If a few years back Pinterest was just a simple social network for mostly women with too much free time but today we can say that this network has started being embraced by men as well.
Pinterest is enjoying the proper attention coming from brands, but in particular the one coming from advertisers. Although we can currently count approximately 70 million users (vs. Facebook’s 1 billion) but it’s more important to look beyond the numbers and notice the long-term opportunity.
I think Pinterest will begin playing an important role, moreover, will be a game changer when it will officially launch the Buy button worldwide. Exactly! That little blue button that will make the difference and that will easily and subtly make its way into the phone of the user that seeks to solve a problem.
So far I have only discovered two categories of people using Pinterest:
1. Those looking for inspiration for their everyday work (designers, photographers, advertisers, marketers, bloggers, chefs, etc.)
2. Those using it only for creating content (uploading photos from their blog and other photos/video in order to attract traffic on the platform)
But just think of it this way: what if we would combine these two points (seeking inspiration and creating content) for brands that want to provide a solution for the Pinterest community? What if the boards created could solve a problem and the solution could be bought straight from the network? Here’s how we nicely arrive at the buy button mention above.
Millward Brown has released a study showing that Pinterest plays an important role in the purchase of a product (why do you think that I keep talking about visual marketing?!). From the study made on 2,000 people who have used Pinterest in the past 6 months the following things have emerged :
- 96% have used Pinterest to look up information
- 93% have used Pinterest aiming to buy a product
- 87% have purchased a product because of Pinterest
What does this mean? It means that Pinterest will play an important role in the future of e-commerce & publishing, but also in native advertising (but let’s be honest, this native advertising stuff is still just advertising, we’re just trying to give it a more non-commercial advertising touch for customers and potential customers).
But besides the Buy button, Pinterest has also launched Cinematic Pins – a .GIF type of content that is activated as soon as the user uses the scroll. Oh, and let’s not forget the possibility of Promoted Pins!
I’m not waiting for a tremendous explosion, but I do think that those who will start using Pinterest need to think long-term, build a community and provide a solution- not just for the sake of awareness, but rather for being able to answer the question “What can we do to help you?”.
Update: I will let you with an infographic from Quicksprout that is helping you get your first 1000 followers.
Shutterstock | Pinterest
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