The Pinterest Secret Is Out: Boards Only You and Invited Friends Can See
While doing research for an upcoming blog post for the Social Solutions Collective, where I am the Pinterest Go-To Girl, I happened upon the secret board section in the Pinterest Support Center. Secret boards were new to me (I learned that the roll-out was only yesterday) and thus curious, I read a bit more. And wouldn’t you know that as soon as I logged into my own Pinterest account, I was invited to ‘learn more’ about secret boards.
This is what they look like:
This is how you create a new board and make it secret:
Here are some of the Pinteresting facts I gathered about secret boards:
-> Each account can only have three secret boards. If you want to make another secret board after you’ve created three, you’ll have to delete one in order to make one. However, you can be invited to more than three secret boards and still keep your own three; the three board limit does not include boards you are invited to.
-> Your secret boards and all your secret pins are at the bottom of your profile.
-> You can make a secret board visible to everyone and thus change the status of the board, however, you can not make it secret again after it has been made public.
-> Secret pins are not visible anywhere but on your secret board. They can not be searched and found in category sections and they are not visible in your own or your followers’ home feed.
Now here’s the million dollar question:
Why on earth would anyone pin anything to a secret board on a social media site such as Pinterest where the point is to share and show off your finds?
Think of it as the DM (direct message) on Twitter or Chat (Facebook Message) on Facebook. ”It’s a way to communicate with a select few in your most inner circle of friends.”
We envision secret boards being used for:
Party invitations
Secret wishes between husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend
Bridal & Baby Shower Registries
Santa Wish Lists
Family Reunions
YOUR TURN
What use(s) do you have for secret boards?
I’d love to know how you would use this new Pinteresting function.
Dorien
About Dorien Morin-van Dam
Dorien is owner and social media marketer at More In Media. Dorien enjoys social media training, educating and consulting and is passionate about teaching social media to small business owners. In her spare time, Dorien manages five kids, two dogs and a husband. She runs marathons and loves to bake, travel and read.
Yep. I would only use secret board to plan my wedding. I’m not engaged yet – hence, the “secret.” Other than that … meh … I doubt I’ll use one. Thanks for the heads up and great information!
Thanks, Brooke.
I am of the opinion that secret board will be great for personal use, but I do not see much use beyond that.
Thanks for stopping by.
I’m with Brooke, not particularly gung-ho. While sharing pics is nice, if I need to share with colleagues or groups, there are better ways that allow better sharing of both images and information with more collaborative means, too.
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I saw a post from a colleague right after I wrote mine titled something like “Five uses for Secret Boards in Business”
I jumped over to read, as my five suggestions for using secret boards all had to do with personal Pinterest users.
The five suggestions did not excite me one bit and mostly had to do with internal sharing (within the company) There’s got to be an easier way (email!) to sahre images than making a secret board. I am with you and Brooke on the business side.
For fun stuff (party invites) I think it can be useful.
Pinterest heralded the roll out with ‘just in time for the holidays’ and I am not sure, beyond the wish lists, how the holidays played a major role in rolling out this feature now.
Dorien.
I’m going to go along with the general consensus of opinion here, Dorien …
Although I wish I had something pithy to add to the conversation.
For strictly personal use, secret Pinterest boards might be fun and purposeful. But for business-minded individuals, I can’t see one rock solid reason to put them into action.
I’m not really all that gung-ho about Pinterest in general, but I like the idea that you can have a board for gift-buying ideas, wedding baby shower, that kind of thing. Can’t see how it’ll be awesome for businesses to use, though.
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Thanks for your feedback, Kerry!
Pinterest has brought More In Media quite a bit of traffic, therefore we can not ignore the platform.
And I admit, I like ‘playing’ on Pinterest.
Dorien
I’m definitely with the others in regards to using the secret Pinterest boards for business purposes. In fact, I still really haven’t found much reason to use Pinterest in my particular line of B2B (professional services) at all!
However, I do see them as a potentially fun place to plan birthday parties, create wish lists, etc.
Great post and useful information, Dorien!
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This is such great information! Going along with the majority, I too would only use a secret board for personal use. I already pin all sorts of things, so I am not sure what I would start with but maybe someday I will find a use
Is there an unlimited number of people you can invite to the secret boards?
Thank you for the great information!
This is great information, Dorien! I haven’t yet set up or used secret boards, but had it on by back burner list to look into. Glad that you did the research and shared it! I’m with going to go with the general consensus of opinion here, too. I don’t think that I will be using secret boards for either my personal or business accounts.
Again, thank you for sharing this information!
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