Pinterest, the social network that enables users to discover stuff they like and “pin” them to their various “boards” they create announced that they have surpassed the 100 million monthly active users milestone.
This is an important milestone for the company that is currently valued at an impressive $11 billion and it comes at a time when the company is pushing forward with fully monetizing its platform. They announced in 2014 that 93% of Pinners had shopped online in the previous 6 months and spent 50% more on average than other social channels. In light of this, they started making efforts to cash in on Pinterest’s unique niche as a modern social media e commerce platform.
In June, they announced a better search engine for their app and buyable pins that will make people find goods easier and buy them straight from the app. These actions will pay off in the future judging from the fact that from a recent report, Pinterest was only second to Facebook in social media ecommerce and it is less than a 10th in terms of monthly active user base.
According to an interview by the New York times, Pinterest’s co-founder Ben Silbermann revealed that 70% of the active users are either pinning items they have found on the service for later or clicking links inside pins to learn more about the items. The interest is definitely there and in the June announcement, they revealed that they will be partnering with established retailers and mobile payment providers where they have more than 2 million products to be sold in the platform. They are targeting the holiday shopping season and the strategy might pay off.
By the end of last year, Pinterest had 72.5 million users and now with its 100 million active users, brands will be inclined more to use the platform. It however faces competition from other bigger social networks like Instagram with its new push to woo advertisers and Facebook’s dominance in the field thanks to its large user base.
Source: New York Times, FT
