Pinterest unveils 'Today' tab as traffic hits record highs

Brief:

Pinterest this week introduced a "Today" tab as a hub for daily inspiration, trending posts and curated topics as traffic surges to a record during the coronavirus pandemic, per a blog post shared with Mobile Marketer. The social media company plans to feature expert information from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on COVID-19 prevention during the next few weeks.
Pinterest's editorial team and guest editors will select items to feature in the Today tab, which appears at the top of the home feed on its iOS and Android apps. The home feed will continue to show personalized recommendations, while the Today tab will help users to see what's happening across Pinterest and in trending searches.
Pinterest also added "compassionate search" to its website, expanding a mental wellness feature that had been available on its app. The feature helps to find activities for emotional well-being when people search for terms like "stress relief," which have tripled in the past few weeks, per its blog post.

Insight:

Pinterest had planned to release the Today tab later, but its recent surge in traffic as the coronavirus pandemic forces people to stay at home led the company to accelerate its timetable, per its blog post. By featuring trending topics in the tab, Pinterest now has a feature that resembles those of other social networks like Twitter to help people see topics outside of their personalized recommendations based on topics and accounts they follow.

The Today tab can help Pinterest to boost engagement, giving marketers another opportunity to reach the platform's user base, which grew 26% to 335 million by the end of last year. However, Pinterest is likely to see slower revenue growth as the pandemic suspends business activity among a wide range of industries and leads advertisers to postpone or cancel their campaigns. Pinterest rival Twitter this week was the first social network to report that the crisis had diminished demand for its ad inventory, and Facebook subsequently published its own warning about the negative effect on its advertising business.

Pinterest is among the social networks that have reported a surge in activity as the pandemic leads health officials to urge people to stay home to suppress the spread of the coronavirus. Without disclosing exact figures, Pinterest provided anecdotal evidence of higher usage, especially among people who are looking for topics to help them cope with the pandemic. Searches for "indoor activities with kids" surged 1,300% in the U.S. from two weeks earlier, outpacing the 170% jump for "working from home” and 155% gain for "freezer meals," according to Pinterest.

The expansion of its emotional well-being activities to its website comes as people grow more worried about the coronavirus. Forty percent of consumers are most worried about getting COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, per a consumer survey by coupon marketing site CouponFollow. Its study found that consumers are also concerned about the economy (25%), access to food and essential supplies (18%), job security (10%) and changes to daily life (7%). By providing more content for emotional well-being, Pinterest aims to help people cope with these stresses, following past efforts to highlight mental health activities and inspirational content.