We know Pinterest as an inherently visual network, but over the years the online pinboard has evolved into a great resource for sharing, storing and discovering long-form content, as well. According to Pinterest, over 5 million articles are pinned each and every day. Here at lonelybrand, Pinterest lands within our top 10 sources of traffic, and the vast majority of those visitors are clicking on pins that lead to individual articles.
This long-form trend isn’t lost on Pinterest. The team is rolling out a new set of pins built specifically for articles that will include the post’s “headline, author, story description and link right on the pin.” The intent is to provide a bit of teaser content for pinned articles. Hopefully this new format will bolster interest among usres and boost clickthrough rate journalists and content marketers.
Before the update, content marketers had to include that teaser content within the pin’s caption (see example below). This was a simple process, but wasn’t as eye-catching as the new article pins.
This new feature isn’t just limited to discovery, though. As Pinterest points out, “Read Later Boards” are a great way for users to collect interesting content and stash it away for later reading — a visual alternative to popular save-for-later apps like Evernote and Pocket.
Article pins also present a new way for brands and thought leaders to curate content. For example Ariana Huffington, Dr. Oz and Alyssa Milano have already created “What I’m Reading” Boards to so share what’s on their to-read list.
