You would think Backstreet is back by the throngs of people cheering, babies crying, dogs barking, and nurses trying to wriggle out of the arms of frisky sailors.
Something major has occurred and it can be categorized in no other way than life changing.
Oh look, it’s more advertising.
The Snapchat Ad Manager was finally released because it was starting to look like we would need a worldwide effort to stop all the terrorism, hunger, and global warming that’s constantly plaguing the planet.
Or because they’re going broke.
Not long after Instagram rolled out the ability to add URL links into your stories to more users, Snapchat fires right back with a variety of new self serve ad options. One would have to assume that some toy glasses that record snaps of your friends saying, “If I see those circles light up again, you’re going to be crapping those dumbass glasses” wasn’t really the best idea to move forward as a sustainable income model.
With their stock price hovering around all time lows and equivalent to a carton of black market cigarettes, shareholders keep wondering why they’re calling themselves a camera company while not producing the obvious product here. An actual camera.
There’s been talk of AR being introduced in Spectacles 2.0 but the user base is still feeling the sting of search functionality popping up on the platform six years after being released. It’s probably safe to assume we’ll all be enjoying Star Wars XXIII with our great grandchildren in AR from Tinder before they wow us again.
Instagram on the other hand has implemented three ways to get more engagement besides their ad set options that can be run through Facebook’s Ads Manager.
Using a hashtag in stories will take you directly to a feed, adding a location drops you right into the middle of the action, and also the aforementioned URL additions that open an in app browser directly from friends or brands you follow.
Facebook, Instagram’s adoptive parent, decided it would be a fantastic idea to regurgitate their stories feature all over their other platform properties hoping everyone liked to be puked on. Kevin Weil, Instagram’s VP of Product even flat out said they would be stupid if they didn’t copy a good idea from Snapchat. Needless to say, we all have little profile picture ghost towns of Facebook stories and Messenger day running along our apps.
The main thing in common between all this Instagram and Snapchat tickle fighting is the ability to provide actionable links and easier CTA’s across their social platforms. One more reason is Facebook has been running out of advertising space for sometime now and Snapchat is just hemorrhaging money trying to decide what kind of company they actually are. I can yell all day about being Steve from Blue’s Clues but it’s still not going to get me a show on Nickelodeon and a big comfy chair.
Over on the other side we have Pinterest.
The social platform that already added an AR aspect with Pinterest Lens for finding products and purchasing them in app.
The platform where every pin is backlinked and essentially its own CTA.
Want to see more pins like this? It’s your option to see more and not just thrown in your face because of a few related factors.
The ONLY social media platform where 93% of users plan to make a purchase every time they use it.
Don’t even worry about millennial usage because it’s about the same as Instagram and on top of that, the male demographic makes up 40% of new users which is rising at 70% annual clip.
“Pinterest serves a clear purpose, letting users garner creative inspiration. They can also shop — illustrating why the platform is not only more advantageous for consumers, but also for brands. Pinterest accounts for 17% of social traffic to Retail brand sites.”
Another important aspect to take into consideration is that Pinterest, opposed to other platforms plays nicely with YouTube. They let you have the ability to curate entire boards of videos with your YouTube pre-roll ads on top of your links inside of Pinterest itself. You know which other social platforms let you do that?
Spoiler, it’s next to zero.
Facebook mutates any YouTube post to look like roadkill and uses two different feed algorithms to kill reach based on where your video is linked. You would have to rip the video to use it on Snapchat or Instagram and then those pre rolls are worthless.
They already know what kind of retail pull it has on certain industries and there’s no way they would ever let that ruin their market share and ad profits by it overlapping easily.
The amount of time and creative effort advertising to consumers is cut dramatically if the audience is specifically coming with intent to purchase. Pinterest isn’t the first place you go to hang out and stay in touch with friends. It’s a place to collect, share, and learn more about what interests you.
84% of people on Pinterest say it introduces them to new things, and 70% of people browse or save Pins to learn more on topics and products they’ve shown interest in.
When the key to humanizing your brand is reaching an emotional connection with the consumer, there’s no better place to start than inside a personal collection of what makes them feel the most human.
While everyone else is in a Walmart parking lot with Instagram and Snapchat yelling “World Star!!!”, Pinterest will just be over here on it’s Scrooge McDuck 5% pile of all internet referral traffic actually innovating instead of seeing who wore it best.