Business of Pinterest

Business of Pinterest

Pinterest also allows businesses to create pages aimed at promoting their companies online. Such pages can serve as a "virtual storefront."

In one case study of a fashion website, users visiting from Pinterest spent $180 compared to $85 spent from users coming from Facebook. These users spent less time on the company's website, choosing instead to browse from the company's pinboard. Further brand studies have continued to show Pinterest is more effective at driving sales than other forms of social media.

In 2013, Pinterest introduced a new tool called 'Rich Pins', to enhance the customer experience when browsing through pins made by companies. Business pages can include various data, topics and information such as prices of products, ratings of movies or ingredients for recipes.

In May 2017, Pinterest president Tim Kendall made the announcement for Instant Ideas, the new feature allows advertisers reach consumers through their smartphone's camera. Pinterest plans to eventually add them to results displayed when people use its Lens feature to scan a photo from their phone to find related pins as well as the Shop the Look feature that lets people tap products featured in a photo to reveal a list of links to similar products available for purchase

Features

Pins

A Pin is an image that has been uploaded or linked from a website. Pins saved from one user's board can be saved to someone else's board, a process known as "repinning." In 2016, Pinterest renamed the "Pin it" button to "Save." The purpose behind the renaming was due to international expansion, making the site more intuitive to new users. In October of 2013, Pinterest began displaying advertisements in the form of “Promoted Pins.” Promoted Pins are based off an individual user’s interests, things done on Pinterest, or a result of visiting an advertiser’s site or app. 

Boards

Boards are collections of pins dedicated to a theme such as quotes, travel, or weddings.^[76]

Exploring

Pinterest uses a feature called Guided Search, which gives keyword suggestions when entering a search term, narrowing down results. The home feed is a collection of Pins from the users, boards, and topics followed, as well as a few Promoted Pins and Pins Pinterest has picked. On the main Pinterest page, a "pin feed" appears, displaying the chronological activity from the Pinterest boards that a user follows.

Following

Following users and boards fills the home feed with content. Users can follow and unfollow users as well as boards. Similar to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter Pinterest contains verified accounts. A verified account will contain a checkmark next to their domain in the search results. The verified profile will also contain a full website URL and checkmark.