Pinterest has announced a brand new search feature that prizes discovery of the unforeseen over nailing down specific information, “ leaving a little room for serendipity.”
At the same time that it released the Guided Search feature, Pinterest also disclosed that its reach now spans 750 million boards and 30 billion total pins. That's up 50 percent over the past six months, per TechCrunch.
Guided Search works loosely akin to a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, in which a simple keyword search may lead to a plethora of related tangents. It is currently only available on mobile devices.
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Say a father and his daughters are deciding what to make for breakfast one morning and they type in “pancakes.” That, in turn, brings up a panel of additional options -- or “descriptive guides,” as the company calls them -- such as “Healthy,” “Fluffy,” “Recipe” and “Chocolate Chip.”
Eventually, in a stunning ad that depicts the search feature in action (below), one of the daughters settles on a pin for “Double Rainbow Pancakes” -- a colored stack decorated with fruit kabobs, which they later fry up and enjoy.
The new feature will not affect the way Pinterest ranks search results, it said, “so you don’t need to make any changes to pins from your business.”
For businesses on Pinterest, the company advises doing upfront research on target consumers -- noting that people’s interest generally fall into five categories: passions, vocations, hobbies, projects and preference changes.
“Ask yourself: what kinds of things is my customer into? Think about what content your business already has that you could add to Pinterest so people can explore their interests further.”
Related: How You Can Get More Pinterest Followers (Infographic)
