Pinterest, the world's fourth most popular social media site, with over 40 million active users last month, is getting serious about analytics.
On Tuesday, it opened to the public a measurement dashboard that had been in beta testing, offering organizations with a free business account access to behavioral and geographic information about users who pin their content.
While these types of metrics may seem rudimentary to anyone with even a basic experience in analytics, it's a good start for Pinterest, and likely a necessary one. Twitter and Instagram have both recently revamped their data reporting dashboards, offering users more detailed information about how people interact on those platforms.
Who benefits from these platforms opening up more data on user interaction?
On the organization side, the analytics will serve to reveal previously unknown audience habits, which is salient information for any communicator.
But a more obvious answer is that the networks themselves stand to benefit most.
In June, Pinterest rolled out its first sophisticated self-service ad units—sponsored pins that companies pay for on a per-click basis. Providing companies that invest in those ads with analytics to back those spends provides an clear benefit and impetus for further spending.
Follow Brian Greene: @bwilliamgreene