Written By Janette Speyer and Katrina McNeill —

With the release of this newest Pinterest tool, Rich Pins, all online marketers are going to be wondering what it can do for their brand. Will it make things easier, more difficult or perhaps they are wondering whether it will be useful at all? We will discuss the positives and negatives and how marketers will be able to use this latest feature to enhance their brand.

What Is a Rich Pin?

A Rich Pin is an enhanced Pinterest image that allows brands and products to have additional information attached to the visual. Rich Pins show additional information and contain a direct link to a landing page. With the old pins the user was manually required to add all relevant information.

So far, there are three available categories for Rich Pins: product, recipe or movie. Each category allows the “pinner” to add relevant sales information. For example a “product” category can include real time pricing. This could be valuable information for marketers that want to test out their products and services with a wider audience.

It is expected that the categories will expand beyond these three, but for now it seems Pinterest is introducing these changes gradually to test the level of interest among users.

Pinterest launched this new program with a wide range of partners, which included; Anthropologie, eBay, Home Depot, Nordstrom, Sephora, Target, WalMart, Bon Appetit, Epicurious, Real Simple, Whole Foods Market, Netflix, Chobani and Rotten Tomatoes. So if you aren’t using any of these platforms, it’s unlikely that you have experienced a Rich Pin yet.

Submitting for a Rich Pin for Your Brand:

Pinterest has a developer’s page that covers the process by which you can enhance your own website with rich pins. A quick summary of the process – implement specific markup code in your website’s backend, once you have incorporated these into your website, you can validate your work using the rich pins validator. Once your code is validated, you can then apply for your rich pins to be accepted and used on Pinterest. See how @Chobani uses rich pins for recipes in the attached graphic.

Rich Pin Take-Aways

1. Pins will offer relevant information that can influence purchasing decisions. This could be a boom for ecommerce websites.
2. Increased engagement from users could lead to further social sharing.
3. Rich Pins cater to impulse buying, so marketers can expect an increase in sales.

Are you using rich pins on your website yet? Please share your thoughts on our Facebook, Twitter or Google+ pages.

If you liked this article you may also like:

• Word of Mouth Marketing on Pinterest
• Cultivating Your Brand Through Pinterest
• The Power of Pictures in Marketing