A New Look for Pinterest and New Analytics

Being out of the country for a week is a good lesson on how fast social media changes. I’ve been in Europe for the past ten days – Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels and London. While I was gone Facebook changed its Timeline layout and Pinterest added a new look to its boards and layout. They also added analytics for verified Pinterest business accounts.  I’ll cover the Pinterest changes here, and watch for a blog on the Facebook changes soon.

Pinterest New Look and Layout

Like: The look and feel of the pins. They are larger and clearly display the board on which they are pinned right underneath the pinner, which make it easy to see and follow the boards of pins you like. The menu at the top is now hidden and drops down under your name. It appears to have a responsive design element, as I noticed the screen resize and pins reorganize depending on my monitor size. Good feature.

Dislike: The ability to send a newly added pin to Twitter seems to have been disabled. Instead, users must first pin the image, then go back and choose the share option to send their pins to Twitter. I predict Pinterest will add this feature back, but for now it’s missing. I also see something wonky happening with my bio. The font appears to be too large and some of it is missing behind my location and verified website address. Again, hopefully these issues will be fixed soon.

Pinterest Analytics

Like: In another step toward making the platform friendly for businesses, Pinterest has added analytics to their verified business accounts. If you haven’t verified your website you will not have access to this tool, so here’s how to verify your website on Pinterest to gain access. Once you’ve done so, you’ll find the new feature available to you in the drop down menu under your name.

Do you see a repin number here?

Currently available are site metrics, most recent repins, most repinned and most clicked. Users can also export the data to an Excel CSV file for further drilling down. Use what you learn from these metrics to understand how your content is being shared and used, and work to improve the level of engagement based on your findings.

Dislike: I’m finding the new analytics a bit buggy to start. For example, under “most repinned” I see images of my pins there, but no repin numbers or data even if I click through. As with most new tools I’m sure we’ll see improvement as time goes on.

Even with the faults, this analytics feature is a great improvement and a necessary tool for social media professionals.

Now, if they would just add the ability to schedule pins….

What do you think of the changes? Are there business features you wish Pinterest would offer? Leave me your thoughts in the comments.