Pinterest Launches Guided Search For Personalized Discovery

Pinterest has just released two new mobile search products, which will increase the marketing reach of both small and large businesses.  “Guided Search” was developed with the intention of helping users discover new things in a directed manner.  While regular search is very useful for finding answers to questions, the new Guided Search will provide users with useful ideas from fellow Pinners to assist them with finding great options based on social recommendations. The CEO of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann, suggests that Guided Search is a major breakthrough for users who are exploring their interests.  During a press conference last week at the company’s San Francisco headquarters, Silbermann described the idea that was the seed of creating the new Guided Search.  “One question that we’ve been asking ourselves all year, ‘How can we help you discover things that you care about?'”

Pinterest explains Guided Search by saying, “Now when you search for something (road trips, running, summer BBQ), descriptive guides will help you sift through all the good ideas from other Pinners.  Scroll through the guides and tap any that look interesting to steer your search in the right direction.”  Pinterest users can choose between pins, boards and pinners when they initiate a search.  Once the search process starts, Pinterest displays a “slidable” row of additional terms that can be tapped to refine the parameters.  If the user is searching for a relatively general term such as “Plants”, the system will provide suggestions such as “for shade” and “keep mosquitoes away”.  If a specific query is made, such as “hairstyles for medium length hair,” Guided Search will provide the user with options to go deeper into the search, such as “bangs”.  With 750 million boards and 30 billion pins, Pinterest has experienced a 50% growth over the past six months, which certainly has both small and large businesses taking notice.

Silbermann explains the purpose of the new Guided Search further, explaining that, “We stepped back and decided let’s build a search engine that’s more about exploration, that’s more about discovery, that’s more about teaching about your tastes and giving you options to explore than it is about giving you an ordered list of the best answer.”  Guided Search became available last week as an update to the Pinterest app in both the Apple and Google Play stores.

The announcement of Guided Search came alongside the release of another new Pinterest product called “Custom Categories”.  Creating a dynamic feed of specific topics, such as Bob Dylan, users will be able to find categories within their interests, regardless of whether they are common or obscure.  Custom Categories allows users to browse pins about the category and subsequently slide through a list of suggestions for related categories within their specific interests.  While these new products are only currently available on iOS and Android, Pinterest promises that they will roll out across other devices over the next few months.