PayPal is interested in buying Pinterest in a deal worth about 39 billion dollars: the news, not confirmed by official sources, was revealed by Bloomberg, according to which the companies have discussed a potential price of 70 dollars per share. Meanwhile, the sharing platform of images, links and ideas creative, change your face. With an update of the site and app, the inspirational social network embraces video content and offers 465 million active users the new Watch section and a reorganization of the Pins that make up the content feed.
Guarda is made up of full-screen vertical videos that Pinterest calls Pin Idea: they are creative themed movies (recipes, do-it-yourself projects, interior design inspirations and so on) made by creators and designed to inspire others to carry out similar projects. To increase engagement, Pinterest has also enabled the ability to create Versions, i.e. video reactions with a personal interpretation of the video content. As on other platforms, creators can follow themselves so that the algorithm proposes their content more frequently.
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Look at that Pin
If the description of the section Watch closely remembers how TikTok or Instagram Reels work, it is no coincidence, because the concept and the interface are identical: the videos scroll seamlessly vertically and on the right there are buttons to like, share the video outside the platform or with other users or to comment . The only differentiator is the ability to save the content as a Pin in one of your boards, collections of ideas that until now were mainly intended for static content and which will now be populated more and more with many video-ideas.
“More than ever, videos are an ideal format for reaching audiences in a creative and usable way, and on Pinterest it’s the same. he explained to us Adrien Boyer, Pinterest regional manager for Southern Europe – Over 65% of our pinners say that videos significantly improve the discovery experience, more than what happens on other platforms. Our choice to launch Idea Pins was born from their feedback and the growth of videos on the platform. We have listened to our members and taken into account their requests. The instructions to give life to an idea, such as a demonstration video demo, live inside the Pin itself, ready to be viewed within the app and saved on the boards ”.
The black hole of attention
Browsing a bit through the Watch section in the Pinterest app, which we got to preview, the attention-sucking impression is the same as scrolling through the TikTok video feed, Instagram Reels or gli Shorts su YouTube. Mechanisms that, thanks to the infinite scrolling system, never cease to offer us contents in a chain, ready to be consumed quickly. One wonders how Pinterest thinks of marrying this format of content use with the original spirit of the platform, that of inspirational bulletin board that pushes to do things, rather than passively consume the videos of someone who makes or tells them.
“Many other platforms involve users on a superficial level, with likes, shares and comments – Boyer told Italian Tech – Comments can often be negative and add nothing significant to the content or idea. On Pinterest we have the Takes, the Versions, created specifically for pinners to share their version of the Pin. It’s an engagement feature based on creating and adding to a creator’s idea. The comments people leave on Pinterest are more useful and usable, which is why we are investing in more ways to enable creators to establish deeper engagement with the public. “
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Convince the creators
The other key word is creator: they are the ones who feed the platform with videos, and their loyalty to the social network is essential to guarantee a constant flow of content. To win them over and convince them to publish a recipe or a carpentry project on Pinterest instead of TikTok, the platform gave life to Creator Rewards, its first content monetization program: “The initiative offers remuneration to creators who choose to share their passions on the platform – they explained by the company – by disseminating quality content and promoting interactions with users “.
The program is currently only available in the United States and is accessible through the Creator Hub, a portal with tools dedicated to creatives, tips and tricks to improve your reach. Additionally, Pinterest will target micro loans “to the projects that creators have most at heart or that they would like to implement, such as the creation of a community garden or the launch of a wellness or beauty program ”. The company plans to invest approximately $ 20 million in the Creator Rewards program and other similar initiatives. It will be necessary to see if they will be enough to tear creatives from the hegemony of TikTok and Instagram.
To promote the news, Pinterest has also provided a global campaign, called Create your Take, which will involve famous names such as Jennifer Lopez, Megan Thee Stallion and Storm Reid. In Italy, the campaign will focus on food and cosmetics: the two chefs Sonia Peronaci and Rubina Rovini and the influencer Maryna will be the protagonists. Creators will be asked to share a Pin Idea and invite people to work on it, posting their Versions of the project: “The launch of these new features is part of our long-term strategy – is Boyer’s conclusion – We have always had creators on the platform and now we are further developing the way we highlight the people behind the content. Creators come from all kinds of backgrounds and bring a variety of points of view. An idea can come from anywhere, and that’s why we believe anyone has the potential to be a creator on Pinterest ».
The link with shopping
Idea Pins are also increasingly shopping oriented, and will allow creators to directly sell a product directly from the Idea Pin (i.e. from the video content that appears in the Watch section). It’s a version more aggressive than Instagram advertising promotions with which influencers generate a large part of the revenue. Pinterest has also made available a feature called Augmented reality test that allows you to test a product virtually before buying it: at first it will be available as a filter to try lip cosmetics.
It is interesting to note that creators will not have to independently generate the filters in question, but will be able to choose to link one of more than 10 thousand products compatible with Trial. Then there is the Buy Similar Products feature which uses a visual search technology to suggest Pins with products similar to the original content, offering the possibility to buy what they see. The system already existed for images, but it is the first time that Pinterest has enabled visual search on video content as well.
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