Last week when Ben Silberman announced that Pinterest would start experimenting with promoted pins – I started looking for them. I think I just found one, but I’m not 100% sure. (Correct me if you think I’m wrong).
First, here is what Ben said in the announcement post,
And here is what I found when I searched for shoes compared to searching for watches or jackets. Did I find a Promoted Pin? I think so!
Why is this such a big deal? That’s easy. Monetization. But the coolest part is the care and class the Pinterest team is using to monetize. It’s truly fantastic that they are being super sensitive to do it in a way that is non-obtrusive. I first wrote my thoughts about how they could/should monetize back in April of last year with my “Open Letter To Tim Kendall”. Bottomline, I suggested they should attempt to be loved like priceline, not tolerated like Adwords & FB Ads. It’s not an easy thing to do.
Can Pinterest roll out a monetization strategy that actually serves users and strengthen our love and respect for the site?
So far – so good!
marketingonpinterest.com 
I have been seeing recommended pinners in my search bar for quite some time so I am not fully convinced this is what they mean. I was thinking it would be more like sponsored updates on Facebook that show close to the top of your news feed with promoted pins showing at the top of search results and not in the drop-down search bar. Of course, I am just guessing.
Interesting. Yeah, we are all guessing a bit. It’s fun to watch!
@jason, I think that what you saw are the search suggestions released early in May: http://blog.pinterest.com/post/49467580238/find-what-youre-searching-for where, when you type something on the search box Pinterest suggest you search terms, pinners you are following, FB friends or your boards with the keyword.
The promoted PINs as they told: “For our first test, we’ll promote a few pins in search results and category feeds. For example, a pin for a Darth Vader outfit from a costume shop might be promoted in a search for “halloween.”” I think will appear on the feeds only, but we have
to wait and see 🙂
Based on their announcement this week – you’re right! Good insight. Thanks for sharing it.