Is Pinterest becoming a social media gamechanger? In this blog we break down what Idea Pins mean for social media marketing and how these are different from Instagram Stories.
Introducing Idea Pins, Pinterest's new feature that makes creators' work easier to discover and share.
Pinterest is rolling out ‘Idea Pins’ on their platform, which means pinners with business accounts can create multi-media stories and build engaged communities within Pinterest.
These stories are being rolled out in the: US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As you can see from below, this tool offers different creation modes to share long lasting stories. With these ideas being available forever on the platform, unlike Instagram’s ‘ephemeral stories.’ So how could Idea Pins benefit your business?
In their press release Pinterest stated 475 million Pinners wanted to engage with video and explore content directly on Pinterest.
This is unsurprising with 95% 16-24 year olds in the UK watching video content and businesses' social media strategy ‘humanising their brand’. Businesses now more than ever need to utilise video content to create brand personality, increase user credibility and grow revenue.
Pinterest is expanding content creation. They are shifting away from being a search and discovery platform and incorporating interactive video content to increase online user engagement and brand recognisability. Idea Pins now allows business account users to share up to 20 pages of video or image content that’s also mobile friendly, displaying in full stream view on mobile devices. With people spending more time consuming content this allows brands to continuously “create inspiring content… build more engaging communities and better interact with their audiences".
Pinterest is furthering creative brand storytelling. Similar to Instagram Stories, Idea Pins have a variety of creation and editing modes. Some name features include: voiceovers, music selection, people/topic tagging, sticker modes and ‘Ghost’ mode transition tools (for before and after). According to Pinterest, ‘Idea Pins will give creators all the elements they need to tell their story.” This editing suite allows for effective creative storytelling, using a narrative to showcase your brand values in a relatable and memorable way. Which Forbes says is a necessity in maximising your business’s visibility, profit, and impact.
Pinterest is allowing users to repurpose content. One of the biggest selling points of Idea Pins is being able to reshare content onto different platforms. Once you have published your pin, you can export this easily beyond Pinterest. The only downside is that it still includes the Pinterest watermark and original username. However, this is common practice for mobile video content and can increase user traffic towards their initial content. Increasing user engagement and expanding your online presence; without having to spend time creating new content and boost traffic through paid avenues
This move is certainly very interesting for Pinterest users. As a self-described ‘visual discovery engine’, their purpose has always been to spread inspiration. However, they are distancing themselves from a passive moodboard platform to an active design collective database. Which most importantly has user engagement at the forefront.
Previously, Pinners could only see and save pins to boards or collections. Passively saving this inspiration, to look at later and create visually aesthetic moodboards. However the implementation of the ‘Shop’ section in March 2019 gave businesses a dedicated section to drive sales to their website. The addition of Idea Pins, means pinners can follow creators of interest and consume educational brand content. Effectively giving businesses a larger revenue platform to increase their brand personality and associated click through rates.
From the first implementation of Idea Pins, Pinterest has seen the number of Idea Pins created grow by x4 times since January. And in April 2021, they saw 9x times the average comment rate on Idea Pins compared to standard Pins. This means that users are finding Idea Pins ‘more engaging and actionable’, largely due to this video content being visually engaging and sparking Pinners inspiration. All of which spark a wider conversation, increasing user engagement and the all important content saves.
With more brands humanising their brands, sharing relatable content snippets that refer to your brand purpose and user interests, we envision Idea Pins being an important factor in an effective social media strategy. Want more insights in the latest social media trends? Check out our 2021 rundown here.
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