Unlocking the Potential of Pinterest Shuffles for Brands

Pinterest is one of the largest visual search engines — and users want to use their pins in a range of visual content. 

Pinterest’s answer for its users? Pinterest Shuffles, an app that lets users express their creativity and make unique collages from their seemingly endless image library. Pinterest Shuffles lets anyone be a collage designer and create their own unique, high quality graphics straight from their mobile device. 

Since Pinterest Shuffles is a separate app from the native Pinterest app, many users might not realize the tool at their fingertips. In this blog, we explore Pinterest Shuffles including: 

• What is Pinterest Shuffles?
• How do you use Pinterest Shuffles?
• How to use Pinterest Shuffles for your brand or business.
• How to grow your brand on Pinterest Shuffles.
• Pinterest Shuffles brand examples.
• How to improve your Pinterest strategy.

What Is Pinterest Shuffle?

Pinterest Shuffles is a mobile app that lets users add elements and animation, crop and place images from their camera roll or Pinterest over one another to create unique create collage-like images. However, users shouldn’t feel limited by this format — brands can use icons and images from Pinterest (plus images from their own library) to create a slew of visuals that tell stories, inform and instruct with ‘how-to’ visuals and more.

What’s more, Shuffles are perfectly sized for Stories, which makes this app great to create story content, Reels covers and more. 

Shuffles have been around since 2022 and have recently expanded to Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands. 

What Is a Reshuffle?

A Reshuffle or Remix is when you edit, add or alter someone else's Shuffle on the app. Brands can Remix content that fits their brand or aligns with a product release or campaign — see a beautiful, ocean-themed shuffle that fits your newest beachy perfume? This can be a great opportunity to add your product to their Shuffle. Make sure to share and tag the creator on your social channels. It's a great way to leverage UGC and promote collaboration through content sharing.

For brands, Reshuffles also presents an opportunity to build their community while creating eye-catching collages. Brands can run contests that encourage their followers to Remix and Reshuffle their content, or collaborate with creators and influencers with larger followings to increase their reach, follower count and ultimately grow their brand’s online presence. 

When sharing other creators’ content to your Pinterest account, credit the original creator, but also focus on driving traffic to your own accounts and website in your Pinterest description. Once the Remix is shared, there’s an option in Pinterest to link your website. 

Be sure to follow Pinterest’s best practices for Remixes — be kind, experiment and give credit if you share content, even if you redesign a Shuffle. 

How Do You Use Pinterest Shuffles?

Pinterest Shuffles are fairly easy to use, however, they can’t be made in the native app. Shuffles are often used to create collages but can also be used by brands to create inspiration boards, product tutorials or how-tos for other products. These can then be shared on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or even a TikTok carousel. 

How To Add Images to Pinterest Shuffles

Right now, there are a few different ways to add images to Shuffles. Users can either add images from Pinterest or use images in the Shuffles app. Fortunately, there are hundreds of free images available for use, from products to logos to icons to abstract flourishes to make content your own. The following are examples of how to add images to the Shuffles app.

• Search Pinterest.
• Add your own images.
• Stickers from Shuffles.
• Add pictures from your Pinterest boards or an uploaded catalog to integrate shoppable information.

How To Use Pinterest Shuffles for Your Brand

Brands can use Pinterest Shuffles to create content for their Pinterest account, Instagram Stories, or TikTok posts. It’s simple, user-friendly and accessible to anyone on your marketing team. 

Before posting Shuffles content to their profiles, brands should make sure the images aren't copyrighted. To do this, you can navigate to the original poster’s profile for more information or conduct an advanced Google search and select ‘free to use and share’ under the ‘Usage Rights’ section to ensure images are free to use in promotional visuals.

The following are examples of how brands can use the Pinterest Shuffles app to their advantage: 

• Collages for new products or launches. They can be used to showcase the inspiration for a new product — for example, a fragrance brand could create a collage for a new scent by showing the visual elements that inspired the bottle, scent notes or even the mood the scent provokes (i.e. warm beaches, exotic places, Paris in the Spring etc). Alternatively, a fashion brand could use the Pinterest collage feature to show how to style their newest clothing or accessory items as a complete look. The same with room inspiration for home goods brands.     

• Contests. Brands can run contests in their campaigns on Shuffles that encourage engagement. Whether it’s a new product release, a seasonal shift or whatever your particular campaign focuses on, users can Remix and share your brand’s Shuffles to not only help increase awareness for your brand, but to share their handle with a larger audience. This is great for users to leverage the higher following that brands tend to receive on social, for brands to connect with their community and to grow their brand identity on Pinterest and Pinterest Shuffles. 
• Content creation for social media. Collages and mood boards are always popular on TikTok, Reels and Instagram. Share your branded collage with a trending sound, song, or audio. Get creative with video and walk your audience through your boards to further help convey the feeling or inspiration for your collages. ‍
• Collaborate with creators and Influencers with Reshuffles. Brands looking to expand their audience and reach could create a collage featuring the products they want to promote and partner with creators or influencers using reshuffles to share that content. After you create a collage, creators can use reshuffles to share that original shuffle plus make any edits, changes or additions — essentially making the shuffle their own (featuring your product). Reshuffles feature an ‘inspired by’ tag on the bottom that credits the collage maker (you) and links back to your shuffle account to create a seamless shoppable collage opportunity.

How To Grow Your Brand on Pinterest Shuffles

Despite the range of images and opportunities to create stunning visuals, many brands are on Shuffles but not active — this presents a great opportunity for brands to adopt the app and Shuffles image style in a low-competition environment. 

More people than ever look to social for entertainment — while slick, professional, hi-fi images have their place in social media and advertising, many people look to this format of content for ideas. Pinterest Shuffles present a high-quality but organic feeling image that helps create a mood and inspiration while building brand awareness. 

• Collaborate with other brands, influencers or content creators. Larger companies can look to collaborate with other brands under a parent company, in the same niche or even a brand collaboration outside of your normal audience. A collage shuffle can have multiple links, enabling several products to be linked in one image.
• Encourage UGC. Encourage your audience who already use Shuffles to reshuffle your collages or create new ones with your existing Pins. As an incentive, host contests with reshuffles — give out a prize for the winner based on backlinks, engagement or creativity.
• Use Hashtags and Links. Like almost every social media platform, hashtags are a great way to get found. Make sure you're using trending, popular hashtags for your niche and create shuffles with Pins linking your Pinterest board or product.
• Educate your audience. Here’s an opportunity to educate your audience on your product or brand — is a new range of lipsticks meant to inspire feelings of confidence and courage? This is a great opportunity to incorporate images of the lipstick, models wearing the lipstick, and images and phrases that evoke a cool, confident image. Hence, users understand your brand’s vision even better. 

Using Pinterest Shuffles as a Shoppable Opportunity

Pinterest is a platform that attracts 463 million people monthly. It's a source of entertainment and inspiration for people’s purchasing decisions — of these users. There’s been a 40% increase in Gen Z Pinners and a 35% increase in Millennial Pinners. Shuffles present an opportunity to reach these users with inspiration or products they’ve already pinned and pursued on their path to purchase. 

Pinterest itself allows brands to pull in their Product Catalog to create an easy shopping experience for brands and users — they’re also looking to bring e-commerce experiences to other aspects of the platform, like video or Shuffles. 

Gen Z, in particular, are big users of Shuffles and even use Shuffles as an interactive marketplace for trendy shoppable ideas. This creates a new avenue for savvy brands to reach new audiences and demographics, create new, fun shoppable experiences, and create visuals that will resonate with new consumers.  

Examples of Brands Using Pinterest Shuffles

Collage-based apps aren’t just for personal use and brands that think this can miss out on a world of creation and opportunity. Here’s how a few major brands use Pinterest Shuffles to their advantage: 

UGG

UGG uses Pinterest Shuffles to create style inspiration based on their clothing, accessories and shoes. They use a variety of colors, styles and layouts to determine which Shuffles content resonates best with users. 

Princess Polly 

Princess Polly uses Pinterest Shuffles to create themed style inspiration based on their products and UGC — for example, one pin focuses on denim looks, while one focuses on comfortable sweatsuit outfit ideas. 

Fenty Beauty 

Fenty Beauty uses Pinterest Shuffles to create beauty inspiration based on their products, but most images are dedicated to the overall ‘vibe’ of the look. This is a great way to inspire their audience to try different products and experiment with the Fenty products they do own. 

Urban Outfitters 

Urban Outfitters retail stores carry a range of products, from home goods to beauty and clothing. Urban Outfitters uses Shuffles to create inspiration that uses products from all of these groups — they can create a ‘vibe’ for users with different styles using products that fit within this unique style. 

Rare Beauty 

Rare Beauty uses Pinterest Shuffles to highlight their celebrity founder — celebrities who are engaged with their audience both on their business and personal accounts tend to see a higher average share of voice from their social accounts.

Improve Your Pinterest Strategy

Once you set up your Pinterest Shuffles account, you can use Dash Hudson’s Pinterest Insights tool to test and measure the performance of your linked Pins from Shuffles to discover which imagery engages your brand's target market to drive the most traffic, revenue and ROI.

Pinterest Insights also uses AI-powered insights to predict which content in your visual library has the best chance to perform well. With Content Segmentation, you can keep your content organized by campaign, product type, product catalog, or any other specific grouping to keep your Pinterest strategy well-organized and make scheduling content a breeze. Pinterest Insights also pull in e-commerce analytics to keep you informed of the content driving conversions. Enabling you to easily measure the impact your creative efforts have on your business goals. 

FAQs

Is Shuffle by Pinterest still invite-only?

No, Shuffle by Pinterest is no longer invite-only. Users with an iOS device can download the app from either the App Store — you must also have a Pinterest account. 

Do I need a Pinterest Shuffles code? 

No, users no longer need a Pinterest Shuffles code to use the app or share content. As long as users have a Pinterest account and the Shuffles app downloaded (plus have granted access to images in your settings). 

Is Pinterest Shuffles on Android? 

Unfortunately, Shuffles are currently available for iOS users only — Android users, keep an eye on the Google Play store for the app's release.

Can you use Pinterest Shuffles for your business?

Yes, you can use Pinterest Shuffles for your business! It’s important to ensure you don’t use copyrighted images (which can easily be sussed out with a reverse Google image search), but brands should definitely experiment with Shuffles to create exciting, unique visuals.