Pinterest Guided Search - What Marketers Should Do Now
Last night, social media sweetheart Pinterest announced a new feature – guided search. It’s only on mobile, and only for US English-speaking users right now, but if that is you – try it! I only got half way through the video before I had to go try it myself.
What this means is that next time you search for “smoothies” you can add “recipes” “for weight loss” or ”detox” (among others) to your search, narrowing results to exactly what you want. If you choose one interest filter and it’s not what you want, you don’t have to go back, you can just select a different one, or add more until your search is as narrow as you want it! Still, Pinterest is about discovery, not just targeted search, so, as the Pinterest blog states, they’re “leaving a little room for serendipity” in the results.
With 750 million boards and 30 BILLION pins, it certainly was time for a new way to search. Check it out:
What Marketers Should Do to Benefit from Pinterest Guided Search
Obviously it’s a little early, but there are some common-sense things to do for best exposure on guided search. You may be doing this already, but now it can be refined.
When you have some content to share, think about the main topic and the proper category. Make sure to use the main search term in your description. Maybe even make it a hashtag. Now, do the search yourself. Look at the options that come up. Where does your content best fit? In my smoothie example, I’d want all four words in my description: smoothies, recipes, for weight loss, detox.
Lest you think it only works well for such obviously Pinteresting topics as smoothies, try something a little more obscure, like “cars.” The options are nearly endless. This is going to be too much fun.
The most exciting part for marketers AND users is the way it will change the way marketers think about how they write pin descriptions – all for the good of the community. That’s the best thing about Pinterest. When it comes to trust and user experience, they just get it. And, they care! Sure, eventually they’ll have to start making money, but I’m guessing even that won’t bother us too much.
I’m not the only one who thinks so. “Yesss!!!! Pinterest truly puts Pinners first! It is not just something they say…they do it and it shows in everything they update and create. It is really all about the community.” This from a slightly pumped Kelly Lieberman, founder of #PinChat – THE place to be for Pinterest fun every Wednesday night at 9 EST on Twitter.
What Spammers Might Do
Remember the wild first days and years of Google search where you could stuff your meta tags with any keyword you want and reasonably expect to rank for them, no matter the actual content or quality of your site? Might spammers try to game the system, using popular keywords like “wedding,” “dresses,” etc. to get their get-rich-quick pins found. They might, but Pinterest has always been about providing the best user experience, it’s been a lot of years since the dark days of Google – and their engineers are smart.
So, what about you, have you tried guided search yet? Do you see marketing opportunities here?
Continue reading here: Uncover Hidden Leads Using Social Media Prospecting
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