Evan Sharp and Ben Silbermann, co-founders of Pinterest
Source: Pinterest
Pinterest announced a new stories feature on Wednesday, becoming the latest social media company to adopt the popular media format.
Story Pins will allow “creators” to post nearly full-screen photos and videos to their profiles. This new content format will make it possible to create step-by-step stories, such as tutorials for recipes or DIY projects, that the company will surface to users with relevant interests.
Pinterest is the latest social media company to adapt the format. Snapchat innovated the feature in 2013, and Facebook’s Instagram copied it in 2016. More recently, Twitter this year introduced its own version — “Fleets.” Similarly, LinkedIn began testing its own stories feature in certain markets this year.
Story Pins will be rolled out as an invitation-only feature. Pinterest said it will enforce higher content standards for Story Pins than for other content. The company has been testing the feature for a few weeks.
“This is how we’re going to make it possible for creators and pinners to connect in an environment that’s positive and inspiring from day one,” Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp said.
Story Pins will not have any ads, said David Temple, Pinterest’s head of creator products, but there’s still plenty of revenue potential with the format. For example, Facebook expects its Stories products to be its main revenue driver down the road. In October 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts that Stories was the company’s future and that he expected the opportunity with Stories to be bigger than that of News Feed.
Story Pins was announced alongside a slew of other features built specifically for creators, or high-profile users with large social followings. Pinterest also announced new creator profiles that highlight their original posts, an engagement tab that will allow creators to quickly respond to other users, and an updated analytics hub that will show creators the performance of their pins.
Creators, or influencers as they are also called, have become a critical part of the social media ecosystem because they can draw large audiences from one app to another. Instagram and TikTok this year have duked it out by starting to pay creators to post content on their apps. Pinterest will be hoping these new features will draw more creators to its service.
