Pinterest Powers up Creators With New Tools During Stressful Times

Pinterest’s Global Director of Creator Marketing, Colleen Stauffer, said that the content on Pinterest is about the people and what they want in their life. Further adding to her statement, Stauffer explained that the platform really tried to harness planning that turned into way more short-term amid the pandemic last year. They wanted to fit users in their current lives and the way they planned in the hour.

This ever-lasting pandemic not only changed our lives out in the physical world but also transformed our digital lives altogether. It shifted the demands people placed on familiar tools. Marketers must pay attention to these changes on social media platforms. The trends cut deep into the human experience for creators of these communities.

Long before the pandemic emerged, the platform knew the tendency for ‘pinners’ (a fancy name for Pinterest users) to be “future-looking” in the content they looked up. They might be redesigning a room in their house, or perhaps they were planning a vacation. But with the emergence of this global pandemic, those same users were now seeking short-term solutions. For example, what easy and healthy breakfast could they make before sitting down for a work-from-home virtual meeting while their kid attended online classes on the laptop?

Last year in March 2020, in a quick response to the increased demand, Pinterest accelerated the rollout of their “Today” tab. It lets users receive instant updates from reliable sources such as the WHO (World Health Organization) and CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Pinners could also discover child-friendly baking recipes and recommended shows and movies to fill up all the spare time indoors.

Powering up Pinterest Creators

Besides helping its users navigate this stressful period, the platform has also taken measures to strengthen and expand its community. Typically, Pinterest has done so to set itself apart from other social networking platforms such as YouTube and Instagram rather than pursuing the standard social media practice. While there are options to follow, comment, and share on Pinterest, the company has flatly denied being a social media platform for years. It defines itself as a visual discovery platform.

However, what they like to call themselves is not as crucial as what they help their community members do. For marketers, this is vital because last summer, Pinterest saw more than 400 million active users per month. It is growing in popularity among Zoomers and Millennials, with a 50% increase for men YOY on the platform. 

Strengthening its creator base powers up the whole Pinterest community, making it even more worthwhile to brands. The steps Pinterest is taking in this direction demonstrate how people and their preferences have shifted over time.

Last year in September, Pinterest rolled out Story Pins that allow creators to tell visual and dynamic multi-page stories with videos, images, text, and links. Its beta version also incorporated a new creator profile and analytics tools for tracking performance. The platform is also providing the creators with access to analytics via its trends tool.

In essence, this new Story Pins format is a bet against how other digital platforms tell stories. For example, Instagram and Facebook Stories expire after 24 hours of posting them. In contrast, the stories on Pinterest stay where they are, thus leveraging the evergreen value in Pinterest content. This feature lets users discover and rediscover content that they may have missed earlier.

This new beta version of Story Pins also allows creators to post to Pinterest directly. In addition to this, users can browse and then send messages to creators through the new profile within the platform directly.

For this feature, Colleen Stauffer said that the creators want their content to live in a single place, and the ability to create content on the platform directly has been a need for Pinterest users. They want to discover a great food creator, check out their Story Pin, and get the recipe quickly, all within the Pinterest ecosystem.

Influencing and Shopping

With creators and pinners getting to engage with the created content all in a single place, the platform is also acquiring eCommerce potential. According to reports, it is expected that social commerce sales alone will exceed $36 billion in 2021, that too, in the United States alone!

Pinterest is already making moves in this direction to make its platform more shoppable, such as via its Story Pins. In fact, the platform has currently launched a “Try On” feature that uses AR technology to allow users to virtually try on a few beauty products. It proves to be the case that users who try this feature are 5x more likely to show purchase intent.

As per Stauffer, around 89% of weekly Pinterest users turn to the platform for inspiration in their buyer journey, thus confirming creators’ potential to influence their purchasing decisions. Moreover, according to reports, a whopping 83% of weekly pinners have purchased a product based on the content they saw on Pinterest.

Stauffer said that Pinterest is a visual discovery platform, and each time a user comes across a product s/he likes, they should be able to purchase it or something similar to it, depending on their personal taste. Furthermore, she said that this is their vision for shopping with Pinterest. The platform has rolled out shopping products that bring shopping everywhere across Pinterest, which includes the company’s Verified Merchant Program and their partnership with Shopify, where businesses can upload their product feeds easily and convert them into shoppable Pins.

Stauffer further said that in the upcoming months, the platform would be launching product tagging for Story Pins, allowing creators to tag particular products within their stories and reach pinners who are planning to shop.

Wrapping It Up: Next-level Influencing for Pinterest Creators

Now the main question is what does the future of influencing on Pinterest look like?

Pinterest is progressively taking vital steps to grow and strengthen its community. With more and more brands capitalizing on the platform’s new advertising formats, using promoted pins and the right keywords, and collaborating with creators who have a decent following, the platform’s influencing potential is growing exponentially.

The platform already enjoys a highly and actively engaged community of Pinners and creators, and with the addition of a more powerful influencer community, Pinterest will be even more competitive in the rising social commerce market. With the visual discovery platform rethinking stories and influencers, it has taken the whole influencing game to the next level.

Moreover, the future-looking behavior of Pinterest users can also offer hope for relief amid stressful times like this pandemic. In fact, as per Stauffer, the Pinners have already begun searching for vacations again!