Most of us are guilty of spending too much time on Pinterest, creating boards about our dream apartments and the hottest runway collections. But with its new secret board feature, which allows you to create boards that only you and co-pinners selected by you can see, Pinterest can be more than just a way to keep all the photos you love together. These tips will have you (secretly!) pinning your way to success in no time.
1. Keep job postings and professional information together.
If you’re looking for an internship or a full-time job, you’re probably checking job posting sites every day or even multiple times a day. Here, Pinterest can come in handy for your career planning in addition to your personal tastes. Keep listings in one place that’s easily accessible but won’t be visible to your current employer. You could even create different boards for applications you’ve sent in and applications to follow up on to make sure you never miss a deadline.
Though Pinterest is first and foremost a site for pinning images, it’s also a convenient way to bookmark links—why else would all your favorite magazines and news sites have Pinterest accounts? Even if the “image” you’re putting into those internship boards is just the website’s logo, if using secret boards makes it easier for you to keep track of your applications, go for it. No one besides you is going to see those boards, anyway.
In addition to planning applications, you can also use secret boards to link to a company’s work, such as articles, photographs, artwork or professional websites. You’ll have easy access to the sites you want to look over before an interview and can easily plan ideas for what to discuss.
2. Plan gift ideas and surprise parties.
While the joys of Pinterest often include pinning the things that we love and want, a secret board is also a great way to keep track of the things you want to get your mom, sister, or friends without them finding out. Make one board for each person to store ideas for future birthdays and special occasions, or just make a general gift board for the holiday season.
This works for events, too. If you’re planning a surprise birthday party for a friend and don’t want her to know what you and your friends are up to, invite the co-planners to pin party ideas to one of your secret boards. You can keep track of party decorations, food, and other logistics without her ever knowing.
In addition to birthdays, secret boards can be useful in planning holiday parties if you want to surprise your guests with your fabulous décor and food ideas. Or, if you are planning a wedding (a real, upcoming one, not just your dream wedding board!), you could create a secret board and add the bakery and decorator you’re using as co-pinners so that you can plan your special day without ruining the surprise for your guests.
3. Keep track of images and links for a project that isn’t public yet.
If you’re working on an assignment that requires multiple sources, but you can’t reveal the topic yet, a secret board is the perfect place to keep all of those links and images together without breaking any confidentiality rules. If you’re an art or fashion student, you could create image boards of your creations and inspiration before you finish your collection and debut it at your school’s fashion or art show. Or maybe you’re working on a group project and just don’t want other students in the course to copy your ideas. Whatever the reason may be, secret boards are a great way to handle these situations.
If you work at a museum or gallery, you can pin images of artists’ work to inspire your collection. Budding fashion designers can pin their favorite trends without giving others a hint of what’s to come with their work. If you work in graphic design or handle social media for an employer, you could pin graphics, art and infographics to use in future posts, such as during holiday seasons. The possibilities are really up to you and how much of your projects you want to keep under wraps, at least for now.
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4. Create your dream shopping list.
While it’s totally cool to lust after those sparkly Miu Miu heels or that Marc by Marc Jacobs bag, you might not want your employer or potential employers to see the full extent of your shopping addiction. A passion for fashion is great, but hundreds of shoe pins can be a bit overboard.
Pinterest secret boards allow you to pin hundreds of dream ticket items without being judged. It will also help you keep track of what to ask for from your family on your next birthday or special occasion.
5. Make an online scrapbook of personal photos.
While most of your pins are likely re-pinned from other sources, Pinterest secret boards are a great outlet to store and share your own photographs. You can create a board for family events and add your family members as co-pinners so that everyone in your family has access to family photos, but they aren’t public to everyone on the internet.
6. Go ahead and pin those embarrassing images, links and inspirational quotes.
While some employers might frown on job applicants with boards like “One Day” and “OMG Squee,” let’s face it—a lot of Pinterest content is devoted to wedding planning and cute animals. With secret boards, you can pin anything you want without fear of judgment by potential employers or just by friends.
Sara Newton, former editor in chief of Her Campus UCF, has worked with PR and social media for various startup companies and says she has also used Pinterest in her journalism career. She suggests using secret boards for personal DIY issues, such as acne remedies or other health and skincare issues that you don’t want to make public. You can also use secret boards to pin inspirational quotes and sayings that might seem too cheesy to pin to your public boards.
If you’re not sure whether or not a topic constitutes a secret board, consider whether or not you would be comfortable with a potential employer pulling up a specific one of your boards on the computer during a job interview. If the answer is “no,” you should make that board private, even if it’s not anything too outrageous, like a board of recipes for your diet.
Pinterest secret boards are a great way to organize applications, project sources, and other things you don’t want to be public, but you should still be careful with any content you put on the Internet.
Now go out and use Pinterest productively in addition to your fashion and food boards. And if you still haven’t hopped on the Pinterest bandwagon, read HC’s guide to Pinterest.