends worth noting. So this guide is telling us that the color sage is a popular neutral. So up to you how you work that in, but I found that interesting that this trending.
Wall art is also trending. So if you have great art or posters in your house, consider staging your photos to highlight these and include these photos as part of your pin and maybe even the post but also your post’s description. Because here’s the thing, you might have a post that’s about having a party, but if you stage it so that you’ve got your really beautiful wall art behind where you’re serving your food or as part of the setting, you could have a pin that shows more of the food and then you have a pin that shows more of the décor and the bigger scenery and within that you might say something like, you know, have your beautiful wall art be a backdrop to your beautiful seasonal dishes.
So if someone is looking for beautiful wall art or floral wall art, your pin comes up. Now you might not be the pin that helps them the most because they can’t necessarily click through and then buy the wall art or maybe they can, if you want to include links to where you get some of these things. But you may also find that people are clicking through and then clicking around on your site and maybe they find something that they’re interested in.
So it’s not to say that you’re sort of tricking someone like oh, you wanted wall art but I write about food, but your information will come up and you never know what’s going to spark something for someone.
So lastly in kind of the home space is metallics are still in an upward trend for the home, so consider how you set up your images and talk about the accents and details in your post and pin description.
And then if you do write about your food as part of a party or celebration, people are looking for recipes and food experiences that are DIY. So if you have a taco recipe, consider working that into a post about, for example, a party with a taco bar. Or if you’ve got a post about an ice cream sundae station, make sure you have pins on Pinterest.
And then lastly, people are looking for milestone birthday inspiration, like 30, 40, and so on. And so you can create content for these types of events. Now again, if you don’t ever write about a party, you might not wanna do this, but if you tend to write about events, these are things that you might want to consider.
So those are some areas that popped out in this Pinterest 100 guide that I thought might be helpful for our food bloggers out there. So remember that you wanna stay true to yourself and your brand and if these trends don’t fit in with what you do or can inspire what you do, then you don’t have to use them. But if you are inspired, that’s great. And remember that it’s not just about creating this type of content, but the content needs to be on Pinterest, right? This is where people are finding this information. So it’s not enough just to have it live on your blog and hope that someone else pins it, you need to be on Pinterest. You need to create visually strong pins with strong descriptions that you are adding to your own board, to group boards if you use a scheduler like Tailwind you wanna be adding those there so that your content is continually getting pushed out to people and that your own pin starts to trend.
And I mentioned this, but remember that you can make more than one pin for the same blog content. So maybe one pin highlights the drink part of the blog. The next pin really shows the overall party theme. And then maybe you have a pin that really narrows in on the main recipe that’s covered in that blog. Now some blogs it might make sense to only have one pin or you might feel overwhelmed with the idea of multiple pins. That’s okay. Start with one and then when you have time you can always add in another pin.
It doesn’t mean you always have to have it on the blog, you can just add more pins to Pinterest for the same blog post. And some blogger friends and I did an experiment earlier in 2018 where we created new pins for old content. Again, we did not add it back to the blog post, we added it directly to Pinterest. We supported each other by repinning these, but a number of those pins did gain traction.
So again, that was new pin for old content. So that’s another just kind of extra strategy that you can use in general and see how that works for you, but keep in mind, multiple pins for the same post can be really helpful.
So hopefully these trends have inspired you to try something new and give you some ideas for what you might wanna do this year and into next. Happy pinning.
It’s not every day you get data like this direct from the source, so hopefully you found this information from the Pinterest 100 Guide both interesting and useful for your blog and the content that you create and put out on Pinterest. If you’d like more information sent directly to you, including our upcoming podcast episodes, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.