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 have a combination of 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
The difference between Pinterest and YouTube is that on Pinterest, images are posted. It is an image sharing platform. On the other hand on YouTube, videos are posted. It is a video sharing platform.
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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. It is a service that 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 the board. The board is found either through Google search or through 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 user’s content but then they removed that policy and made Pinterest safe for creators.
Pinterest also switched from being a ‘social media service’ to more of a ‘visual search’ service.
It now emphasizes only visual searches/shopping catalogs. It helps people find the ideas they’re looking for.
The Unique Selling Proposition of Pinterest is its unique pinboards. The pinboards allow any registered user to create a board and put images in it.
The images are picked either through uploading or through other people’s uploaded content,
To use Pinterest, one simply registers on the website. Then they can search through the inbuilt Pinterest search bar for whatever idea they are looking for.
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 any 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 also lets users watch it for free.
YouTube was founded by three former Paypal employees. The initial thought of YouTube was an online dating service but that idea failed.
What they had now was a video uploading site that had exceptional features of uploading and viewing. From here YouTube went only upwards.
It was funded by angel investors and was doing 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 kind of video they might be looking for.
YouTube in itself has a ranking system for videos.
Creators usually 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 that allows for 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 pin-boards. 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 and shopping catalog site. On the other hand, YouTube has been a social media service from the start and it is driven by that only.
- Pinterest allows users to include outbound links easily. You can drive traffic to your website, blog, social media through Pinterest. On the other hand, YouTube does not allow outbound links easily, although you can still drive traffic outside.
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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.
