New Research Reveals Top Pinterest Search Terms for Fashion, Beauty
Pinterest's Pinstyle report has just hit the streets for 2017, and it's jam-full of useful findings that Australian (or any) fashion or beuty retailers or bloggers can use to beat the competition on Pinterest and set registers ringing with purchase-ready traffic direct to your website.
Pinterest's "Pinsights" team is responsible for mining the social media platform's huge treasure trove of user interest data, and their annual style report is the motherlode of actionable insights.
What is this Pinstyle Report?
We'll let Pinterest explain the methodology in their own words:
"The Pinsights team looked at top queries to identify the most popular questions Pinners have as it relates to wearing certain articles of clothing, trying makeup looks, and styling outfits-- both for everyday wear and life moments.
"This represents the top queries associated with key terms like “how to wear”, “what to wear”, “style”, “outfit” searches associated with top saved articles of clothing, and top searched colours and looks in the beauty category. Data is ranked based on volume of global searchers (number of people searching) in the full year 2016."
So why do I care?
People are always looking for hot "hacks" for social networks. Well, on no other platform, and in no other niche does the offical social media network provide anything that is anywhere near this clearly a "Handbook to succeeding on this platform, backed by all of our own research".
Fashion and beauty retailers and bloggers need to take heed. And sit back now as Rattling Tram digests for you all of the key actionable items.
This research is all about what sort of content is "most discoverable" on Pinterest. So the actionable dimensions are all about optimising your content for discoverability. And those who have been paying attention will know that is really ultimately about ONE variable that's under your control - PIN DESCRIPTIONS.
These recommendations are all about answering the question - "what keywords should I be using in my pin descriptions to ensure maximum success for my fashion or beauty site".
It's important to remember that on Pinterest your pin descriptions are there to make you discoverable, but ALMOST NOBODY on the platform actually reads them. So your language doesn't need to worry so much about grammar and MORE about SEO.
Hitting all the right keywords with unintelligable garbage for your pin description is perfectly acceptable behaviour on this platform in a way that would be VERY NOT COOL if you tried it on say Instagram.
Key Findings
Overall, there's lots of tips for some common and some more unusual keywords that fashion and beauty retailers and bloggers should be trying to hit as often as possible in optimising their pin descriptions for discoverability on Pinterest.
But there's also plenty of gold in here not just for marketers but buyers and product planners alike on what's trending in their marketplace right now.
"How to wear" searches dominate.
This is an unusual keyphrase to see here for any marketers used to working with Google Adwords. People aren't "Googling" these sorts of terms anywhere near the volume as they are "Pinteresting" them. Pinterest users tend to be on the platform looking for helpful and handy general tips more than they are looking for a specific end product.
Pin description text for fashion garments should where possible include the phrase "how/what to wear". So a women's bomber jacket might have the pin description "lightweight women's bomber jacket in red - what to wear to rock the perfect street style" or "how to wear a women's bomber jacket - this model rocks the perfect street style".
The finding: "What to wear" searches are also strong, and are closely correlated to life events. People are searching terms such as "what to wear to a wedding, concert, bar mitzvah, etc." So your descriptions should veer towards describing not just the objects/garments but the CONTEXT in which they are the perfect attire. So "this tuxedo is the the perfect thing to wear to a wedding..."
Similarly "how to" searches are very strong. Pinners like to use Pinterest as a great accumulated "hive mind" of advice. So if you can take your content to places that are more information rather than sales-oriented, then you're maximising your chances of success.
Instead of just posting up your product image and description, why not "how to wear a double breasted suit" that just happens to use your product as the example? Now you're helping people. Now you're giving to the community. I prefer interacting with you versus the next retailer who is just shouting sales slogans at me.
"STYLE"-based SEARCHES are strong
A lot of pinners display a tendency to search on terms related to a particular fashion style with which they identify. The hottest such searches for 2016 were Street, Bohemian, Hippie, Classic, Hijab, Grunge, French, Preppy, and Casual. So any importers of classic French hijabs are fully HYPE right THIS SECOND and you heard it here first!!! Triple points for retailing them as menswear ...
For most fashion and beauty retailers the "styles" relevant to your own niche are going to be fairly obvious, and it's perfectly acceptable on Pinterest, and now recommended by the data to end say a clothing description a la "bohemian style, boho style, hippie style, Yoko Ono, etc."
Remembering again that the Pinterest search engine is blind to hashtags (DO NOT USE HASHTAGS ON PINTEREST), you can and should add comma separated terms to the end of your description as you would hashtags on Instagram or Twitter in exactly this way.
"OUTFIT" is probably the keyword you are missing
This one leaps out of the report. Pinners are very commonly searching not just for "FASHION PRODUCT TYPE X", the more common search is "X OUTFITS". So for fashion retailers, it is not just a pantsuit, it is a WOMENS LIGHT BLUE PANTSUIT OUTFIT on Pinterest. OK?
Style trends in women's dresses
Maxi, Shift, Midi, T-shirt, and Slip are the most commonly searched styles of women's dresses for 2016. So common searches here are a la "women's T-shirt style dress", and your descriptions should where possible seek to match these phrases.
Style trends in outerwear
Leather jacket, Bomber jacket, Jean jacket (including oversized, blue, white and patches) - nb this is a North American term that won't be prevalent in Australian searches, Green jacket, Camo jacket.
It's interesting to note that the search term is "Camo", not "Camouflage". Retailers should where possible include common variant/shortened phrase terms along with full descriptions. So, "Mens camo camouflage bomber jacket" in this case.
Large/oversized sweaters and ponchos that can be easily draped/overlayered also appear to be trending.
Key Findings for Beauty Retailers
It's not ALL about the clothes. Retailers in the beauty sector also will find a treasure trove of data in the new report. And some unusual terms do pop out.
The top three haircut style searches were for "short", "bob" and "pixie"(!?!???!). It's interesting this term is is trending at the same time as others like "hippie" and "boho". The phrase "manic pixie dream girl" appears to have somehow acquired some sort of social cachet amongst milennials. If you're pinning anything that could reasonably be dubbed "pixie style", you're well recommended to include that phrase in your pin description (kill me NOW!).
The top searches for hair colour were even more revealing, given that as far as this reader is concerned the first two of these adjectives aren't actually colours : Ombre, Balayage, Blonde, Brown, Red, Black, and Purple.
Ombre, I will assume means you are Mexican coloured. And balayage is roughly the colour of rope. Am I close here?
And nobody in beauty sector probably needs a new report telling them that "smoky" eyes is the most commonly searched term of the moment, but here it is regardless.
Conclusion
So, the report's findings are a grab bag of the bizarre and the bleeding obvious.
What retailers should take away from it all however is that your pin descriptions do very much matter to your discoverability, and doing just a little bit of research can give you a LOT of actionable improvements to help you become a master of the Pinterest platform on which your customers are performing searches related to your products daily.
Curious about what Pinterest can do for your retail brand?
Adam Ford is helping Aussie retailers RIGHT NOW to get ahead of their competition and leverage the free, purchase ready traffic that is available to them from Pinterest.
Visit Adam Ford's Pinterest for Aussie Brands homepage to find out more.
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