Image courtesy of StartBloggingOnline.com

Pinterest is a major player in social media marketing that I hope you have considered – or are using – to market your business and/or drive traffic to your website.
This year, in particular,  the platform made some important updates and changes that you need to be a aware of to make it effective for your marketing.

Latest Changes and Improvements to Pinterest

• Comments button removed – If you have been used to hovering over a Pin and then making a comment you may have noticed lately that this feature is now disabled. But the good news is that comments are still allowed when you click on the image.

• Drag and drop boards – Pinterest now makes it easier to move your boards with a simple drag and drop feature. The old method of using the Rearrange Boards button is no longer available.
• Updated categories – This is probably one of the best changes yet on Pinterest. Categories are now much easier to see and find with enhanced features that allow users to see these all on one page. Categories are also customizable now, which makes them much easier to find.
• Favorites – If you frequent a category Pinterest now adds these to favorites, which grows as users pin from their categories.
• Easy to find Interests – Now you can easily spot new items of interest on the upper left hand corner of your profile screen:

• Get personal with Secret Boards – Track a goal plan or keep pre-product launch under wraps with this new feature launched last November just in time for the holidays. Not only can you create your own personal boards like fitness, but create a business or marketing board before it’s ready to go public.
These new features on Pinterest are more focused, and easy to navigate, which makes finding relevant images and content for your niche easy to share, as well as allowing for more targeted marketing of what you pin.
Image Pins
While not new, it isn’t always easy to add an PIN on your website images.  If you are using WordPress, I’ve found it depends on what other plugins are in use and it becomes a bit of trial and error.  I’ve used premium plugins and free plugins with a variety of success across different WordPress sites.  Currently, the Pin It Button for Pinterest plugin is in use here on this site and seems to be working fine.

If you do not want to add a plugin that adds a PIN to every image, and want to do so with only the ones you choose – or, you are not using WordPress for your website platform, Pinterest also provides a way for you to create a code with their Widget Builder.
Tell me how the latest Pinterest upgrades have worked for your marketing and business!
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