While both very successful, Instagram and Pinterest have both faced their fair share of struggles in recent years. In particular, they have both lost some favor with companies and influencers, so have had to try to capitalize on the rise of social shopping. More and more social media users expect to make purchases directly through social media, and expect that these channels will make their buying experience easier. To help raise their profile among businesses and influencers, Instagram and Pinterest have each separately introduced new capabilities recently. Read on for our take on the newest shopping tools available on these two channels.
The two major notable changes for Pinterest in recent weeks have been the introduction of a brand new shopping feature, and the expansion of their current shopping features.
Earlier this summer, Pinterest introduced the Shopping List feature to their shopping toolbelt. This feature is essentially an organizational tool to help users keep products straight, and hopefully to encourage purchasing behavior as well. Shopping List automatically saves all a user’s Product pins together in one place. That way, they can easily find and access items they were interested in purchasing without having to scroll through all their other boards and pins. The Shopping List feature allows for quicker access to Product pins so users can more easily shop and make purchases with the app. It will also feature notifications that are sent to users whenever there is a price drop for an item on their Shopping List, to further encourage purchases. This feature gives a big boost to the e-commerce aspect of Pinterest.
Elsewhere, Pinterest also expanded the reach of some of their other shopping features to include more areas of the world. Shopping through Pinterest, shop tabs on profiles, and product tagging are all now available in Australia, Canada, France, and Germany.
Instagram has also made two major changes in recent weeks related to shopping through the app: a new native affiliate tool to try to win back influencers, and a new “Drops” tab for new releases.
Many influencers were previously unable to directly earn commissions with Instagram’s shopping features. That is changing with the new native affiliate tool Instagram has rolled out. Like before, influencers and tastemakers can tag products in their posts so their followers can shop these products directly. Now, however, the influencers will also be able to earn commissions with these tags, which previously was not an option. The native affiliate tool is currently being tested with a small group of merchants and influencers, but should have a much wider rollout as long as the testing stage runs smoothly.
The other exciting update to the Instagram shopping experience is the new “Drops” tab in the app’s shopping section. Drops will be a place for businesses to show off upcoming new releases and promote them ahead of their drop. It can be a great way for brands to stir up excitement about their newest products, and encourage strong sales right off the bat as soon as the product is launched. Both Instagram and Pinterest have had their woes when it comes to shopping, but both are really stepping up to the plate with these latest developments. As shopping continues to become a more and more prevalent part of the social media experience for users, expect more changes and updates soon, as channels like Instagram and Pinterest try to keep up.
