As quarantine-driven projects increase, Pinterest is launching new board features so that you can bring plans for home, wellness, gifting and more to life

As the platform for inspiration and planning, Pinterest has seen increases in searches, Saves and newly created boards for topics such as home improvement and at-home workouts, and shopping for baby products, essential goods and gifts. While life in quarantine has been unexpected, it hasn’t stopped people from planning and looking ahead to the future. In fact, there’s been a 35% year-over-year increase in the number of monthly boards created. Additionally, there’s been significant growth in boards created in top Pinterest categories, including a 44% increase in beauty, a 95% increase in women's fashion and a 36% increase in home décor. That’s why today, we’re introducing features for boards that will make it easier to turn all of that visual inspiration from Pinterest into real life action. These new features include notes to self directly on Pins, board favourites, automatic grouping of Pins into sections to organise ideas into themes, suggested board section templates and a new board toolbar.

What’s new 

• Notes to self  – A new section on saved Pins that will allow you to add private notes to make it easy to come back and take action; think 'try this for brunch' or 'this will go well with the sitting room rug'. 
• The new board toolbar – Given that active boards contain over 150 Pins on average, this may just be a lifesaver. The toolbar makes sorting through Pins simpler thanks to an easy-to-navigate section at the top of the screen, showing all of the actions that can be taken on a board, from exploring more ideas related to your Pins to organising them, accessing notes and even adding to-do lists. 
• Board favourites – We’re testing a feature that enables Pinners to mark top Pins as a favourite by tapping the star icon on the Pins in their boards. Sort boards by favourite Pins and make it easier to find top ideas and take action.

Emerging trends 

This year, newly created boards titled 'dream lifestyle' increased 3x as Pinners plan what to buy, figure out new routines and contemplate how to improve their homes while in lockdown. Additional planning trends include: 

Quarantine babies

In the past six months, there’s been a historic increase in boards created for baby products. The number of Pinterest boards created for shopping and wish lists with titles like 'baby products' is now 78x greater. That means that more people than ever are turning to Pinterest to plan for the baby items they’ll need, which might just match up to impending quarantine babies who are being born 9–10 months after quarantine first began. 

Home Improvement 

As people look for ways to make their homes more efficient for working, schooling, outdoor living, increased cooking and family entertainment options, newly created boards for home improvement projects with titles including, 'homeschool room design' (11x), 'furniture projects' (+68%) and 'small home gyms' (+48%) have been skyrocketing.

At-home workouts 

More time at home and less commuting means defining balance for the self, driving an increase in fitness and wellness boards with titles like, 'workout videos' (6x), 'gym workout for beginners' (7x) and 'grounding exercises' (5x).

Shopping from the saves to the splurges

As people's needs change throughout quarantine, with some saving money they usually would have spent on travelling or other expenses, Pinners are shopping for a range of products. There’s been an 83% increase in 'everyday essential products' boards and an 83% increase in 'my dream wardrobe' boards. And there are more people planning for festive gifts this year, with a 70% increase in 'family Christmas gifts' boards. In searches, queries for 'personalised Christmas gift ideas' are up 46%, and searches for 'luxury gifts' are up 3x.

"The new notes to self section is so helpful! It helps to organise my thoughts around the images I'm saving. For instance, I was looking for inspiration for styling my sideboard over Christmas, and adding a 'note' in allowed me to detect the common threads between the images I've been Pinning. Turns out, I am a big fan of oversized greenery, candles and layered books. I was able to gather three specific styling images to add to my note, which I'll refer back to when I'm next arranging my sideboard at home. Additionally, the new board toolbar makes it easier to navigate the actions I want to take from my boards. Whether that's new ideas to add to them, shopping links, better organisation or - now - notes!" Pinterest Creator Monica Beatrice Welburn 

Did you know? 

Boards are also a great place for creators to collaborate with each other, brands or Pinners, and showcase their ideas by adding contributors. Pinners can organise ideas with a 'board within a board' using sections, or sort boards alphabetically. They can also add shopping or to-do lists to a board to make it easy to take action. Then, once their project is complete, they can archive the board to stop getting recommendations related to it. 

Whatever the project, from group boards to secret boards, here’s to making those Pins a reality. Keep an eye out for our annual look-ahead trends report in the coming weeks for more inspiration!

1. Source: Pinterest Internal Data, Global, Nov. 2020  

2. Methodology: Pinterest Internal Data, Global, October 2020

3. Methodology: Unless otherwise noted, increases are calculated by comparing the number of newly created boards with the indicated titles during the last six months (June ‘20 to Nov ‘20) to the six months prior (December ‘19 to May ‘20)

 4 Methodology: Trends are calculated by comparing normalized searches in October 2019 to October 2020

5 Methodology:  Increases are calculated by comparing normalized global searches in the month of August ‘19 to the month of August ‘20