Pinterest replaces ‘Pin It’ button with ‘Save’

Pinterest, the web service that lets people pin photos, videos, and other content onto boards, today said that it has changed the text of the red button that’s visible on Pinterest and other websites. For years, it has said “Pin It.” But now it says “Save.”

The announcement comes after Pinterest confirmed that it had started to test just such a change on some users.

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Today’s blog post from Pinterest product manager Steven Walling spells out the thinking behind the change:

Now that more than half of people who use Pinterest are from outside the United States, we’ve been working harder than ever to make sure our app and website are easy to use no matter where you live or what language you speak. Unfortunately it turns out that the notion of “Pinning” ideas doesn’t always resonate with everyone around the world.

So we decided to test what would happen if we swapped our Pin It button for the more utilitarian Save instead. We were amazed by just how many new Pinners started saving ideas on Pinterest, especially people from outside the US.

In spite of the impressive numbers, we still really struggled with the decision to make the change. We have a lot of love for our Pin It button, which has served us well for so long. But the most important thing is for Pinterest to feel welcoming to everyone, and that’s why ultimately we went with the more understandable Save.

Pinterest has found through its testing that people save 10 percent more with its browser extension when it says “Save” rather than “Pin It.”

The word Save is becoming a more common feature of Facebook and even Google. Meanwhile, Pocket remains a place to save articles and other content from around the web.

But Pinterest has a solid base of more than 100 million monthly active users, and its content tends toward the visual, which distinguishes the app to a degree. So it’s no surprise to learn that YouTube is the most popular site for pins to come from so far this year. And the button itself has become widely adopted — there are now around 150 million “Pin it” — oops, make that “Save” — buttons on the internet, Walling wrote.

Also today, Pinterest said users can now see all of the boards onto which a pin has been saved.

Happy pinning! Or should I say happy saving?