After working on the format over the last year and a bit, Pinterest has now announced a full beta launch of Story Pins, which looks to tap into the social Stories trend with a platform-unique approach.
As explained by Pinterest:
“Story Pins is an all new type of Pin and publishing option that gives creators a way to tell dynamic and visual stories with videos, voiceover and image and text overlay. We’re making it easier for creators who are eager to share their talent, passions and creativity to flow back directly into Pinterest without the need for a website. For Pinners, this means the ideas within a Pin will be more engaging and actionable.”
As you can see in the above screenshots, the format of Story Pins is similar to other Stories options, with a full-screen, swipeable feed of Stories frames.
The difference here is that these are contained within a Pin, as opposed to a separate Pinterest Stories feed, while Story Pins also don’t disappear after 24 hours.
“Story Pins can be saved to boards for later, and will be discoverable over time. They’ll also be distributed across home feed, search results and places like the Today tab, and benefit from the visual discovery engine that matches new ideas to people with relevant interests and tastes.”
So it’s like Stories in spirit, but for practical purposes, it’s not quite the same. Still, it’ll provide a way to re-create the Stories experience within Pinterest – which, given the popularity of the Stories format, could be a good way to connect with your on-platform audience.
Story Pins will initially only be available to selected creators in the US, with more regions to follow in the coming months. Creators interested in learning more about Story Pins can sign up here.
In addition to this, Pinterest is also updating its creator profiles, with a new display format and updated contact options.
“Pinners can also react to the ideas they discover from their favorite creators with a range of positive reactions like “Great idea,” “Love,” “Wow,” and “Thanks” to provide feedback to creators.”
The reactions are not entirely new – Pinterest has been testing them for some time, and they’ve been available for most users in some surfaces. But now, they’ll be more widely available on posts, adding another way to interact with Pin content.
Pinterest’s also adding a new Engagement tab for creators, where they can manage their Pin activity on a single tab.
While it’s also launching a redesigned Analytics dashboard, which will display a detailed view of how content is performing.
These are some helpful options, and with Pinterest seeing significant growth amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, these tools will provide more ways to both connect and maximize engagement, based on more in-depth, specific stats.
And while it may feel a bit strange having Stories on every platform, the data shows that Stories has become a key content format, like the news feed before it. As such, it makes sense for all platforms to align with audience trends, and provide more options to help people connect in the ways they’re becoming habitually accustomed.
You can read more about Story Pins here.
