Pinterest: five new features you may have missed

One of the many great things about Pinterest is their ever-evolving platform and improvements made in response to customer problems. A few days ago, Pinterest rolled out a number of new features - inspired by their Pinners - that we're sharing here in case you missed them! Whether you're a business owner, brand, blogger, or dreamer, these new features are worth taking note of. Knowing about these new features will help you better understand how your followers and potential customers are using the platform and ultimately influence some of the ways you might promote your brand or business as a result.

1.) Better Messaging Functionality

Previously on Pinterest, users could send a Pin to friend as long as they were a fellow Pinner. Now, you can actually send a Pin to someone that you don't necessarily follow (or who follows you) on Pinterest. You can even share a Pin with multiple people and have a group conversation (kind of like you do on Facebook messenger). Perfect for planning a baby or bridal shower, office party, and more. {TIP: Think about this in terms of contesting for your business!}

2.) Better Sharing Functionality

Until recently, the only way you could send pins, profiles, or boards from the Pinterest app was via Pinterest and email. Now, you can share instantly through text message, Facebook messenger, and WhatsApp, as well.

3.) Improved Search Engine

Pinterest has acknowledged the difficulty its users had been experiencing when searching for friends, and has taken steps to improve the searchability of not just pins, but pinners, too! 

Pinterest advertising

4.) Promote Your Pins Post-by-Post

If you have a business account on Pinterest, you can now hover over any of your pins and instantly promote them, rather than diving into the advertising manager to set up your campaign. You'll see a red button appear like the one on the right. 

5.) Curate Your Home Feed (Again)

Remember when your Pinterest feed only included pins from the boards and people you followed? For the past couple years, you probably noticed that your feed now includes "Picked for You" pins, a slew of recommended content based on your search history, current boards you follow, and interests you selected when first creating your account. It's been hugely successful for Pinterest ("Picked for You" pins actually get saved 600 million times each month), but some users have complained that content isn't relevant or just isn't what they want to see. So, now you can click on the settings tab after you've logged in and turn off the "Picked for You" functionality if you wish to fine-tune your home feed! 

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Knowing about these new features will help you better understand how your followers and potential customers are using the platform and ultimately influence some of the ways you might promote your brand or business as a result.