Social media websites have become quite popular in the past decade. Most social media websites have hundreds of thousands to millions of daily users.
The most popular social media platforms combine video, text, image, and audio content. Two of these famous platforms are Pinterest and YouTube.
Key Takeaways
- Pinterest is a visual discovery platform, whereas YouTube is a video-sharing platform.
- Pinterest excels in showcasing images and ideas, while YouTube is best for sharing videos and hosting content creators.
- Pinterest focuses on creative inspiration and DIY projects, whereas YouTube offers a wide variety of content, from entertainment to educational videos.
Pinterest vs YouTube
Pinterest is a visual bookmarking platform that allows users to save and organize images and videos, it focuses more on discovery and inspiration. YouTube is a video-sharing platform where users can upload, view, and share videos.
Pinterest is an American social media service. Its main goal is to provide a platform for sharing images. YouTube is also an American social media service. Its parent company is the internet giant Google. YouTube is a video-sharing platform.
Comparison Table
| Parameter of Comparison | Youtube | |
|---|---|---|
| Type of content | Images | Videos |
| Official launch date | January 2010 | December 2005 |
| Features | Image sharing, subscriptions, shares, pins | Video sharing, subscriptions, comments, shares, likes |
| USP | The Pinboards. | The video-sharing service |
| Description | It’s an idea-sharing website. | It’s a website for content creators to share their content in video form. |
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is an idea-sharing social media website. It was launched in January 2010. The service lets users create ‘pinboards’ and share images or GIFs through the boards.
It is a website that lets users club images of the same kind together. It allows them to create a board for all kinds of images.
Anyone who visits the website can then find out about the board. The board is found through Google search or Pinterest’s inbuilt search function.
Pinterest initially started as a social media website. It was the fastest website to pass the 10 million user mark. Pinterest initially used to sell users’ content, but then they removed that policy and made Pinterest safe for creators.
Pinterest also switched from a ‘social media service’ to a ‘visual search’ service.
It now emphasizes only visual searches/shopping catalogues. It helps people find the ideas they’re looking for.
The Unique Selling Proposition of Pinterest is its unique pinboards. The pinboards allow registered users to create and put images on a board.
The images are picked either through uploading or through other people’s uploaded content,
To use Pinterest, one registers on the website. Then they can search through the inbuilt Pinterest search bar for any idea they want.
If someone is looking to upload content, they can do it too.
Pinterest is also famous among marketers for its traffic-driving capabilities. Pinterest allows the creator to put an outbound link on the image.
This allows the creator to drive traffic to his/her website or social media page without cost.
Pinterest is a free-to-use service. As of 2020, Pinterest has 442 million monthly active users.
What is Youtube?
Youtube is a video-sharing social media website. It was launched in December 2005.
It is a social media platform. It lets users upload content for free and watch it for free.
Three former Paypal employees founded YouTube. The initial thought of YouTube as an online dating service, but that idea failed.
What they had now was a video-uploading site that had exceptional features for uploading and viewing. From here, YouTube went only upwards.
Angel investors funded it, and it did well in its first 2 years. It grew so fast that the YouTube team could not keep up with the technological demands the popularity of YouTube required.
Eventually, the technology of YouTube was outsourced to Google.
In 2006, Google acquired Youtube for a price of US$1.65 billion.
The Unique Selling Proposition of YouTube was its exceptional ability to save videos on the Internet. Before YouTube, there was no website where people could upload videos to see them later.
There were many incidents in the past, like the Justin Timberlake Janet, for which there was no video on the Internet. YouTube changed that.
To use YouTube, one has to only register on the website. You can view videos without signing in. If you want to be a creator on YouTube, you’ll have to create a channel.
YouTube has an inbuilt search function. It lets users search for any video they might be looking for.
YouTube itself has a ranking system for videos.
Creators do YouTube Search Engine Optimization to rank better. YouTube has a system of likes, dislikes, shares, and subscriptions. It’s a proper social media service.
Youtube is a free-to-use service, although advertisements are allowed.
Ads prove as a menace for content viewers. Youtube launched YouTube Premium, an optional subscription service allowing an ad-free experience and access to YouTube Originals.
As of 2020, Youtube has over 2 billion monthly active users.
Main Differences Between Pinterest and YouTube
- Pinterest is an image-sharing social media service. On the other hand, Youtube is a video-sharing social media service.
- Pinterest has 442 million monthly active users. On the other hand, Youtube has 2 billion monthly active users.
- Pinterest uses the concept of pinboards. On the other hand, Youtube uses the concept of channels.
- Pinterest shifted its attention from being a social media service to more of a business-oriented shopping catalogue site. On the other hand, YouTube has been a social media service from the start and is driven only by that.
- Pinterest allows users to include outbound links easily. You can drive traffic to your website, blog, and social media through Pinterest. On the other hand, YouTube does not allow outbound links easily, although you can still drive traffic outside.
I’ve put so much effort writing this blog post to provide value to you. It’ll be very helpful for me, if you consider sharing it on social media or with your friends/family. SHARING IS ♥️
Sandeep Bhandari holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computers from Thapar University (2006). He has 20 years of experience in the technology field. He has a keen interest in various technical fields, including database systems, computer networks, and programming. You can read more about him on his bio page.
