Of all the social media networks, Google + may be the one that has had the hardest time making itself relevant to the jewelry industry. Up until this point, Google + has not been a site widely known for fashion or jewelry content, and the platform has been struggling to find an audience. To counter this, over the past few days, Google + has been rolling out a new feature called Collections.

Collections transforms the experience of being on Google + into one that more strongly resembles the experience of being on Pinterest. Collections gives users boards to collect and organize visual content, such as images, video and graphics, as well as some space for blogging thoughts or comments. Collections gives users the ability to group images by theme, rather than user name, which may broaden their appeal.

Some important things for jewelry retailers to know is that so far, the user demographic of Google + has skewed strongly male – in 2014, the gender breakout was 70% male, 30% female or other. 40% of all users report being single and looking for friendship: this is a significant population that could very well be looking for engagement rings.

At the same time, we know that Pinterest is the social media platform of choice for wedding planning in particular, as well as fashion oriented collections. Men are beginning to embrace Pinterest in greater numbers, with double digit growth in adoption rates just last year.

It will be well worth watching to see if Google +’s changes resonate with the public. If the answer is yes, we may have a truly unique opportunity: a largely male social media network with ideal functionality to showcase and promote engagement rings and other bridal jewelry. Over the coming months, we’ll be watching and commenting on the changes. There’s no need to rush to set up a Google + profile right this minute if you don’t have one: see how the situation develops and make that decision, like all of your digital marketing choices, strategically.