Learn to control your Pinterest

Pinterest is a wonderful place to play… No matter the project or idea that I have, I can always find inspiration on Pinterest. When I first started on Pinterest, I just followed my friends. Then I followed anyone who pinned something I liked. Before long, I had a couple hundred people I was following!

This was great until my pinterest was overwhelmed with recipes for foods I don’t even like, fashion photos that I would never waste time on, hundreds of cute animal photos that while cute are just not my thing. The list goes on and on and on… Pinterest can be very overwhelming when you do not know how to control it.

It took some digging (because I REALLY like Pinterest and I saw that it had a potential to be an awesome art inspirational hideaway) but I finally FINALLY figured it all out. Without realizing it, I have turned my Pinterest into the best art museum and class center ever! But please, keep your interests in mind… let me show you how to take control of your Pinterest and make it work for you and your interests.

Let’s start with the main page. This is where every pin that every one you follow shows up. See the image above? It’s just a small capture of the main page. Now this page is great to show you what everyone else has found but it’s also an amazing diving board for all of those little rabbit holes on Pinterest! (Yes, that’s a whole different subject for a whole different day lol) So, what do you WANT to see on that page? YOUR interests right? See how mine shows art? That’s our goal.

STEP ONE : GET RID OF THAT UN-PINSPIRATIONAL IMAGE

See that red arrow above? This may be clear as mud for most of you but there are others who need to understand what they are going to be keeping an eye on from here on out. Each pin that you see is pinned by someone onto an interest board. The image I am using is for reference only here. See how it’s been pinned onto Drawings/Doodles/Scribbles/Ze… ? If that board were to say Cute Puppies, I would be diving in to unfollow it! And that’s what you should do now. Click on that board/pinner part of the pin. It will take you directly into that persons board.

STEP 2 : THE BOARD AND YOUR CHOICES

Now again, I love my boards these days so do not think I don’t like MakingMiniScrapbooks here. She has many great boards!

But once you click into the board from the pain page, this is what you will see. The owner of the board (pinner) is at the left and in the middle, you will see a button labeled ‘unfollow board’. This is where you make the decision : Unfollow ONE board, or dive deeper?

Let me explain…. If I choose to follow all of MakingMiniScrapbooks, then any and all boards she makes now or later will be poured into my feed. So let’s say tomorrow she makes a board about blue monkeys, and she pins thousands of photos of blue monkeys…. guess what I get to see in my Pinterest Feed? BLUE MONKEYS PEOPLE! Hehehe I got a little panicked at the mere thought! Sorry! Blue monkeys are cool in small doses but honestly, more than one or two a month gets me feeling overhwelmed! :)

So you can unfollow that single board that loves blue monkeys, or you can go on to step 3. I mention this because step 3 takes you into FULL control.

STEP 3 : CONTROL YOUR PINTEREST COMPLETELY

Inside a Pinner’s profile! This is where the real magic can happen. My screenshots are small captures that do not show all of the boards. I just want you to see the buttons here to know how to control your Pinterest. But let’s look again at MakingMiniScrapbooks. If I wanted to follow all of her boards (blue monkeys and all!) I would choose ‘Follow All’, the red button under the profile description. Maybe you have friends or family that you do want to follow ALL boards in case they make a new one with family or other shared interests that you have. But in general if you don’t want to do that. You need to avoid the FOLLOW ALL buttons.

Because you’re probably already using Pinterest, your button will say Unfollow All. You want to click that button! Make it say ‘Follow All’ and turn red! I love that red! It means I’m in control. Now that it matches mine above. You can begin scrolling through the boards and only selecting the ones you want to see in your feed. So let’s say I only want to follow her Envelope Mini Scrapbook board. That would be the only board I follow. ONLY one. Really! It tells her I’m following that board. It shows me all of her new pins to that board only, and no blue monkeys! Ta Da!

Now, because I ramble a lot when I’m telling you how to do this…. here’s a small recap :

On a specific Pin that you aren’t crazy about:

1.  Click on the name of the pinner and board that it’s pinned to underneath the image on the main screen.

2. Either unfollow that single board (and you’re done with that single board) -OR- Click through to that Pinner’s profile and go on to step 3.

3. On the profile page, click unfollow all. Then scroll through boards and select only the individual boards that you would like to follow.

Now, repeat with all of the people that you are following until you control your pinterest!

Yes, it’s time consuming. It took me a few months to get through about 800 people. But eventually I stopped seeing pins in my feed that had no interest to me. Good luck and happy pinning!

Side note: I do not personally know MakingMiniScrapbooks and I hope she doesn’t mind me using her as an example! I just like some of her boards and her website She has many tutorials and techniques for fellow art journal enthusiasts and scrapbookers!