Digiday+ Research: Pinterest surpasses X when it comes to brands’ usage of UGC-focused social platforms

X (or Twitter — whichever you prefer) has historically been the dominant platform in this category, but Digiday+ Research surveys of brand and retailer professionals that have asked about social media platforms each summer since 2022 have found that, this year, Pinterest has passed X in brand usage for the first time — and brand and retailer ad spend on Pinterest is higher than on X, too.

Digiday’s surveys found that, among the social platforms we placed in the UGC-focused category (X, Pinterest and Twitch), Pinterest ranks the highest for brand usage, while X ranks second — which is a change from just a year ago. This summer, nearly a third of brand and retailer pros (30%) said their companies had posted content on Pinterest in the last month, compared with fewer than a quarter (21%) who said the same of X. Last summer, more than a third of brands and retailers (35%) said they had posted on X, while 28% said the same of Pinterest.

Meanwhile, Twitch trails Pinterest and X by quite a wide margin — just 11% of brand and retailer pros said this summer that their companies posted content on the platform in the last month.

With 30% of brand and retailer pros telling Digiday this summer that their companies posted content on Pinterest in the last month, the platform topped our ranking of UGC-focused social media platforms. That 30% marks a very slight increase from last summer, when 28% of brands said their companies posted content on the platform. (Pinterest wasn’t offered as an answer option in Digiday’s 2022 survey.)

The story is different when we look at brands’ ad spend on the platform, though. Last summer, just over a quarter of brand and retailer pros (26%) said their companies purchased advertising on Pinterest in the last month. This summer, that percentage saw a slight dip to 21%.

When looking for a reason for the dip in ad spend on Pinterest, it’s possible that brands were responding to Pinterest’s push to grow its advertising business last year, and may have potentially found a lack of payoff. But Pinterest is pitching itself to advertisers who are looking for a contingency plan as TikTok faces a potential ban in the U.S., with CRO Bill Watkins referring to the platform as “the antidote to traditional social media,” so it’s still too early to deem the platform’s play for ad dollars successful or not.

However, it’s definitely worth mentioning that, as of this year, Pinterest is also ranked No. 1 among UGC-focused social platforms when it comes to ad spend — and by quite a bit. While 21% of brands and retailers said this summer that they purchased ads on the platform, just 8% said the same of both Twitter and Twitch. (More on that below.)

While Pinterest’s stats held fairly steady between last year and this year, the social platform formerly known as Twitter has seen its usage and ad spend fall fairly dramatically in the last few years, Digiday’s surveys found.

In summer 2022, before Elon Musk officially completed his acquisition of the platform, nearly three-quarters of brand and retailer pros (73%) told Digiday their companies had posted content on then-Twitter in the last month. By summer 2023, around the same time the platform officially became X, that percentage fell to barely more than a third (35%). This summer, fewer than a quarter of brands and retailers (21%) said their companies are posting content on X.

Brands’ ad spend on X has followed a similar pattern, albeit on a much smaller scale. Two years ago, 21% of brand and retailer pros said their companies had purchased advertising on the platform in the last month, before falling to 14% last year. This year, just 8% of brands and retailers said their companies bought ads on X in the last month.

Of the three social platforms in the UGC category in Digiday’s surveys, Twitch remains the one with the lowest brand adoption. Just 11% of brand and retailer pros told Digiday this summer that their companies posted content on Twitch in the last month — a percentage that is admittedly low, but has remained fairly steady in recent years (9% of brands were using Twitch last summer and 12% were using the platform the summer before).

Brands’ ad spend on Twitch came in even lower — 8% of brands and retailers said this year that their companies purchased advertising on Twitch in the last month. It is worth noting, though, that brands’ ad spend on the platform has very slightly trended upward since summer 2022, when 6% of brands were buying advertising on Twitch. That percentage was 7% in summer 2023.