Pinterest has made a small, but significant change, adding a search bar to the home screen of their app.
As explained by Pinterest:
“Now, instead of having to open the Explore tab to search for ideas to try, you simply type what you’re looking for into the new search bar at the top of your home feed. You also have the Lens camera right there at the ready, so when you spot something out in the world that looks interesting, you can quickly tap open Lens to snap a photo and find related ideas.”
For those unaware, Pinterest Lens is now available to all Pinterest users worldwide, which hasn’t been highly publicized (the last major update on Lens availability noted that it was available to all US users). And that expanded availability is important, because Pinterest has also released some new stats on search adoption on the platform which shows the growth of Lens use.
Pinterest reports that:
- Monthly mobile text searches are up 40% last year
- Nearly 85% of all searches on Pinterest now happen on mobile devices
- Monthly visual searches have increased almost 60% over last year
- Nearly 4 billion suggested Pins are surfaced through search every day
These stats are in addition to the 2 billion total searches conducted on the platform each month, which Pinterest reported a year ago.
To capitalize on these trends, Pinterest has added new paid options like search ads and improved keyword targeting, in order to help brands tap into this rising interest. Coupled with Lens, and the wider usage trends on the platform, you can see how the increased focus on the platform’s search options makes sense, both for the platform and advertisers alike.
As we’ve noted previously, Pinterest may not get the hype other social platforms do – and might not even be a social network anymore – but there’s a lot of opportunity in Pins, especially for B2C brands. These rising search trends further underline this – if you’ve not checked out Pinterest’s search updates, and Lens, they’re definitely worth a look.
Pinterest’s new search and Lens front page shortcuts are now available in the latest version of the iOS app, coming to Android soon.