Pinterest Acquires Hunt and Pext

As Pinterest is moving towards the e-commerce space, it has acquired Hunt and Pext to build out streamlined selling capabilities. The Hunt features a similar format to Pinterest, but lets consumers track down items they covet. On the Hunt, users can post a picture of an item they are looking for, and other users offer shopping suggestions in form of comments. Pext, on the other hand, allows users to turn text messages into memes by connecting them with relevant images as they communicate via text. Given that Pinterest is an image platform, Pext will serve as an interesting communication tool for Pinterest to take its user engagement to the next level. Pinterest is also testing its "buy button" that enables users to quickly purchase items they discover on Pinterest. The acquisition of Hunt and Pext is undoubtedly the next step to more monetization.

The Social Commerce Growth Wave

While still a small contributor to overall e-commerce sales volumes, social commerce is becoming hard to ignore. Social media driven e-commerce revenue grew 26% in 2013 compared with 16% growth in e-commerce overall. With the recent introduction of advertising on Instagram and "Buy" buttons on Pinterest social commerce growth has the potential to grow significantly. Currently Facebook is the primary driver with 50% share of social referrals and 64% of total social revenue but Instagram and Pinterest are likely to start taking share with the introduction of "Sponsored" posts and "Buy" buttons.

Before the introduction of sponsored posts Instagram was primarily used for brand building purposes but with the introduction of call to action tools such as LiketoOwn.it, it is also becoming an e-commerce tool. The visual and mobile-first nature of Instagram drives significantly more engagement than Facebook and Twitter. Brands can now capitalize on the higher engagement and credibility of recommendation factors to drive sales via Instagram. Even the sponsored ads on Instagram are much less disruptive to the user experience than say a Facebook ad or promoted Facebook post.

Pinterest recently introduced shoppable pins. They have the potential to drive significant conversion due to the search engine nature of the site. Consumers usually go to the site to search for things they are already looking to buy. By targeting users with shoppable pins based on past pins they have the potential not only to drive sales for their retail partners but also to increase engagement with their users by providing with what they are looking for. According to initial data shoppable pins are doubling the rate at which searches result in sales.  

Will Yahoo's Polyvore Purchase Pay Off?

Social commerce site Polyvore was purchased by Yahoo back in September for $230 million as part of Marissa Mayer's "MaVeNS," strategy to acquire more mobile, video, native and social assets. The site acts as a visual search engine for fashion products. They generate revenue through advertising real estate and affiliate fees providing Yahoo with another platform on which to leverage their advertising network.At present the company has around 9 million unique visitors per month, significantly below Pinterest's 76 million monthly visitors. The company plans to grow the user base through increased engagement with the fashion community, presumably through partnerships and/or influencers. For Polyvore, the ability to leverage the Yahoo name in order to establish valuable partnerships should accelerate growth but with Pinterest as the ubiquitous visual fashion discovery site it's unclear how Polyvore will ever catch up or compete. Pinterest's recent introduction of "Buy" buttons gives it yet another advantage as users can buy items directly through the site, a function Polyvore has been unable to add for technological reasons. After 8 years of operations Polyvore still has a major uphill battle to fight in the social commerce game. It will be interesting to see if Yahoo is able to monetize the ad real estate enough for the acquisition to have any positive returns.  

Pinterest’s New Tool Lets You Do Searches Using Pictures

Pinterest recently introduced a new search method using images, users will now be able to do wordless searches.
It is an interesting move, taking into account the visual nature of Pinterest, making perfect sense to enhance the experience of the user and allow visual searches.
This could finally open more doors for Pinterest in terms of advertising, and make money out of its pins.

Read more at: http://www.wired.com/2015/11/pinterests-new-tool-lets-you-do-searches-using-pictures/

Retailers' Digital Initiatives to prepare for the Holidays

With the holidays approaching, retail brands have reached its annual climax in unleashing marketing creativity. Given the growing popularity of online and mobile platform, brands like Sephora and Net-A-Porter have invested heavily on digital this year to forge an omni-channel shopping experience.

Sephora, the subsidiary brand of LVMH, has rolled out its first Flash Boutique in Paris, which served to ramp up its consumer experience through a mobile-connected experience. Consumers will be able to shop from a digital catalogue featuring more than 14,000 items from approximately 150 beauty markets in addition to its usual makeup collections. Should shoppers unable to locate certain products, they could virtually add the merchandise to their digital baskets that enable them to pick up the desired cosmetics from Sephora in the future.

In addition to digitalize its product catalogue, Sephora has opted to experiment its digital perfume testers, allowing shoppers to pick up a Communication tag for the scent so that they could scan it on a nearby screen to smell the fragrance and explore more about the product. Of course, if they are interested in purchasing the fragrance, they could simply add it to their digital basket.

Moreover, the Flash Boutique offers a selfie mirror to allow consumers snap photos whilst trying on new items. Sephora even offers customers the opportunity to win a 1,000 Euro gift card should they disperse their selfies across social media with appointed hashtags.

Net-A-Porter, the British online retailer, made use of Sky’s Adsmart platform to target ads at viewers based on a number of demographic factors so that different consumers will see different versions of its video campaigns. For example, for its most recent “All For You” advertisement, viewers who prefer to watch long and HD videos on YouTube would be shown the long version that delineates the retailer’s stellar service and transparency. On the other hand, should users demonstrate a viewing preference for short and catchy ads, the short 30-second version would appear.

Net-A-Porter has previously implemented multiple mobile initiatives this year. The social media app it launched in April – The Net Set, is now available for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The app enables designers, brands, fashion personalities and consumers to interact with each other real-time, sharing inspirations and their own sense of style in a two-way dialogue. Consumers will also be able to scroll through a feed of trending fashion items from across the world, give friends shopping advice, share images, interact with style icons, and view personalized “love lists”.

According to the 2015 GPShopper Holiday Mobile Shopping survey, 35 percent of consumers plan to create shopping lists and 24 percent intend to check product inventory from their phones. Pinterest has upgraded Product Pins so that they allow retailers to automatically update their merchandise inventory information through their product posts. Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr have planned to implement similar initiatives such as collaborating with fashion bloggers to make social media channels the forefront of fashion enthusiasts’ discussions.

Given the current social media trend, brands should perhaps learn from Sephora and Net-A-Porter, and to synthesize digital and Brick-and-Mortar shopping experience by allowing greater transparency of their product inventory and pricing information, creating target contents for different customer segments, and fostering long-term customer relationships through interacting more with followers.


Links:

http://www.luxurydaily.com/sephora-blends-mobile-with-bricks-and-mortar-for-first-connected-boutique/

http://www.luxurydaily.com/net-a-porter-mr-porter-sway-holiday-shoppers-in-new-campaign/

http://www.luxurydaily.com/checking-product-inventory-goes-mobile-this-         holiday-season-report/

Facebook implements new ad formats to support brands' marketing initiatives and to boost conversions.

 Facebook has implemented several new products to help brands increase their advertising performances.

The first product—Carousel Advertisements, allow brands to show multiple images and ultimately a link to some actions. The Carousel Ads are 10 times better at getting people to click through compared to the static sponsored posts.  Even the best of mobile banner ads garners only half of Click-Through Rate than that of a typical Carousel Ad.

The Carousel Ads also make users more likely to recall brands’ advertising campaigns. Compared with a 14-point lift from single-image ads, Carousel campaigns led to a 20-point boost in ad recall, as they allow for more of a conversation than a quick flyby.

In addition, Facebook announced earlier this week that it would feature on its mobile app a new video section, which would be populated with content that has been liked and saved by users, recommended by their friends, and posted by pages they follow. This approach would depart from Facebook’s current strategy of permeating users’ news feeds with non-targeted run-of-network videos.  Facebook also plans to improve its “Suggested Videos” tab to offer videos according to users’ profile and past viewing preference.

This could allow brands to provide differentiated viewing experience on YouTube and Facebook. Brands could post popular contents on Facebook such as media credits and recent campaigns, while utilizing YouTube to feature videos about product details and tutorials to cater to brand enthusiasts.

Moreover, Facebook rolls out a test of a Shopping feed that aggregates posts and photos about products on sale from brands chosen by users. There will also be a “Search” bar and a “Suggestion” tab, which includes brands that are recommended based on friends’ preferences. In addition, the Shopping feed includes a Canvas function, which subsequently takes users to a full-screen experience within Facebook, allowing them to browse merchandises and peruse product information. The platform will eventually enable e-commerce, from which Facebook decides not to take a percentage of sales.

Besides Facebook, other social media companies have also undertaken initiatives to facilitate interactions between brands and followers. WeChat, the Chinese all-encompassing app, has developed its own commercial “Shop” feature, allowing verified brand accounts to converse with clients to provide customer services, and to display and sell merchandises on the transaction platform developed in collaboration with Alipay. Pinterest will also soon team up with brands to allow people to plaster their immediate to long-term shopping plans on Pinterest boards, based upon which brands could fire different kinds of creative pins to encourage actions. Pinterest is also expanding tech partnerships and developing functionality offered through the ad software program to improve its metrics measurement and to optimize its behavioral targeting.

Links:

• http://digiday.com/platforms/facebooks-carousel-ads-10-times-better-regular-ads/
• https://www.facebook.com/business/ads-guide/clicks-to-website/carousel/
• http://digiday.com/publishers/linkedin-uses-events-sell-ads/
• http://www.wired.com/2015/10/facebook-testing-shopping-section-app/

CMOs Are Missing Trends In Digital Marketing Micro-Moment By Micro-Moment

CMO is the abbreviation of Chief Marketing Officer, who is responsible for the for overseeing marketing initiatives within an organization. Works to develop areas such as sales management, product development, and distribution channel management, marketing communications, including advertising and promotions, pricing, market research, and customer service. Yet, CMOs should have a new definition of Chief Moment Officers because they need to focus more on the interaction with the customers and what is called the “micro-moment”.

Micro-moments are intent-rich, reflexive moments when people reach for the nearest device-often their smartphones. Nevertheless, when it comes to digital marketing, too many CMOs push off mobile and put less weight on the usage of apps and other functions of the smartphones. Mobile’s role in the digital marketing ecosystem is often regarded as a potable version of the desktop web, it is reasonably believed that using mobile phones to spread ads and publish brand names is one of the most, even the most, efficient way of increasing traffic and brand awareness. Yet, mobile ads spend still lags behind with total Internet spend of approximately $50 billion of which mobile only represents $13 billion.  The problem is that mobile apps are designed to reshape how consumers search and make decisions about brands when purchasing or following what they are interested in. By micro-moments, I mean the clicks consumers make when browsing the apps, and reflexive moments when people reach for the nearest device-often their smartphones. Those moments of “I-want-to-do” and “I-want-to-buy” are the simple terms that Google used to describe micro-moments.

It has been proved, according to the article, that almost half of the customers expect a page to load in under 2 seconds; 29% of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site or app. Of those who switch, 67% switch if a mobile site or app takes too many steps to purchase or get desired information and 77% switch if a mobile site or app does not make it easy to find what they’re looking for. Therefore, CMOs must fully understand what their customers want and not to expect them as smart as themselves are by simply make the app easy to use and precisely satisfy their needs. A great example is Pinterest, which is an app that I recently started to follow and found really attractive after finding out how it knows my mind and help me categorize my interests. By simply entering what I’m looking for (e.g. baked potatoes), then all the recipes and restaurants that serve the best rated baked potatoes are presented with mouth-watering pictures and detailed yet simple recipes. An app is successful when you keep using it without the conscious of time lapse.

Therefore, for CMOs to win in these moments, simply start by understanding what these micro-moments look like for your business and the demands of the customers; once the answers are found, then anticipate future potential needs and design for them, eliminate and optimize app steps, reward customer engagement in every moment, bring together a cross-functional group of strategies to collaborate and align, and finally make the right investments in talent and technology. The key is learning to efficiently use resources and mobilizing them to earn attention in every micro-moment when it comes to advertisements and brand promotion.

Sources: http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolis/2015/10/15/cmos-are-missing-trends-in-digital-marketing-micro-moment-by-micro-moment/

“Shopping” as social media integrated experience

Facebook announced its new shopping program, Shopping and Services, a few weeks ago. Today, Pinterest announced that it’s expanding the reach of its “Buyable Pins” from supporting Shopify and Demandware only to several more e-commerce platforms, including Bigcommerce, Magento, and IBM Commerce.

Furthermore, many big-name brands are also now coming on board, including Wayfair and Bloomingdale’s, and Thousands of new Shopify stores are being added, too.

Expanding from marketing tools to marketplaces, seems to be al least a promising area for social media platforms. According to Pinterest 93 percent of Pinners use Pinterest to plan purchases and 87 percent have bought something because of Pinterest.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/05/pinterest-expands-buyable-pins-to-more-e-commerce-platforms-reaching-thousands-of-merchants/#.sjsih3:psHU

Will "Buyable Pins" Boost Pinterest's Pie in Search Advertising?

Pinterest, often considered a "Social Networking" site than a serious Search Engine, is wiggling its way into the advertising sphere by promoting a little blue pin called "Buyable Pin" which allows advertisers to convert consumer interest directly into sales.

Over the past few months, the image-bookmarking service has been making the rounds with advertisers trying to persuade them it’s not a social network but rather a place where consumers search for and discover products.

Pinterest is not a place where people come to connect with family and friends, it’s a “catalog of ideas,” says Tim Kendall, the company’s head of monetization. People “go through the catalog and do searches,” he added.

Source:  http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2015/09/14/pinterest-targets-search-ad-budgets/

Dude, What Are You Doing On Pinterest?

Over the course of the semester and in our final group project, I explored the notion of social media across multiple channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterst, Tublr, just to name a few. In both class discussions and in my group project team meetings, it was impossible to not laugh at notion of men on Pinterst and the inevitable   joke about an Alpha male using his Pinterst page to share a baking recipe or his favorite outfit. However, in a recently published article by Pinerest, in an effort to celebrate their 5 year anniversary, they published their growth stats, with particular attention on the numbers of male users on their website.

According to the article, the growth of their male users is significant.

"We doubled our male user base in the U.S. this year," Pinterest says. "Last year our male user base in the U.S. grew 73% year over year, and has been picking up in the past 6 months (54%) vs. the prior 6 months (40%), which is outpacing overall Pinterest growth."

The rest of the article goes into detail around the most popular uses of male Pinterst pages, such as:

1. Reading Lists
2. Fishing Spots
3. Ideas for Man Caves
4. Travel
5. Tattoos
6. Comics

As advertisers and marketers try to target males, it is important for them to recognize their increased interest in Pinterest and leverage this to their advantage. As Pinerest tries to sync products to seamless purchases, it is important to move past the stereotype Pinerest user to really look at the numbers and recognize that this is a valuable channel to explore to target the male demographic. 

PINTEREST - the new way to do marketing

PINTEREST

Pinterest is a new social media, where users can share images online, pin them and organize them in differents categories.

As Facebook, linked in and twitter, this new media is helpful to drive people to companies websites

How can be Pinterest  useful for a business?

Companies can use Pinterest  to increase brand awareness. Through photos or boards related to interesting topics, they can catch the attention of the Pinterest users that will start following  them.

A combination of great pictures with an interesting content can inspire and appeal the interest of the users of Pinterest.  This content can additionally link to the home webpage of the company, to increase the flow of visitors.

Pinterest has also ,as Facebook does, some metrics to control the success of your pictures. This tool helps us to understand  which pins have the most click through to the company website and  how many times a blogspost for a webpage has been pinned. This information is available through Pinterest Pin count tool and Pinterest free web analytical tool.

Some examples

Four Seasons is one of the most successful examples as how a business can share images in Pinterest to create experiences and promote their hotels. They have actually 25,623 followers and  153 pins. Their visual content goes from  photos of dishes of their restaurants to images of their hotels and amenities. This marketing strategy has helped them to increase awareness in this new channel.

Holiday Shopping in the Digital Age.

It’s hard to even remember the time before “Cyber Monday”- the time when “Black Friday” was the only game in town and you had to bundle up to brave the cold, November temperatures to score the latest digital gadget or hottest new toy.  But now, we can comfortably sit in our pajamas, waiting for the digital channel to go live. 

Marketers are taking an aggressive approach to expanding the convenience associated with online shopping by allowing customers to purchase online and pick-up in the store.  This way customer can avoid the crowds, but still have access to their purchase without having to wait for delivery.  Target has rolled out this service to all of its retail outlets (where previously it had only been available in half). 

Target is also entering into the competitive TV advertising space to publicize the promotions available for Cyber Monday.  Target has produced over 20 commercials inspired by the hashtag #mykindofholiday to highlight the various ways in which people celebrate.  The campaign is fully integrated with the social media strategy to create a true omni-channel experience to the customer.  For example, Target will highlight 100 products in its stores that have been trending well on Pinterest and will allow people to pin images/videos from its online catalogs to a digital pinboard. 

While marketers have been emphasizing just this type of integrated, omni-channel experience, it will be interesting to see how marketers measure the success of such programs.  Is having a Pinterest driven approach to product selection a strategy that demonstrates measurable returns to the business? Surely savvy companies like Target, Walmart, and Amazon will quickly figure out what the value is and others will follow suit. 

http://cmo.com/content/cmo-com/home/articles/2013/10/26/target_steps_up_onli.frame.html