We are entering the next phase with Pinterest and Instagram

1. Pinterest announced that the long awaited, eagerly anticipated BUY NOW button will be rolling out soon. Which means that soon we can buy things directly from your pins. Big news for the e-commerce players and anyone selling online.

Just thinking of what you are doing on Pinterest, you are looking at pictures that inspire, pictures of things you want to own. The psychology of the Pinterest user lends itself perfectly to buying goods online from pretty pictures.

I believe this will generate huge sales and returns for online businesses and online sales.

2. Instagram announced that they are opening up the Instagram advertising platform to all businesses, including small businesses, and not just approved partners. So this means you can conduct online sales from paid for Instagram photos.

These two announcements together, I believe, will be game changes in the e-commerce world. We are entering a phase where, Instagram and Pinterest, which I see as second tier social networks will be pushed up as primary networks, as more businesses will be spending money here.

We all know, the primary social networks of Facebook and Twitter make it very hard to reach your audience without paying, and LinkedIn is more interested in the advertising play instead of the relationship play.

Listen up businesses... Instagram and Pinterest should be a major part of what you are looking at now. Small business, that especially counts for you.

What is your strategy?