This week’s post might be more of a personal opinion, but I’m sure there are others that feel the same as me. When I’m looking for accounts to follow on Pinterest and see a board like this...

...I immediately hit the back button.

I don’t care what Internet strangers find funny. And most of this kind of content is ugly and bad. Get on tumblr if you want to find and share funny content.

Okay, maybe that was harsh. You can still use Pinterest to save funny stuff, but you might consider making these boards private. Maintain your outward image of cool, collected DIY goddess and hide your Minions meme secret shame.

I’m tempted to tell you to hide all your weird celebrity crush boards too, but when a sultry pic of Gael Garcia Bernal pops up in my feed, I’m not exactly mad about it. Fandom communities of all kinds are prominent on Pinterest (I still think they’re better suited for tumblr, but whatever) so you might get followers just by really loving those boys from Supernatural (what even happens on that show? They joust with their chiseled chins?).

But Pinterest is an aesthetics-driven platform, so always be mindful of how your boards look, and understand that it might affect how long people stay on your page (and if they ultimately choose to follow you). Appealing to niche interests may not be the way to go. If you want to upgrade your look on Pinterest, check out this previous entry about board covers.

Like I said, this week’s post is more of a personal take. It’s definitely possible that you’ll get followers looking to add to their own “humor” boards because of your collections of funny stuff, but a bunch of strangers swapping marriage jokes in Comic Sans sounds like my personal hell.

#MinionsMemeSecretShame

❤ Bayley

While most of the content you share on Pinterest may not be your own, your account is still a reflection of you/your brand.

Think of your role on Pinterest as a gallery curator. You should be sharing high quality visuals and ideas that you think other people might be interested in. Pinterest allows you to convey your personality, as a person or a brand, through content from all over the web. 

Board covers give you more control over how your Pinterest page looks and they give you a chance to establish some visual consistency.

To change or select a board cover, click the pencil icon on your board and click the "Change" button under the Cover section and browse your pins for a good cover.

It seems like Pinterest will let you pick an area of the photo to use as the cover, but it won't! It will always select the middle portion when you save your changes, so choose your cover accordingly.

Although you can easily make custom board covers (which I'll get to below), I've opted to use regular pins. I've selected pins with blueish/teal tones for all my covers to give my page a coherent feel.

You can exercise maximum control over your Pinterest page by using your own images as board covers. To do this, pin the photo from your device to your board (open your board and click "Save Pin"). Then edit this pin and paste your board's URL into the Website section. This way, your custom pin will lead back to your board when people click on it. Select this pin as your cover as you would any other pin.

Here is a Pinterest page with all custom covers that I made for my client, Concierge for Your Soul. It gives her page a slick, professional look that still conveys her fun, feminine style

Although you might be curating mostly other people's content, the ideas, information, and inspiration you share on Pinterest still make a statement about you. Pinterest is a great, perhaps underrated way of showing who you are.

​❤ Bayley