Pinterest is sometimes overlooked when prioritizing social media platforms and that’s because the most pinned ideas often center on planning a wedding, decorating a home office, or creating mood boards. The discovery of finding new inspirational pins is what has made Pinterest the leading social media platform for fast conversion leads and sales.
Pinterest has been around for over a decade and shouldn’t be new to brands. According to Ben Silbermann, CEO and co-founder of Pinterest, “We welcomed over 100 million additional monthly active users to Pinterest in 2020, more than any other year in our history, and now we reach more than 450 million monthly active users around the world.”
Traffic Driven Platform
The platform’s focus on imagery allows it to function almost as a second storefront. Luxury brands are natural storytellers due to their artisan heritage and craftsmanship. As a result, Pinterest provides a platform for users eager to visually discover the stories behind the brand or a product.
Some luxury brands have been optimizing Pinterest to their advantage. Burberry, Louis Vuttion, and Fendi have created profiles that look and function like an online store. Recently, Pinterest released AR features that are free and available to all brands making virtual try-on and interactions easier. Not only have these brands been able to tag products in photos that link directly to e-commerce, but they have also been able to include images from ad campaigns, runway shows, behind-the-scenes, and influencer partnerships, making the visuals more engaging.
Gucci is creating pins in a new and innovative way rather than just highlighting products. They have been able to create a brand story and showcase the inspiration behind their collections. The board titled “The Art of Beauty ” has pins of portraits from famous museums that highlight art history. The creativity being brought out in the pins sparks the discovery and inspiration Pinterest users are seeking.
When it comes to luxury design or hardware design brands on Pinterest, Buster and Punch has been able to create a strong following of over 10 million and 1.6 million monthly views. The company organizes its products in labeled boards by application and material. This strategy not only looks more appealing but makes it faster for users to find pins. The success of their account has been attributed to the way they style their hardware as lifestyle shots, allowing customers to envision the hardware in their dream homes.
Brand Awareness
One of social media marketing’s main approaches to expanding business is through creating and increasing brand awareness. Pinterest is made for brand awareness due to the lifespan of a pin. The long tail content strategy increases constant visibility for weeks or even months after it’s posted. The content you create can become everlasting on Pinterest and continues to generate traffic as time goes on, with the ultimate goal of converting a casual browser into an engaged customer.
The lifespan of a pin is also contributed to the fact that one pin can be shared to multiple boards, allowing it to resurface in a variety of different search terms. The use of board descriptions gives Pinterest context of each pin and provides additional information so the algorithm can surface more accurate search results. For example, one photo of a new dress with a description including event or seasonal can be shown in a search for, “Summer fashion inspiration” and or “Cocktail Party Dress”.
Imagine this scenario, a consumer who is attending a wedding and needs new red heels but is unsure of the exact style. When typing “red heels” in the Pinterest search bar, a variety of different shades of red-colored heels are displayed and ready for the user to explore. The user isn’t searching for a specific brand name but rather visually discovering all of the options available.
Protecting The Brand
It isn’t uncommon to see accounts posing as high-end brands with counterfeit products. Most of the content being posted on those accounts is not aligned with the luxury brand’s story or values. To protect the brand, many companies have created their “official” brand page but have yet to start pinning to avoid the creation of fake accounts. Balenciaga has over 34k followers and not one pin, keeping their audience on edge. This strategy can lead to more attention for new launches and campaigns creating excitement and anticipation. Keep an eye out for a new Balenciaga Pinterest launch.
Ads on Pinterest
Similar to other social media platforms, Pinterest offers advertisers the opportunity to get their products in front of users, and it has expanded its formats to include video, shopping, retargeting, and carousels. The ad results can be easily tracked through Pinterest’s tags.
Studies show, “when brands use shopping ads on Pinterest, they drive 3x the conversion and sales lift, and twice the positive incremental return on ad spend”. Pinterest users open their feeds in hopes of discovering new products or ideas to take action on. This presents not only luxury brands with tremendous opportunity, but all brands the opportunity to capture new audiences with trend insights and consumer behavior.
Pinterest’s recent growth and consistent feature updates should not be overlooked. Your brand should be creating content that consistently presents fresh ideas to new audiences, which is exactly what the platform is designed for and can benefit any company, small or large, luxury or not. Alongside new ideas and product releases, brands, both B2B and B2Cm have the potential to consistently create evergreen content that drives more traffic to their website, making Pinterest a desirable and profitable platform.
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