A Journey Through My 20's

It’s not platform breaking news, especially on the heels of some of the platform’s latest updates, but a new notifications feature has been added to Pinterest. As a community manager for several national brands that are experiencing success, I am happy to see this feature finally get a much needed update.

Notifications were on Pinterest before, but they simply appeared on the left side of the home page. If you wanted to stay up-to-date on what is happening on your page, you had to keep a keen eye on your notifications or deal with all of the obnoxious e-mails from Pinterest (which we all opted out of a long time ago, am I right?). Now Pinterest boasts a very Facebook-like notifications feature that appears in the top right corner by your profile picture and it also allows you to look at all previous notifications.

For community managers, it is now easier for us to keep a pulse on how that platform is performing. Although let’s be honest, we’re also using other social media tools to help do this. Personally, I am a HUGE fan of Curalate. For everyday users the new feature has benefits as well. If you get a lot of engagement on your profile, it is a lot easier to track and interact with those who have interacted with you. More interaction leads to more content discovery, which  could help you find your next DIY project with mason jars, or whatever craft, recipe, or fashion fix you are looking for.

Pinterest also recently got a nice face lift, making it more visually appealing and not really altering the way you use the platform. However, brands also go another nice added feature as long as their page is verified. The introduction of analytics to the platform also made community managers around the world happy. While I still believe the analytics provided by Pinterest are still inferior to tools like Curalate, they are free to access which helps out smaller brands with smaller budgets. The biggest shortcoming of the new Pinterest analytics is their lack of information on the brand page. Instead, all of the analytics are tied to content from the brand page’s website. Of course in regards to tracking the ROI of the platform, this can do wonders. But, there is also tremendous value in finding trends and insights on how your brand page and the content you are repinning and pinning from other sources is performing.

All-in-all, the changes Pinterest has made is certainly setting them up for more future success. Undoubtedly, this channel will become a crucial part of the digital strategy for even more brands as time goes on. Well played Pinterest, well played.