Pinterest joins Insta, YouTube, Facebook & TikTok in Creator Commerce push

Pinterest is finally flexing its social commerce muscles, offering brands and creators new opportunities, in line with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok etc.

Pinterest has announced new tools to allow marketers to partner with creators to drive sales through Idea Pins.

Idea Pins launched in May 2021, and now they will be shoppable. Creators will earn money via affiliate links and brand partnerships by tagging products in their pins – which will let fans purchase a tagged product.

Pinterest Newsroom

“Pinterest is like a massive catalogue with hundreds of millions of Product Pins uploaded by retailers, ingested through a partnership with Shopify, and saved by Pinners.

People come to Pinterest to shop, and that propensity increases with Idea Pins, in fact, we found that Pinners are 89% more likely to exhibit shopping intent on products tagged in Idea Pins than on standalone Product Pins.

Now, Creators can tap into that catalogue and harness that shopping intent by tagging specific products in their own Idea Pins.”

Idea Pins could be a critical step for Pinterest, as brands increase influencer marketing budgets from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $13.8 billion in 2021.

60 seconds in Heaven

Idea Pins are videos that allow creators to combine music, interactive elements and video.

Videos in Idea Pins can last up to 60 seconds and include no more than 20 pages per pin. Creators can also tag others using their @username – could that be your brand?

Since launch, Idea Pins have performed well – the number of Idea Pins created daily is up 7x. Impressions from Idea Pins are up 10x.

Videos can include detail pages, where viewers can find content such as recipe ingredients or instructions or a how-to for a craft project.

However, the purchase process isn’t as easy as it is on an app like Instagram. Users who wish to buy something they see on an Idea Pin will be taken to another Pinterest page for the specific product before being directed to a retailer’s website.

Idea Pins don’t stack up to other social commerce initiatives in this aspect, and it’ll be interesting to see if Pinterest looks to improve this aspect as soon as possible.

A great opportunity

Brands and marketers can take advantage of Idea Pins to increase visibility and revenue from a platform known as the place you go to search for products or ideas.

Pinterest says that users are way more likely to show purchase intent on Idea Pins than regular ones. That means there’s a lot of potential income floating around the internet just waiting to be claimed by brands who embrace Idea Pins.

Usage is also up – Pinterest has seen a 20x increase in product searches since the end of 2020.

Creating an Idea Pin is pretty straightforward, but you do need to have a business account first.

1. Idea Pins work best as videos. Tell your story to your audience, but make sure to include text overlay to include those who scroll with sound off.
2. Be original and plan your content to flow like a story, so include a start, middle and end.
3. Make sure the detail page is filled in and correct – that’s the whole point of Idea Pins in the first place!

Pinterest will make it easier to disclose brand partnerships

Pinterest has also announced plans to make it easier to disclose when a creator is working with a brand in Idea Pins.

Pinterest Newsroom

“We know many Creators have established partnerships with brands and want to highlight their branded content across Pinterest. Today, we’re introducing in beta a new paid partnerships tool that allows Creators to disclose their paid partnerships.”

Brands will benefit from this, too. Creators who add branded content to Idea Pins will be able to tag brands, which should increase exposure and reach for marketers.

Pinterest plans to make it easier for Creators to make money from Pinterest, but that will come in conjunction with revved-up brand partnerships – which can only delight marketers.

The paid partnership tool is live for Creators in Australia and New Zealand and the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Colombia Peru.