With all new social networks popping up over the last few years, and Instagram becoming so popular, you’d think that Pinterest would be a thing of the past. And maybe it is for some, but we still love to use it to search and share inspiration, as well as keep our digital lives organized. Over the years I’ve found different ways to use Pinterest efficiently and I like to think it’s actually started helping me be more productive, rather than be that time waster a lot of people see it as!
How to Use Pinterest Efficiently
1. Take advantage of secret boards. At first I didn’t get the point of secret boards, but now I’m all about them. Actually, secret boards have been one of the ways we communicate for TBM and a success strategy for us! Now I have about 10 secret boards that help me stay organized when it comes to anything from my personal vision board to design inspiration for a project. I love that it’s a way you can use Pinterest without necessarily going off-brand, and you can also separate more concrete pins (ones you’ll actually go back to for reference) from those pretty inspiration photos.
2. Use a pin scheduler. I’m not active enough on Pinterest (I pin a few images a day) to make serious use of a scheduling service, but they’re very popular for those who use Pinterest for business or as a part of their primary social strategy. They help you spread your pins throughout the day, or direct them at a specific time, as well as offer stats and insights, for those who are serious about pinning and getting results. It’s nice for those that want to stay on top of it without actually being on Pinterest all day.
3. Give those boards a refresh. Awhile back, Jenn talked about how to refresh your Pinterest boards which is always a good way to establish consistent branding throughout your social channels, as well as get re-inspired with a lot of past content that might still be helpful/relevant/entertaining to you. If you use Pinterest as a bookmarking tool, we recommend this for staying organized!
4. Make sure your settings are correct. Does anyone else find the personalized pins (“you might like”) that show up in your home feed a little annoying? For me, instead of being relevant, they were always things I’ve already pinned or seen 1,000 times. Well, I recently figured out you can turn that setting off! Plus, you can also choose which data Pinterest uses to tailor your ads (though I still think their targeted ads could use major work). Updating these settings will help you use Pinterest efficiently in the future.
5. Search boards rather than pins. How do you use Pinterest to search? When I am looking for a particular recipe, DIY, or tip for our weekly resources, I always search boards rather than pins. Then I click on several boards at look relevant and go from there. It seems to help me find more variety quickly rather than just poring through the top pins on Pinterest, most of which I’ve usually already seen.
Hope this helps you up your Pinterest game! Share your own Pinterest tips below. :)
Martine says
I honestly don’t understand Pinterest at all. I have an account and I pin things sometimes, and try to pin my own posts. But I don’t really understand what to do to make it useful. I’ll have a look at Your posts on Pinterest and hopefully get some Insight!
Jessica says
This is such a timely post as I’m trying to increase my blog readership through Pinterest. On a personal level, I also hate the you might like and didn’t even know you could change that! Thanks for the tip! Jessica http://www.roomforgelato.com
Klara Donovan says
I recently purchased and read the Pinterest strategies eBook by Carly at Mommy on Purpose and have started implementing her strategies. One major difference is that she promotes live-pinning rather than scheduled pinning. It’s too soon to tell whether the new strategy is working better for me than scheduling did, but I’m interested to see the results!
Jessica Pezalla says
Great post! Pinterest brings a lot of traffic to my site but I’ve been so mystified by how to use it!
Kristen says
These are some very useful tips. I use pinterest all the time for my business. Going to try secret boards.