As part of their ongoing effort to improve the business value of the platform, Pinterest is adding Pin-specific stats to each Pin, making the data easier to access and analyze - and action, in the case of switching to a Promoted Pin.
As explained by Pinterest:
"Now, when you visit your Pinterest for Business profile, you'll find a new stats icon on each of your Pins. This gives you (and only you) a preview of that Pin's total engagements. Trying to understand how much interest people are showing in your Pin? Use this feature to quickly scan your Pins and see which is getting the most action."
It's a fairly straight-forward, yet helpful addition, and similar to what you can already do on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (which recently added similar functionality to both their mobile and desktop apps).
As you can see from the above image, you'll soon see a new stats button on each of your pins - click on it and you'll be taken to a specific screen of data for that Pin, including total impressions, engagements, close-ups, clicks and saves.
You'll also have the option to promote your Pin there and then, helping to capitalize on interest, as gleaned from the insights.
It's the latest tool in Pinterest's wider plan to build out the platform's ad options and move towards generating more revenue, with, reportedly, a view to an IPO in the near future. Pinterest is currently valued at around $11 billion, with the company on track to make around $500 million in revenue this year, a significant increase on the $300 million the platform generated in 2016, and $100 million in 2015.
When asked directly about an IPO recently on CNBC, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann said that they have no plans to go public at the moment, but speculation has suggested that if they did, they could be on track to generate similar valuation to Snap Inc., which reached $28 billion on their IPO.
But then, of course, Snap has faced challenges since - those problems could cause Pinterest to second guess taking the same path, at least until it's confident that's it's significantly differentiated itself in the market.
And that could be a challenge - while Pinterest is actively telling people that it's not a social network, moving to distance itself from comparisons to others in the sector, it's also leaning on advanced image recognition search tools to further advance its efforts through new additions like the innovative Pinterest Lens.
That shift takes Pinterest in a different direction to Facebook, moving them out of the path of the big blue giant (which is where Snap Inc. is in trouble), but at the same time, it also moves them into the path of Google, which is developing similar visual search tools.
With Google Lens, your smartphone camera won't just see what you see, but will also understand what you see to help you take action. #io17 pic.twitter.com/viOmWFjqk1
- Google (@Google) May 17, 2017
Pinterest is touting itself as 'a catalog of ideas', effectively a product discovery tool - but just as Facebook wants to claim ownership of social, Google wants to own discovery, in all forms. If Pinterest does go public, it'll be under more pressure to produce, which could open it up to increased competition from Google, which could utilize that pressure to squeeze the platform out of its market.
It's a significant risk, and Pinterest is no doubt watching the Snap Inc. situation carefully while it assesses its next move.
In highlighting the value of Pin-level analytics, Pinterest also provides two largely unhelpful options on how brands can utilize these new insights to maximize their Pin performance.
"1. Post great Pins. Inspire Pinners to engage with your ideas by making your Pins beautiful, helpful and actionable.
2. Promote them! Promoting your Pin immediately increases your number of views."
So, if you want to do better, create good Pins then pay to promote them. I mean, it's not wrong, but there's a little bit more to it than that.
Pinterest's new Pin stats are being rolled out to all Pinterest for Business users from today.