Pinterest has been a wildfire since it was first introduced to the marketplace. Since May of 2011, unique visitors to the site have increased by 2,702%—making it the fastest growing site in its time, ever.
Now that every woman in your gym class, church group, PTA or circle of friends – all to the 25 million of them – knows about Pinterest, it has the attention of every retailer’s marketing team with any sense.
Because of the speedy growth, Pinterest is now in a transitional period where companies and retailers know it’s important to get some skin in the game, but are still learning how and why. Additionally, owners of Pinterest are trying to figure out how to make their golden goose lay some eggs.
The company is worth $2 billon due to the fact that its users drive traffic and spend money on the retailers who use it well. And, with enough time under Pinterest’s belt for some research, we’re learning some interesting facts about its impact. For example, 25% of all retail referral traffic comes through Pinterest.
Because of these impressive numbers, Pinterest CEO and Co-Founder, Ben Silbermann, knows there are opportunities to expand the asset they have built so well. “We are in the early days of figuring out how we can help brands create value for our users and how users can get inspiration from brands.”
On May 20th the company unveiled plans to roll out rich pins, which essentially allow companies to pay to embed information (the price of an item or where to buy it) into a pin. The information can also be updated as prices and available quantities change, and then be removed when the item has been sold out. Rich pins are currently available for products, recipes and movies; but it is presumed that additional categories will be developed as the technology advances.
There are incentives for companies to participate in some of these paid advertising opportunities—studies have shown that pins that post a price receive 36% more likes than those that do not. And, the greater the social engagement, the more likely retailers are to sell their products.
For the time being, the most important thing companies can do is establish a presence and get familiar with using Pinterest in a commercial setting. Pinterest’s approach to develop more advertising and paid promotional opportunities is focused on the way that companies and individuals are using the site, so start pinning!