Pinterest is fast becoming the new frontier when it comes to brand promotion. Since its inception in 2010, the image sharing platform has surpassed a number of its social media peers like Snapchat and tumblr. As of late, Pinterest has also managed to gain more referral traffic to retailers than LinkedIn, YouTube, and Google+, making the site a new tool in marketer’s belts.
How has Pinterest become popular among consumers and brands looking to market their product? For starters, the colorful catalog of shared ideas is free for its more than 11 million unique users, and visually appealing as well with its simple layout of colorful square images. It also delivers instant gratification in a fast moving digital world where users want easy navigation and a large amount of information in one place.
There is something for everyone; food ideas and recipes, home décor, book suggestions, car advice, DIY inspired projects with step by step instructions, making it the perfect place to target consumers in a more organic way without making them feel pressured or annoyed by traditional advertising.
Wayfair, the Boston based e-commerce company that sells home goods, has become a major success story for Pinterest. Prior to its promotion on the image sharing site, Wayfair was relatively unknown in the U.S. Now the company is thriving thanks to an increase in brand awareness and an impressive content marketing campaign that not only gives consumers DIY ideas, but a place to buy what they need to execute home improvement projects easily.
“Visual imagery drives inspiration, it’s what makes you want to buy things,” Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah said. “We sell things [on our sites] in the same way.”
Wayfair maintains 163 vibrant boards on Pinterest with an impressive 63.2k followers where consumers can find just about anything from how to choose the perfect color scheme to how to create the perfect wall gallery. The popularity of certain boards are also a huge indicator to brands in terms of what is in demand and trending, allowing companies to see what consumers want.
“Integrating with Pinterest’s API allows us to showcase the Wayfair.com products Pinterest users engage with the most,” said Patrick Baker, Wayfair.com’s social advertising senior analyst. “We hope this will aid our customers in discovering some of the most visually exciting products in our catalog.”
Wayfair is just one of many brands finding success with Pinterest. We spoke with JustFab.Com about their decision to utilize the photo platform. The California based retailer uses Pinterest to promote their clothes and accessories. According to Kimberly Tobman, Vice President of Global Communications, Pinterest has helped increase the company’s sales.
“As an engagement tool, our social media team has been using Pinterest for a while. Pinterest users, more so than other platforms, often have an intent to purchase so as we have pinned for engagement and content, we have always seen a nice lift in sales from the channel.”
Pinterest has also helped JustFab raise their brand’s awareness. “We started advertising with Pinterest a few months ago and are continuing to test for our various brands. We have found that social channels work well as an advertisement platforms – Pinterest being one of the newer channels,” Tobman shared. Adding, “It’s still early to compare it to Facebook, but we are optimistic about the results and will continue to test and advertise our brands through Pinterest.”
In January 2015, Pinterest announced their plans to begin showing brand’s promoted pins in users’ home feeds. Doing so would only help increase a brand’s exposure in a more natural way. The media platform is also taking it a step beyond social media, and now giving users a reason to stay on the site to complete their purchasing decisions. Consumers now have the option to purchase through certain participating brands on the platform – a sign of more growth to come.
