JP Mangalindan says, “Pinterest may be a popular service with an estimated 47.1 million monthly users, but profitable? Not so much. To help change that, the social network expanded its ad products on Tuesday by rolling out video ads called Cinematic Pins. Cinematic Pins work similarly to Pinterest’s current ad products, Promoted Pins, in that they’re formatted to blend in with other items in your home feed — except for the fact they’re motion-based. Gap, L’Oreal, Target, Unilever, Visa, Walgreens and Wendy’s are among the first crop of paid advertisers. Pinterest is taking... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Pinterest believes it has found a better way for advertisers to capture consumer attention with motion. Called Cinematic Pins, announced today and coming to Pinterest streams this summer, the new mobile ad product enables brands to create moving Pinterest advertisements. And because the motion is controlled by Pinterest users, the company says, the experience won’t be annoying … like, for instance, autoplay video ads. “What’s really unique about this is that it keeps the user in control,” Tim Kendall, Pinterest’s general manager for monetization told Marketing... [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “After a slow and methodical introduction of advertising to the social network, Pinterest is planning to take several big steps to build up and round out its offerings for advertisers this summer. With the goal of meeting the marketers’ objectives throughout the marketing funnel, Pinterest announced, on Tuesday, it will be launching new features and services it says are aimed at awareness, intent and action. “We are aligning pinner action with marketing objectives,” said Tim Kendall, General Manager of Monetization, a new role in which he oversees sales, marketing... [...]

Carly Stec says, “Home to countless cookie recipes, laughable memes, and perfect last-minute gift ideas, there’s certainly already a lot to love about Pinterest. But what if we told you that the content sharing service had even more to offer? The simple truth is this: Amidst the ab workouts and IKEA furniture hacks, there lies a huge opportunity for businesses to use Pinterest to drive revenue. And with nearly 30% of online American adults using Pinterest, this isn’t an opportunity you’ll want to leave on the table. To help you get a handle on how to make Pinterest work... [...]

Carmel DeAmicis says, “Pinterest has completed the rest of its Series G funding round, raising an additional $186 million for a total of $553 million. It had previously raised $367 million of that offering, according to a March SEC filing. Pinterest* told Re/code that the round included new investors Wellington Management Company and Goldman Sachs along with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, SV Angel, Valiant Capital Management and Fidelity Investments. Along with the funding news, the company said that it would be... [...]

Emily Konouchi says, “An estimated 70 million users are on Pinterest. To reach those Pinterest users, you need to form a content strategy. Just pinning haphazardly won’t make your company engage followers. You need to consider what types of pins you want to be pinning. Consider creating how-to boards, behind-the-scenes boards, inspiration board, customer showcase boards, and product feature boards. “Look at what your competitors are pinning and repinning, what’s working for them, what isn’t, and see what you can replicate and improve upon,” states the following... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Google+ pushed into Pinterest’s territory today, introducing a new feature to enables users to organize content by category. Called Collections, the new Google+ feature is very similar to Pinterest Boards and gives people the ability to create a space for their favorite things broken down by topic. Collections can be shared publicly, privately or with a specific set of Google+ users. Collections can be followed and posts within Collections that users follow will appear in their home feeds on Google+. After a user or Page creates a Collection, a Collection tab will appear... [...]

Ted Ammon says, “Pinterest has long been recognized as a female-centric social media platform with 80% of its total users identifying as female, but the times are changing. One of the biggest differences we see lately is the ability to narrow search results for males, so search results show men’s watches or women’s watches, based on your interests. Since users are able to select search results to more closely reflect their interests (whether shopping for themself or someone else), this benefits all users. And, this is just a first step in making Pinterest more appealing to men.... [...]

Carmel DeAmicis says, “Last week, Pinterest* celebrated the one-year anniversary of Guided Search, a feature that helped move the site beyond its “social scrapbooking” roots. The company says that the search tool increased user queries by 30 percent. It’s become particularly popular among men, who use it to surface content that’s harder to find on the traditionally female site. Essentially, Guided Search prompts users with words that other people often search. For example, if you type in ‘recipes’ it may suggest followup words like ‘healthy’ or ‘quinoa.’ After you... [...]

Lucas Santo says, “On Pinterest – the social platform built on beautiful, shareable imagery – opportunities for shopping come cleverly disguised as outfit inspiration, smoothie recipes and DIY centrepieces. For consumers, it’s a place to hunt and gather. For brands, it’s a goldmine. Consider this: we analyzed data from over 529, 000 Shopify store orders to find that Pinterest was the second largest social source for traffic and resulting visits had the third highest average order value. Also, according to research done by Piqora, sales and traffic from Pins can occur long after the... [...]