Learn How to Use Pinterest’s New Faster Visual Searches

In mid-September of 2019, Pinterest launched a revamped Lens which has the capability of speeding up visual searches, while also allowing you to save the results of those searches to your Pinterest Boards. That means your results can be retained so you can use them to drum up even more useful ideas for future searches. This latest update requires fewer taps to access the visual search, so that both snapping any type of photo or uploading one which you've already taken, can be accomplished much faster and much easier.Whether you have taken the photos in-app or have them saved to your camera area, they can now be added very easily to your Pinterest Board. Lens has always had the capability of saving new Pins, but the latest update in this area will also permit users to include their original inspiration to the Board. Those photos which have been taken by users will also permit algorithms within the platform to suggest related Pins, which in effect will influence a great many more Pins beyond the initial search in Lens.

Another impact of this update is to bring Product Pins directly into the search results from Lens, and unlike traditional Pins, these will include the availability and pricing information associated with the Pin. This update makes it much easier to buy similar items to any photo which you have taken for Lens. This is likely to be very popular with users since a recent survey has suggested that upwards of 80% of all users begin a visual search while they are in the process of shopping.Pinterest's search, which is centered around camera photos, is now capable of recognizing somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 billion different objects related to fashion and household goods. Since the whole idea of visual searches is to find items when it's difficult to use the correct words, or when the actual name of the product is not known, this is a very handy kind of search to use. That being so, Pinterest is committed to focusing on the visual search tool to provide even more updates in the future, that will presumably make it even more efficient and more expedient.More than 85% of all users polled said they felt it was more important to have the visual search tool than to have any kind of text-based search tool which they could use. Most users indicated that they had a better relationship with brands because they were using visual search, and that the visual search also helped to develop their own sense of style. More than half of all users surveyed said that they used the visual search tool even when they're in a brick-and-mortar store, engaged in physical shopping.

Other shopping focused updates

This update to Lens follows a number of other recent updates to visual search, and to shopping-focused improvements on Pinterest. Last year, Pinterest unveiled several updates which were designed to make shopping on its platform more intuitive and more streamlined. Some of these updates involved new recommendations, Product Pins, and a shopping shortcut which was designed to save and share ideas between users.In the categories of women's fashion and home decor, Pinterest will now be able to recommend similar products that are in stock, and viewers who are seeing a home decor or fashion idea will have a 'Products Like This' section available whenever they view a particular Pin. These recommendations provided by Pinterest are found by scanning for visually similar items which are available for purchase, and displayed to users.Another update included in this batch was one which avoids the possibility of navigating away from a Pin for the purpose of buying something, and then finding out the item is not in stock. Buyable Pins have been switched over into the new Product Pins format which shows up-to-date pricing data in addition to current stock information. Just by tapping on the Pin, a user will be directed to a store's checkout page, so that fewer clicks are necessary in the purchasing experience.

One of the other prominent updates provided by Pinterest in October 2018 was a faster method for browsing through Product Pins. By tapping and holding on a Pin somewhere in your home feed, a shortcut reel would be brought up, which has a shopping tag displayed right with the current save and send shortcuts. Any shortcut will send a user to a specific page which contains information about that item, as well as products which are closely related. The intent of this was to provide recommendations for products that a user might purchase based on their unique preferences, as well as what is trending at the time.It has quickly become a user favorite, because it includes personalized recommendations. It helps users to shop for items from one specific brand if they should choose to do so, while also allowing brands to upload their complete catalog of products to the platform. This will help users to find products which are similar to the Product Pins they've already saved on their Boards. Whenever reviewing a pin which is shoppable, users will be able to access this feature simply by tapping on the More Ideas button.The tool will then gather up in-stock products which are similar to your past Pins, so that your shopping experience is much more personalized. From these recommendations, users are then able to choose so they can shop the online store, or so they can save any specific Pin to their Board. These shopping tools are added to additional capabilities from Shop the Look, which has the ability to tie a specific Pin to multiple products in any image.All these updates are related to the visual search capability within Pinterest, because that is the preferred method of shopping for the vast majority of its users. Products Pins have already been rolled out globally, and Shopping Recommendations are also available to users everywhere. Shopping shortcuts have been implemented, and are now in use globally for both users of iOS and Android. Now the updates to Lens are also available, and Pinterest users everywhere can conduct visual searches even faster and more efficiently.