Pinterest head of beauty partnerships Rachel Goodman on helping brands tell a story

At the helm of Pinterest’s beauty division is Rachel Goodman, head of beauty partnerships, who has been with the company for seven years. During her tenure, she has witnessed the evolution of how Pinterest fits within people’s social media consumption. It has gone from being a special-occasion platform for people decorating apartments or getting married to becoming an “always-on” website for seeking inspiration and shopping. With this in mind, Pinterest has focused over the last two years on connecting the dots from providing inspiration for an idea to facilitating its realization through a purchase.

“People aren’t coming to Pinterest to broadcast their thoughts and opinions to a social network,” Goodman said on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. “People come to Pinterest to look for ideas, to discover [ideas], to save them, and to go out and do them.”

In the last 12 months alone, Pinterest has launched an inclusive beauty search for hair inspiration for Black, brown and Latinx people. It launched the Creator Fund in April 2021, which aims to recruit and amplify creators of color on the platform through a mix of education, tools, free advertising and income-generating opportunities. Pinterest also became more shoppable through a new program called Idea Pins and launched a daily live-streaming show called “Pinterest TV” in 2021.

Goodman spoke further with Glossy about how Pinterest is working with creators differently, which beauty brands perform well on the platform and how Pinterest is helping brands adapt their tactics. The below excerpts have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

How brands perform well on Pinterest
“Brands that do well are building unique content for Pinterest. They’re playing into the trends we’re seeing and the moments happening on Pinterest. Pinterest is a planning tool people come to for those everyday moments and big life moments, too. We recently released our Pinterest Predicts trend report that we share at the beginning of every year and that shows our trend predictions for the year across every category. A big one this year that we’ve already seen exploding is ‘dopamine dressing.’ People are bringing more color than ever into their wardrobes. We partnered with Viktor & Rolf fragrances, which launched a new line within their Flowerbomb fragrance [franchise] called Ruby Orchid. They teamed up with [drag queen] Nicky Doll from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to use a trend like dopamine dressing to create content that evoked the spirit of their brand and used that trend to inspire.”

Pinterest’s big focus for brand partners in 2022
“A big focus this year is helping brands shift their content strategy from one that’s more static to one that’s more about storytelling. It’s video-first and can be brand-led or creator-led. L’Oréal, for instance, is leading the way as the first major beauty company that’s partnered with creators at scale. They made news when they launched a campaign last year with more than 20 creators on Pinterest across seven different brands, leveraging our new format, Idea Pins. We’ve been learning a lot from these partnerships. We know that [Pinterest users] want beauty inspiration and ways to solve their beauty concerns. Through those brand and creator partnerships, we’re seeing creators like dermatologists talking about ingredients and different skin-care products and how they’ll solve your concerns. We’re seeing makeup artists showing the long-wear effect of a foundation and its benefits of it. It’s about [brands] leveraging creators with expertise to highlight product benefits and how to use them. That type of content is seeing deep engagement, which is ultimately driving brand goals.”

How Pinterest is leaning into content creators
“The Creator Fund [launched in 2021] was built to elevate diverse creators. We give them funding, support and education to help them succeed on Pinterest. It’s about uplifting more diverse voices, recruiting new creators who are people of color and giving them the tools they need to succeed. Last year was [the program’s] first year, and this year we doubled our investment to $1.2 million in cash grants, ad credits and other resources. We’re doing four cycles with the Creator fund, focusing on different categories. The first one is fashion and beauty. L’Oréal USA is going to provide participants with their deep industry insights and knowledge to help them succeed, as well.

[Separately] creators would build static pins that linked out [to another website]. Now it’s about having a native tool, called Idea Pins, where you can build and engage on Pinterest. The creators on Pinterest are experts, doers, the makers. We value inspiration over influence or celebrity. An important part of building that ecosystem is helping creators make money. We’re focused on giving creators more tools to do that on Pinterest. This could be through brand partnerships, affiliate partnerships or our new Creator Rewards program for creators to earn money for creating original content on Pinterest.”