Swarovski is an Austrian producer of luxury cut crystals. They sell jewelry, watches, accessories, and sparkling crystal objects, like small crystal animals. Swarovski’s Pinterest account has capitalized on the glamorous lifestyle, weddings and fashion. With 27 boards, over 7 thousand pins, and over 1.5 million Pinterest followers, Swarovski is obviously doing something right. Let’s look further into their Pinterest strategy to see exactly what they’re doing successfully in the world of Pinterest.
What Swarovski is doing right
On Pinterest, Swarovski does an amazing job at integrating products among beautiful non-brand related images. We usually recommend a 20/80 rule of 20% brand content and 80% other content interspersed at a rate of 1 brand pin for every 5 pins. By focusing on weddings in particular, Swarovski has reached a strong niche on Pinterest. Swarovski’s Wedded Bliss board is a great example of successfully incorporating product with inspiration. This wedding board shares inspiration around wedding decor, hair, cake design, DIYs, and photography among Swarovski products that seem to fit in naturally.
In comparison to their competitors, Swarovski is dominating. Swarovski has over 1.5 million Pinterest followers, Tiffany & Co. has 65k Pinterest followers, Zales has 30k followers, Blue Nile has 73k followers, Baccarat has 600 followers, and H.Samuel has 600 followers as well.
A key part to gaining a high following on Pinterest is promotion. Swarovski does a nice job of posting on Facebook and tweeting about Pinterest on their other social media accounts. Swarovski has over 2.6 million Facebook likes, 120k Twitter followers, and 250k Instagram followers so their Pinterest gaining over 1.5 million followers is no surprise to me. Very impressive! Their Facebook page also has a Pinterest app – awesome!
Get the Pinterest app for Facebook (free!) here.
What makes Swarovski really unique in its Pinterest strategy is how they’ve ran a handful of Pinterest contests and a pin party! Most brands haven’t experimented with contests on Pinterest, or have tried one but weren’t quite sure what they were doing. We found four Swarovski Pinterest contests over the past few years. Although most of these contests’ steps to enter no longer follow Pinterest’s brand guidelines around contests, they’re a great example of creative concepts. By focusing their social media strategy on Pinterest, Swarovski has been one of the first companies to experiment with Pinterest contests and to gain a large amount of followers in a short amount of time.
Swarovski Pinterest contests:
– Create Your Style: COLORful World
– Swarovski Elements “Jewels for every occasion”
– Swarovski’s 12 #Moments2Give Pinterest holiday contest (and Pin Party)
– Swarovski’s #SomethingSparkling Pinterest contest
What Swarovski could improve on
Although Swarovski is doing a fantastic job on Pinterest – there’s always room for improvement.
Swarovski has another Pinterest account dedicated to Create Your Style, a DIY, project-focused brand within Swarovski. This Create Your Style Pinterest account has a little over 2k followers. Instead of creating a completely separate Pinterest account for Create Your Style, they should have made a Pinterest board dedicated to Create Your Style, or at least created a group board co-pinned by both accounts. I still recommend that they delete the other account and create a board solely focused on DIY projects and those DIY Swarovski products.
I also noticed that their website’s product images aren’t compatible with the Pin It button. When I try to pin a pair of earrings from swarovski.com with my pin it button I see this:
No earrings show up when I try to pin using my Pin It button. This is unfortunate and mean less of Swarovski’s products will be shared on Pinterest.
The products are pinnable when people use the ‘share’ button – but that button isn’t easily seen. You have to click ‘Share’ then ‘Pinterest.’
I also noticed that when pinning using their share button there is no pre-written description, it’s just blank. When brands’ products have pre-written descriptions, it’s likely those shoppers sharing the products will leave the description as is. (Product example)
Without Rich Pins, Swarovski is missing out on a bold heading and additional information like if a product is in stock, the price, if it’s on sale, and the brand name. Swarovski also usually pins daily – this is great! They usually share a handful of pins a day. Even better would be 15-25 pins a day spaced throughout the day. For social media managers, two to three pins an hour across an 8 hour work day is ideal!
PROS
– Beautifully curated boards.
– Good about promoting their Pinterest on Facebook and Twitter. They also have a Pinterest FB app!
– Swarovski has ran a handful of unique and creative Pinterest contests.
– Beautiful, Pinterest-optimized inspirational wedding pins.
– Their Swarovski ♥ Bloggers board is a great way to personally connect with fans that blog, read style blogs, and who love fashion. A great board idea!
– A fairly good variety of board topics.
– Great job integrating products among inspirational pins. (20% products & 80% inspiration recommended).
Swarovski’s Wedded Bliss board is a beautiful board with products mixed in, and it follows the 20/80 rule!
CONS
– They should be pinning 5-10 more pins each day (15-25 pins daily is ideal).
– Only 27 boards, we recommend 30 to 40 boards with a variety of topics.
– Very few holiday or seasonal boards. They need a summer board at the top and a fall board in the making!
– Their website is not compatible with the Pin It button. Big issue!
– No Rich Pins.
– Their board covers could be better color coordinated. I recommend changing board covers once a week to keep things fresh.
Conclusion
From pin parties and Pinterest contests to wedding boards and social media promotional posts, Swarovski has taken a strong and committed approach to Pinterest. By highlighting their products amongst wedding inspiration and a glamorous lifestyle, Swarovski has done a great job with mixing in promotional pins 20% of the time and sharing other inspirational content 80% of the time, which is what we recommend to all brands. Even better, Swarovski pins daily, runs regular Pinterest contests, and promotes their pins and boards on their other social media accounts. Swarovski has done a great job at a well-rounded Pinterest strategy and the results speak for themselves.
Swarovski promotes its Pinterest on Facebook.
Any product or brand can have a strong presence on Pinterest, the key is keeping boards beautiful, seasonal, trendy, and unique. Well done, Swarovski – your Pinterest strategy is crystal clear!
Have questions about how you can optimize your content for Pinterest, increase your following, or improve your Pinterest account? Contact us at info@hellosociety.com!
Looking for more case studies? See our other Pinterest case studies on Ben & Jerry’s, Whole Foods, Lululemon, L.L.Bean, Chobani, Nordstrom, Target, Lowe’s, and Starbucks.
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