Social Media is a great tool to help companies gain more customers and establish relationships. With new technology emerging everyday, there are many different ways that companies can utilize social media to it’s fullest potential. Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare and Pinterest are some of the more popular sites used. Pinterest being one of the newest sites, has become a great tool for companies to connect with customers.
Pinterest is a social networking site that allows companies to share their products and inspirations to costumers. This site has become a popular tool especially for retail companies. These companies can share outfits or their newest clothes so customers are able to view them in a more casual setting. Although Pinterest is often used by retail companies, there are many other industries that use Pinterest as well.
Recently Pinterest has come up with a new tool that can be used by both businesses and customers. Secret boards have been created so users can keep their pins a secret and choose who can view that particular board.
In a recent B2C article Rebekah Henson explains how secret boards are not only for customers, but can help with marketing as well. She gives various examples of how secret boards can help businesses with their marketing. For example, planning a marketing campaign through secret boards. With secret boards businesses can keep their inspirations that they pinned a secret. They are also able to plan their campaign and keep it a secret until the feel it is ready to be released. Rebekah also describes how businesses can use secret boards to share inspiration with their clients. Rebekah states that,
“Pinterest allows you to designate certain people who can also see your secret board. This can be an easy way to share ideas for your clients’ eyes only.”
Some of the businesses she thought could utilize this tool were bakeries, photographers and designers. All of these businesses choose what clients to share their inspiration and work with.
Rebekah gives other examples and directions on how to create a secret board in the article. Personally I have a secret board and I really like how I can choose who I want to see the board. It is a fun way to share things among friends and I can see how it would be useful for businesses. I am curious to how businesses actually implement this tool to market to customers. It will be interesting to where secret boards go in the future.
Adriana M. Bóveda-Lambie, Ph.D. 
I think these secrete boards are a great idea for b2b marketing. However, I do think that secrete walls could backfire. Pinterest is effective because of the constant sharing of ideas. People may stop this and only use these secrete boards.
I’m not too familiar with Pinterest, however I do find this method very interesting. I think it would be really beneficial for businesses to utilize the idea of secret boards to do some marketing research. Companies could show different boards to different consumers to find which marketing methods are more effective, etc. In addition, Pinterest should proceed with caution because users may only begin to use private boards (as mentioned above).
I think creating secret boards was more to follow suit with Facebook and privacy settings, so people can have a sense of security while using Pininterest. But I definitely think used correctly, they could help with a company’s marketing strategy.
Thanks for sharing this post. I am not an avid Pinterest user myself, however I do find it very informative that something as simple as keeping certain pins “secret” and not viewable to the public can help a business with their social media strategy. With so many social media outlets, and with each one of them changing constantly, it is hard to know for sure what companies should do to successfully keep up with the trends.
Secret boards and group boards on Pinteres are a great tool for internal use. I work at a marketing firm in Pittsford where we have multiple teams boards that only we are allowed to add to and see. The boards range from client ideas to inside jokes. It’s a great way to brainstorm on a continual basis without having to have everyone present at the exact time.