connecting
Did you know Pinterest recently announced you can create an unlimited number of boards that are visible only to you?
You’ve probably noticed an option to “keep it secret” when creating boards [see Figure 1 for a sample], but up until now, you could only have three secret boards.
Figure 1:
Why would I ever make a secret board, you ask? I’ll give you three good reasons!
#1 – To Collaborate with your team
Figure 2:
Do you have an upcoming project that you need to brainstorm creative ideas for? Pinterest is a great place to gather inspiration, and by inviting team members only, you can keep all your creative thoughts to yourselves! Easily scan through the visuals and contributors on the board to see what sparks your interest (see Figure 3 for a sample of a group board).
Figure 3:
#2 – To Keep up With the Competition
If you’d like to keep tabs on what neat initiatives your competition has come up with across the World Wide Web, create a secret board to pin their activities to. It could be a collection of press releases, web designs, community outreach projects, etc. As they always say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer!
#3 – To Check out Prospects
To win new business it helps to understand as much about a prospect as possible. What events do they hold? Are they putting up blog posts? What are they posting on their social channels? Harvest all the content you want to keep track of and when you finally get that meeting, know them better than they know themselves.
Here’s an example – say you want to note their interests and you find a recent blog post about YouTube:
Figure 4:
Pin in to your Secret Prospect Board by clicking the “+” in the top right hand corner of your Pinterest account, and click “Add from a Website”
Figure 5:
A Couple Things to Note: Pinterest’s policies apply to both secret and public boards. If they remove an inappropriate Pin from Pinterest (see a whole list of things they frown upon here), it will also be removed from any secret boards. Also, if you become a member of a secret board that you did not create, the owner of that board can make it a public board whenever they want – which means your secret Pin will be exposed to the word – and for good! Changing a secret board to a public board is irreversible.
Have you been using Pinterest’s secret boards? If not, will you start? Let us know what kinds of ideas this blog has you brewing in the comments below!
Your business can’t afford to miss a beat when it comes to social media. Check back often for other helpful tips and tricks from the Advantis team and other senior communicators across North America!