Pinterest which launched in March 2010, almost immediately attracted international users. But until the social network introduced a British version of its site yesterday, every Pinterest user accessed the same version of the social network.
The social network’s U.K. version represents the first step in the social network’s broader effort to gain international users by localizing the social network’s content, says a Pinterest spokeswoman. France is likely the next country where Pinterest will go local.
Pinterest’s British site puts a subtle U.K.-centric spin on the social network. It features British English—for example, the site’s humor category is spelled “humour” —and returns search results with more content shared by British consumers than it generally shows on its U.S. site.
Pinterest allows consumers to ‘pin’ and share favorite products and images from around the web. Consumers then add their pins to boards, which are organizational tools used to group pins together around a particular theme—for example “Tea time.”
Pinterest doesn’t disclose user numbers, so it isn’t clear how many of its users are British or international. But the social network says its goal is to increase its British user base. “We’re hoping this will lead to more British pinners discovering things they love on Pinterest,” says a Pinterest spokeswoman.
To spread awareness of the changes the social network has revived the social media-focused campaign, called “Pin It Forward,” that encouraged influential bloggers to write about the site in 2010. The spokeswoman says that campaign “jump-started the service in the U.S.”
In the United Kingdom the social network recruited 300 U.K. bloggers to use Pinterest’s U.K. site and write about it on their blogs. The campaign started yesterday.
Each day about 10 bloggers will write about how Pinterest helps them learn about their interests. Pinterest promote those bloggers’ posts on its own blog and on other social channels like Twitter.