Pinterest was originally a simple photo sharing platform, but now it has become a powerful shopping tool, and many users may have eaten a lot of Amway without knowing it.

On Pinterest, it’s hard to tell the difference between an ad and a common share. For example, enter a keyword related to clothing in the search box, and you will get a batch of images that look like street or art photos, maybe only When you see the price and inventory tags on the details page, you realize that this is not an ordinary picture, but a promotion of the business. The original link of the picture is also directed to the purchase page of the business.

▲ Image from: Pinterest

This is the two marketing tools Pinterest launched last year: Products Pins and Shop the Look Pins.

Pinterest means that when people browse the pictures on the website, they are always planted, so simply put the purchase link out to facilitate the user to pull the grass in time, and also recommend similar products below the picture details page., like Taobao, Amazon’s “Guess you like it.” The user can even press the product image for a long time, and click the shopping tab in the pop-up menu to enter the image stream composed entirely of merchandise.

In March of this year, Pinterest also invited a number of brands to allow them to upload their catalogs to Pinterest for free. Today, when traffic is getting more and more expensive, this is also a small bonus.

Pinterest will also develop technology based on the needs of the gold master. For example, the map search function was upgraded last month, allowing users to take photos of their favorite colors and search for Home Depot paints and jump to the purchase page.

Shop the Look is an Instagram-like markup feature that is open to KOL. When KOLs upload photos for wear, home, etc., they can mark the items in the photos and attach links. Pinterest also has a dedicated KOL platform, ShopStyle Collective, which seems to be interested in MCN.

However, the level of KOL on Pinterest seems to be mixed. Some bloggers are eager to realize their enthusiasm. The sharing guide is just a simple splicing of different product pictures, which greatly affects the viewing.

Pinterest’s diversion is quite good, they are Quartz said that since the launch of the Pinterest Pin in October last year, the number of clicks on the merchant’s website has increased by a factor of two.

Although shopping on Pinterest sounds a bit strange, it may be becoming mainstream. According to Cowen and Company’s report, less than half of Pinterest’s users will go shopping or find products on the platform. In contrast, the main purpose of shopping is only a small part of social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Quartz think this may be Pinterest this year The reason why technology companies’ IPOs are generally underperforming can still achieve a good start on the day of listing.

However, Pinterest’s advertising monetization capabilities have not been fully exploited. Last year, Pinterest’s advertising sales revenue was only $700 million, up 50% year-on-year, but still below the platforms that may not be suitable for advertising, perhaps Twitter users. Very disgusted with a wide flow of informationBut it did not prevent the social giant with 320 million active users from getting $791 million in advertising last year.

▲ Image from: Instagram

Commodity shopping guide is almost the realization of all content platforms, and Instagram, which also focuses on image sharing, is in front of Pinterest. This platform has experienced diversion and network red goods, and has entered the loop of creating traffic. At the stage, the Checkout feature, launched in March of this year, allows users to directly purchase favorite products on Instagram without having to visit the brand or merchant’s official website.

Pinterest, which holds a large number of user interest libraries, probably won’t be satisfied with just for merchants.

The title map is from: Pinterest