Learn to make money slowly, Pinterest business

Pinterest before this experience not to be trusted by the user, so they will not rush, but slowly to learn to make money.

Pinterest now is not anxious to return investors with income, of course, in the past five years, they have raised a total of 750 million dollars, so in fact, they also have the clout to do so.

However, final This visual "Social Nail Board" site still has to be serious about making money. Last winter, they dug up the former San Francisco Chronicle president Joanne Bradford and appointed her head of the business and content partnership of Pinterest.

Now, Bradford has been working in Pinterest for six months, and the site's profit strategy is beginning to become clearer. And in this month, her team announced the latest edition of "Promoted Pins", which is essentially a billboard-sponsored version of the image tag (known as Pins), which pushes advertising-like merchants ' pins and shares them to users.

"Pinterest's mission is to help people explore things," Bradford said in a recent interview. "Promoting Pushpin" can help users and brand-makers explore each other and discover each other. ”

Two attempts of charm

In fact, Pinterest tried to "push the Pushpin" strategy very cautiously, the company first announced that the strategy was last September, when Bradford had not joined Pinterest company, the sponsor pin and the entire site is very good integration. For example, if a user searches for a "camping" keyword, he can hardly see the "push pin" that contains a camping lantern in the search results.

Pinterest's adoption of this progressive advertising, but also starting from February 2012, when the pinteres took the wrong step, because there is no public relations department, when Pinterest tried some automatic association links, caused the criticism. In fact, Pinterest is adding sales code to a pushpin (pins) that links to an E-commerce site, which is technically a revenue-generating process.

After that, the tech blogger, who was also Pinterest's user, Josh Davis, disclosed the automatic Association link, and said that Pinterest profited by modifying the link, and that it was done quietly, without informing anyone. The whole thing was finally described as a small scandal, and eventually, Pinterest co-founder and chief executive Ben Silbermann had to call Daivs himself to explain the entire test process.

Since then, Pinterest has become very cautious, and they know it is not easy to gain the trust of the user. From this time they released "Push pin" activity again, can see Pinterest cautious attitude, Bradford said, through the research of a large number of users, they changed the project and change, finally decided to launch. In addition, the project not only lets users know how Pinterest is making money, but more importantly, Pinterest wants users to understand that they will never make money in the same way that they did in the last linked link.

"The Push-pin project is the result of a number of tests," Bradford said, "And now you can only find pins in search and category feeds, which are most relevant to the search and will not interfere with the user's experience." This effect is entirely due to the test feedback from many users and marketers. ”

Slow and steady.

Last September, for testing purposes, "promotional Pushpin" further emphasized the advertising content involved in the picture. Starting from May this year, the first 12 advertisers to collaborate on promotional pins will appear in the Pinterest category and search results.

In fact, the advertising brands appearing on Pinterest are familiar to people, such as Disney and ABC accessibility cable network, and of course, it is because these brands have a good reputation that Pinterest will choose them. Bradford specifically mentions that of the top 100 brands worldwide, 93 have Pinterest accounts, and many advertisers have a huge demand for promotional pins.

"Brands think Pinterest is a good platform to tell their own brand stories," Bradford said. "We are very flexible and if you want to convey your brand story to consumers, there are certain limitations to search and display ads, The effect is not Pinterest so good. ”

Although promotional pins will only show up in some particular part of the site, it still opens the door to all brand makers. Of course, it is necessary to attract brands to come in, and can not alienate users, fish and bear's paw to have both, or need some skills. We know that even big companies such as Facebook and Twitter have yet to find a way to advertise without impacting the user's browsing experience. So, as ever, Pinterest still wants to increase transparency and use tests to find solutions.

Bradford's current plan is to help advertisers learn how to use Pinterest better. In an ideal situation, brands can provide some of the user's favorite pin content, so that their promotional pushpin does not look like a promotional ad, but more like a day to share pictures between friends.

"Building partnerships with brands is not just about making advertising money, but we do now," Bradford said. "We are now working hard to train partners to better use pinterst and then build relationships with consumers in the most authentic way." ”