Pinterest Is Trying to Woo Male Users With Gender-Based Search Results

While Pinterest has quickly become one of the most popular social media sites around, it is no secret that the company struggles to attract men. The problem is so widely known, Wall Street Journal profiled the company’s attempts to bring more men onto their site today.

The latest estimates from comScore indicate up to 71% of Pinterest’s 72.5 million visitors in December 2014 were female, and a recent Pew Research survey found that only 13% of American online men use the site. Despite this, Pinterest claims it doubled the number of male users last year, but it still isn’t out of the woods.

Pinterest is currently making strides to increase revenue, which means the company has to convince advertisers it can reach a wide range of demographics – including men. To accomplish that, Pinterest told the Journal that it is working to make the site more “gender neutral” and has adjusted the sign-up process to give new users content-following suggestions based on their gender.

In an attempt to cater the site towards user interests, Pinterest announced a few interesting changes in the article. Perhaps most intriguing is the news Pinterest will begin personalizing search results based upon users’ gender.

For instance, depending on whether a male or female is browsing, a search for “workouts” generates fitness tips that are as different as the pages of “Men’s Fitness” and “Women’s Health.” In the past, the results for male users would have included a mix of men’s and women’s workout regimens. Pinterest says this feature, now available to all of its users, has led to increased engagement on the platform.

Pinterest never mentioned this algorithm in the past, but some tests from Marketing Land show the difference in search results is pretty stark. Here are some examples:

Results for “Party”

Results for “Shoes”