Whoa! Have you seen Pinterest's new Search function? A new search function might not sound that exciting, but trust me, this is a game changer for both those who love to surf Pinterest and for businesses selling any sort of product.

Have you ever looked at a pin on Pinterest which was showing a woman's hairstyle but all you could think of is “Where did she get those earrings?”. Well now you can zero in right on those earrings and find more items like that on Pinterest. Or maybe you were looking at a Living Room suite but it was the lamp in the background that caught your eye? Again, you can pinpoint that exact item you want and do a search on that.  I'll show you first how it works and then I'll explain what it means to you as a business owner.

Here's my Pinterest Feed and immediately I see the pin in the middle with the Christmas decorations.

I click on the Pin to make it larger and look! a Search icon sitting at the top right of the photo.

Click on that search button and you will get a cropping tool so you can zero right in on the item you're interested in. You can see in the photo below that I've dragged the corners of the cropping tool to outline the Christmas cushion that I like.

What happens then as you can see on the right, is a suggestion of other Christmas pillows.

What Pinterest's New Search Function Means for You

Now here's the exciting part for your business. See on the right with the other suggestions, one of the items is a Christmas pillow that's sold on ebay. Another Christmas pillow is watermarked with someone's website where they showcase their handmade creations. This is where you want your products to be!  If I was on my Pinterest page I could scroll down and see even more Christmas cushions inspired by the one that I found in the original photo.

Take Action:

Here's what you want to do as a business owner.  Make sure that you not only pin your displays, samples and beauty shots, but also pin individual product shots of every item you sell. That way if someone does, for example, zero in on that pair of earrings or cushion, you have a chance of having the product you sell come up on Pinterest's new search. This opens you up to a whole new world of possible customers.

Tips:

Make sure that your pin goes straight back into your shop. That is, you pin the photo of your product, straight from the page your item is featured on your shop, not from the front page just in case the front page changes. That way when a potential customer clicks on the photo, they go straight to where they can add that item to their shopping cart.

If you do custom work or for any other reason you don't have a shopping cart but instead feature your products from your blog, make sure you have a watermark on all your images. Just in case someone downloads your photo and then puts it on to Pinterest, you'll want your image to be easily traceable.

I hope you found this post on the new Pinterest Search Function useful. If you did, please click on one of the share buttons below to save it or share with your friends.