Pinterest's New Rich Pins

Pinterest’s Rich Pins will change the web as we know it.

And help Pinterest make a lot of money.

This week, Pinterest unveiled Rich Pins just before their first ever Partner Event, #pin13. If you’re not familiar, Rich Pins provide additional context for pins in the form of structured data. So far, Pinterest has announced support for three pin types: Products, Movies and Recipes.

Here’s an example rich pin for a stylish clock- a product pin from Wayfair:

Why Rich Pins Matter

Pinterest is arguably the most engaging and effective discovery platform on the web when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. It is an inspiration engine. Need examples of office décor including modern clocks? Pinterest can solve such problems today better than any other website.

Want to find where to buy that exact clock from Wayfair? Your search on Pinterest will likely yield a number of broken links, misleading redirects or blog posts without links to buy.

You’re better off using Google. For now.

Rich pins are the first step toward solving the problem of actionable, targeted discovery on Pinterest.

Here’s how:

  1. Getting structured feeds from retailers enables Pinterest to build its database of products and things. Pinterest will now know the name, SKU, price, source, etc for millions of products.
  2. Pinterest can introduce smart tags leveraging this knowledge in the pinning process. As you pin that clock from Wayfair, you may be prompted to identify that this is in fact the Landmark Studio Wall Clock model.
  3. Better yet: Pinterest can then use image recognition technology, like that used by PinLeague to group pins of similar images on Pinterest for brand analytics, to add those smart tags for you. This means Pinterest can group pins containing the same product- eventually even if the images containing the product differ.
  4. Now the fun part: As users SEARCH (Google, Amazon, Bing listen up!) for modern wall clocks on Pinterest, they can be presented with tagged items that now include links of where to buy EVEN IF THE PIN DIDN’T COME FROM THAT RETAILER’S SITE.
  5. And the really really fun part: Pinterest syndicates its Product Search to millions of publishers and e-commerce sites, making social commerce a reality across the web.

This sets the foundation for Pinterest to take on the current internet giants in Product and Image search.

My prediction: In two to three years, Pinterest will be the world’s leading Image Search Engine- and, thus, the world’s third or fourth largest search engine, trailing only Google, Baidu and YouTube.

ATTENTION RETAILERS AND E-COMMERCE SITES!!

Not convinced you need to invest in Pinterest? Time to think again.

Go grab a free Pinterest Analytics account at PinLeague.com to learn about (1) who is already sharing your products on Pinterest, (2) what they’re saying- and (3) what content best resonates with them.

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AUTHOR DISCLOSURE: I am a Google alumnus and shareholder. I also co-founded PinLeague, the leading Pinterest Marketing and Analytics Platform serving over 800 world-class brands and over 100 agencies. So, I stand to both gain and lose from my prediction of Pinterest’s rise to prominence in search.