Finding Your Way Around The New Pinterest Interface
By
Karen Leland
Excerpted from the new book
Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Business
Pinterest recently made some changes that altered the look and interface of the site. So before you delve into the wide world of pinning, it’s worth your while to take some time and familiarize yourself with all the various and sundry adjustments.
Here’s a basic tour of the Pinterest interface to date. Be warned, given the nature of social media, it’s likely to change again!
The “Search” Box. At the top of the Pinterest home page is the menu bar. At the far left is the “Search” box. Use this box to find pins, boards, and people within the site. Type what you are looking for into the “Search” box, and click the magnifying glass.
The Pinterest Logo. To the right of the “Search” box is the Pinterest name logo. This logo is a link. Any time you want to return to the Pinterest feed/home page, just click the logo, which is always present in the top center of the screen, unless you are zoomed in on a pin. To exit close-ups of pins, just click outside the pin box, or click the red x in the upper left-hand corner of the pin.
Your Profile Drop-Down Menu. You will see your name and a thumbnail of your profile picture in a bar at the top right of your screen. Hover your cursor over the bar to navigate through an array of clickable options including:
Your Pins. Select this option to see all of your pins at once. It also contains some basic metrics listed at the top of the page including:
• Total boards you have created.
• Total pins you have pinned.
• Total pins you have “Liked.”
• Number of followers you have.
• Number of pinners you follow.
You can view the details of each of these options by clicking on them.
Your Boards. This is where all of your boards live. You can go here to edit each board individually, change the board covers, and remove pins. You can also rearrange your boards by clicking, dragging, and dropping them into the space you desire. The information at the top of the page is the same as with the “Pins” link.
Add Pin. Click this button, and a small screen will pop up providing you with an option to find a new pin or upload a pin from your computer.
Settings. If things change down the road and you need to edit the information in your profile, or even deactivate your account, this is the place where you can easily update your email, password, profile description, location, website, image, and Facebook and Twitter logins. You can also change your privacy settings here.
Help Center. Clicking this link will take you to the section of the site that contains information and troubleshooting on a wide variety of Pinterest processes including:
How to get started — which explains all the basic functions of Pinterest and provides profile and account setting instructions.
Guidance on pinning and repinning, commenting, and managing boards.
This section also includes information about possible account issues, help for your mobile and tablet Pinterest experience, managing your account, and help for business accounts.
If you ever get stuck, this is the first place to look for answers, and if you don’t find what you’re looking for, you can submit an email to Pinterest inquiring about your specific problem.
Find Friends. If you want to invite people to Pinterest whom you are already connected with via Facebook or Twitter, this section makes it easy by allowing you to pull up a list of your current contacts.
Log Out. You can log out of Pinterest at any time, but remember that if you want to pin while surfing the Internet using the “Pin It” button, you have to remain logged in, even if you don’t have the Pinterest window open in your browser at the time.
The Browsing Basics. Now that you know how to navigate through Pinterest, the last tutorial before sending you on your way to pin to your heart’s content is an overview of how browsing works on the site. On the home Pinterest page, to the left of the search bar is a small box with three lines through it. Navigate over the tiny box and it gets huge, displaying each of Pinterest’s 32 categories. Click on a category to explore relevant pins and boards. The menu also includes five broader navigational tools, including:
Home Feed. Clicking this link will take you back to your main Pinterest feed (you can also access your main feed by clicking the Pinterest logo at the top of your screen).
Popular. This features the current most popular content on Pinterest.
Everything. Clicking on this link opens the page to a mix-and-match jumble of all the most recent pins on the site from fashion to food.
Gifts. This section lists items specifically available for purchase. Want to see your content in the Gifts section? Add a price tag to the pin’s description to be automatically included in the gifts section.
Videos. Bored of looking at static pins? Navigate to this section to see the full range of videos being pinned.
Karen Leland is the bestselling author of 8 business books including the recently released Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest For Business, which can be purchased at http://bit.ly/Amazonbook. She is the president of Sterling Marketing Group, where she works with small businesses and Fortune 500 on building stronger personal and team brands. She writes the Modern Marketing Blog at www.karenleland.com.
A blurb about the book and the author
Pinterest is a social bookmarking site that allows users to create a visual, online pinboard with images they love organized around topics of their choice by category. It’s the fastest growing social media site in history, the third-largest network after Facebook and Twitter and has over 25 million members and 10 million unique visitors a month.
The most recent studies indicate that nearly 20 percent of women using the Internet are on Pinterest, 72 percent of Pinterest users are female, and 66 percent of those are age 35 or older, and the average amount of time visitors spend surfing the Pinterest site is an hour.
Karen Leland, author of the new book “Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Business,” has created a comprehensive and easy-to-use guide to hitting the road running and quickly making Pinterest into a valuable source of prospects, promotion and profits.
“Great business brands are about telling compelling, congruent stories, and Pinterest is at its core about storytelling in pictures,” says Leland. “Pinterest has tapped into this visceral lover of visuals, and no small business, entrepreneur or corporation can afford to miss the boat on bringing what they offer beyond words and into images.”
About Ultimate Pinterest Guide for Business
“The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Business” is designed to help businesses use Pinterest to its maximum potential. The book provides both beginning users and seasoned veterans with the ability to find their specific area of interest “at a glance.” It uses step-by-step how-to, sidebars, examples, case studies, expert interviews and tip sheets to show how, from setup to strategy, to use Pinterest for promotional, branding and marketing objectives.
The book explores the ins and outs of signing up and getting started on Pinterest and how to create boards that get noticed, drive traffic and convert fans into customers. Special chapters are devoted to creating a strong community and enthusiastic following through high-engagement activities, contests, social media outreach and smart pinning strategies.
In addition the book outlines specific marketing applications to small businesses, from architecture firms to theater companies.
About Karen Leland
Karen Leland is the best-selling author of nine business books and the President of Sterling Marketing Group, where she works with entrepreneurs, small businesses and Fortune 500 companies around the globe on building stronger personal and business brands. Her clients have included AT&T, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Apple Computer and Johnson & Johnson, among others.
She is a regular speaker for business groups and has spoken for the Young Presidents’ Organization, American Management Association and Direct Marketing Association, among others. Karen is a frequent guest of the media and has been interviewed on “The Today Show,” CNN, CNBC and “Oprah.”
She writes a regular branding and marketing column for Entrepreneur.com and has been published in Woman’s Day, Self, The Los Angeles Times and others. Her latest book is “Entrepreneur Magazine’s Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Business.”
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