New Pinterest design AND analytics

On Monday, Pinterest announced that it was officially rolling out the new design for all users. At first glance, the new design doesn’t seem that different, but on the back end, there are powerful new benefits to marketers. Let’s take a closer look at the updates and what they mean to content generators using Pinterest to drive targets to their sites:

Bigger, bolder images

Image quality is even more important in the new design. Images are bigger on the page and when you click on them, the expanded version is even bigger. Many social media platforms are becoming more and more visual, including Facebook’s news feed changes, Google+ with expanded cover images, and Twitter with headers and Vines. The trend tells the story—people want, and respond to, visual content.

Whenever you incorporate visual content, there may be an opportunity to use Pinterest to deliver that content to your target audience. Be sure to use high-resolution images when uploading new pins and incorporate images and designs to Pinterest campaigns whenever possible, like Land O’ Lakes did in its recent Pin a Meal campaign.

Browsing

Pinterest has updated to an anchored browser. When a user used to click on a particular pin to expand it or go to the pin source, and then go back to the feed, they would be taken to the very top—an irritating occurrence after you had spent hours scrolling down and making progress within the feed. Now the browser is supposedly supposed to stay anchored to the spot where you left off.

Pinterest made the change to improve retention and increase the amount of time users spend on the site (as if I don’t spend enough time on it already). Marketers should keep in mind that if people are going to be spending more time on the site without leaving, it will be important to maintain their interest in your pins. A steady stream of content and increased pin frequency will help you keep your audience engaged.

New discovery features

Probably the most significant of changes, is the new set of discovery features on individual pin pages. You can now scroll the board the pin was pinned on to, look at pins from the same source, and discover similar pins—all on the same page. Basically it is another way for Pinterest to suck users in and keep them engaged. Pinterest is also updating its Android and iOS apps to include these discovery features.

Again, more engaged users spending more time on Pinterest just increases its relevancy as a successful platform to connect with target audiences and serve them more content and eventually increase sales.

Features being removed

Pinterest has also removed some features with no explanation given. It could be to have more accurate data and streamline its new web analytics. There could be hidden future monetizing intentions behind the changes as well. Here’s what you will no longer see:

Hashtags—You can put a hash mark in front of a word, but it won’t be searchable
Links in comments or descriptions (of course, links will remain in pins)
You are no longer able to tweet a pin at the same time you pin it to a board
Profile descriptions have been reduced to a 160 character limit
You can no longer follow boards from the Facebook platform

Web analytics

Along with making its platform more user-friendly, Pinterest finally added analytics for brand pages. If your brand has a verified website connected with your Pinterest profile, you’re eligible to receive information on how many people have pinned from your site, pin impressions, pin clicks, and how many people have visited the site from Pinterest. You could have easily found some of this information from your own web analytics and counting repins, but of course this is a much more efficient and visually appealing way to look at traffic.

These analytics give marketers another way to measure and optimize their strategy. You can now quickly find the answers to: What content do people pin the most? What pins drove the most traffic to our site? How many people potentially saw this content? View this video to see the ins and outs of Pinterest Analytics: http://vimeo.com/61580880.