It has been reported that 29% of consumers frequently watch influencers’ livestreams, and among those viewers, 80% are likely to buy products as a result – therefore, the introduction of live streaming on Pinterest is a natural step in regards to engaging users and driving purchases through the platform.
With Covid-19 restrictions still somewhat uncertain, and different for everyone across the globe, live events are still front of mind in terms of allowing creators and their audiences to remain connected. Whereas Pinterest has previously hosted community events on Zoom, the new plan will keep users in the app, consuming curated content.
Pinterest is hosting a three-day virtual event from 24th March-26th March that will feature live streamed sessions from popular content creators including big names like Jonathan Van Ness and Rebecca Minkoff, among others. This will be the platform’s first test of live events, with the potential to roll out more live streamed creator content to its more than 475 million global users.
How can users take part?
During the test event, only users from the US will be able to join; hopefully in the future this will expand. The live event will also just be accessible on the Pinterest mobile app, not on the desktop website. The event will put an emphasis on interaction, as this is something that many have missed out on over the past year, so as the event is running, attendees will be able to comment to interact with the creator during their stream.
Each session allows three ‘guests’ (speakers) and an unlimited number of attendees, which will include moderators from Pinterest who will have the ability to remove people from the chat if they do not uphold Pinterest’s Community Standards.
The three day event will host around 20 sessions on topics of interest including food, design, cooking, style and more content inline with what Pinterest users like to consume and engage with.
Pinterest are yet to set out long term plans in regards to live events in the future, so we can expect the success rate of this test event to guide the team at Pinterest towards what their users interact with and want to see more of as the world creeps closer to normality.
