Social Media for eCommerce - Pinterest: Why You Need It and How to Use It

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networking sites, boasting a 5% increase in unique visitors between February and March of this year. The pin-board functionality lends itself to theoretical planning, personal organization and daydreaming – making it especially appealing to its 80% female (and household decision maker) user base who may pin about lifestyle, cooking, and fashion, which are often further broken down into even narrower categories, created a plethora of individual boards.

The possibilities are just as endless for retailers, wherein the ability to create multiple pin-boards allows them to strategically arrange photos, videos and various content of their choosing to create an emotional rapport between their brand and/or product and their followers. Using this figurative scrapbooking method, retailers can enable followers to visualize the practical application of any single or combination of products, playing on the notion that if a shopper can see how a product fits into their life the more likely it is to seem indispensable. 

Whole Foods’ Pinterest is notoriously the epitome of emotional evocation with 40 boards showcasing recipes, books and lifestyle items that promote Whole Foods’ better living philosophy. There is nothing commercial about any of the Whole Foods’ Pinterest boards, rather they show you how buying good food can be made into intricate wholesome meals, how eating well fuels your body, and how good fuel can put you in the right mindset to strengthen your body and the environment – how mellow does that make you feel?

Some of Whole Foods' Pinterest boards

Forever 21 takes a more retail-minded stance, producing boards which group trends, clothing types and wardrobe personalities, then displaying prices on pins that link to the eCommerce site where items can be purchased. While Pinreach reports that users prefer pins that are not-overtly commercial such as those displaying price banners as Forever 21 does, they are still anxious to find, share and act on content they like; Internet Retailer’s Zak Stambor wrote that 32% of online shoppers made purchases as a result of products viewed on Pinterest. Since searching a subject can yield any result – commercial or not – if tagged appropriately, visibility of any product is easy.

A pin from Forever 21's Pinterest board