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Pinterest has introduced another new feature to help you find interesting pins: Follow Your Interests. Now, in addition to following pinners and boards that interest you, you can follow topics of interest.
Your Pinterest Home Feed can contain not only pins from people you’re following, but also pins on topics of interest to you. This change may drastically change the way you use Pinterest as well as other social media sites!
How Follow Your Interests Works
Now you can make your Pinterest feed more relevant to you by adding Interests to follow. To begin following Interests:
- Search for a topic or
- Click on the three stacked bars on the upper left corner of your Pinterest page and choose a Category:
When you click on a Category you’ll see Related Interests listed on the page that come from Pinterest’s Guided Search feature that was introduced earlier this year.
[note] ➪ See, Pinterest Guided Search – A New Path to Pinspiration! for more information on Pinterest Guided Search. [/note]
Click on a Related Interest and click on the Follow button if you want pins from that Interest to appear on your Home Feed. You can also follow the Guided Search suggestions to other Related Interests until you find an Interest you want to follow.
You can see how many people are following that Interest and how recently active the Interest is.
Pinterest is rolling out this feature so some topics may be follow-able while others aren’t. When Pinterest first announced this feature, it linked to the Pinterest Explore page with topics to follow. As of this writing, not all of those topics are available to be followed. You can still have fun searching through those interests, though!
Follow Your Interests on Mobile
You can also follow Interests using the Pinterest app on your mobile device. Open the app and tap the magnifying glass icon and pick a Category. Choose a sub-category and tap the Follow button.
How to See Which Interests You’re Following
Seeing which Interests you’re following is easy.
- Go to your Profile Page by clicking on your name in the upper right corner of Pinterest.
- Choose Your Profiles & Pins from the drop-down menu
- Click on Following on the right side of the menu
- On the Following page, choose Interests
From there you can see which topics you’re following and unfollow any that are no longer interesting to you. You can also go to the Interest page and click on Unfollow.
How to Make Sure Your Pins Are Found
With more than 30 billion pins, Pinterest is a treasure trove of visual information. But when you’re trying to get your pins noticed, well, you have a lot of competition.
You can increase the chances of your pins being found by those who are following their interests and using Guided Search by including #hashtags in your pin descriptions. Make it easier for Pinterest to categorize your pins to increase the chances of your pins being seen!
[tip]➪ Also see, How to Use Group Pinterest Boards to Make Your Pins Go Viral! for more ideas on getting your pins seen.[/tip]
Why Follow Your Interests Is a Game-Changer
Follow Your Interests may be a revolutionary way for social media to become more informational. With most social media sites you follow people, not interests. You connect with your friends on Facebook, follow people on Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, and Google Plus. But Pinterest is changing the formula by adding Interests to the equation.
You’ll be able to see interesting pins in your Home Feed even if you aren’t following the pinners. By letting you follow Interests Pinterest increases the likelihood that your Home Feed is filled with pins you’ll want to see, potentially making the site even more engaging.
Someday Twitter may update to let you follow #hashtags so that they appear in your stream. Facebook may let you follow interests in your News Feed. You may be able to get targeted content in other social media, making these sites more interesting to you.
A Proud Moment
When Pinterest first announced Follow Interests and linked to its Explore page, guess whose image was featured under Group Boards, front and center?
That’s right, The Wonder of Tech image from the article How to Use Group Pinterest Boards to Make Your Pins Go Viral! was featured on Pinterest. Yea!
“Group Boards” is not yet a topic that can be followed but perhaps some day it will be!
Your Thoughts
Are you excited about following your interest on Pinterest? Do you wish you could follow your interests on other social media sites? Which topics are you following on Pinterest? Let us know in the Comments section below!
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* Pathways image courtesy of Nick Kenrick (edited)
Carol, I am excited about it. I did not realize you could see the pins of people you were not following via the interests feature. Thanks for showing us both the desktop and mobile version. Great reminder on using those hashtags there too.
I love their mobile app – it’s one of the best out there. See you back on Pinterest Carol.
Hi Lisa, Yes, Pinterest shows you the trending pins in your Interests, even if you’re not following the pinners. That makes your Home Stream much more relevant to you and makes it easier for you to find what you’re looking for on Pinterest.
I really do think this could be a game-changer for social media. For example, Twitter could follow the lead of Pinterest and allow you to add hashtags of interest to your stream. If you want #news, you could follow that interest and find your stream includes trending #news tweets.
Following interests could make most social media sites much more relevant. Pinterest is the first to recognize this and act on it. I expect (and hope) others will follow!
Hi Carolyn,
These new features might be useful to me. I’ve trying to promote local events and business and already people re-pin my pictures that I take locally. I think many are ex-pats that have moved away. I need to use hash tags to identify places more. I photographed a charity bike ride this weekend and i have the locla newspaper interested in my blog and my photos! 🙂
Hi Mike, Yes, you should definitely make use of this new Pinterest feature. By adding hashtags to your photo descriptions you will make it easier for people to discover your artistic photos!
You should also try to find some Group Boards to join that will help you expand your reach on Pinterest. I truly think Pinterest is the best social media site to fit with your photo blogs.
Hi Carolyn,
Congratulations indeed! 🙂
Good to see your post featured right in the center, and I think this feature is going to create real on Pinterst. I just saw it earlier in the day when I tried to follow another person. I saw the interest link too, though that time nothing showed under it.
So, unless a person doesn’t click on some interests, which are perhaps added to her/his profile, the Interest tab in our profiles won’t show anything? Not clear about it as I haven’t had a chance yet to explore this option further, which I will after a while.
I think it would gather everyone with similar interests in one place, if they chose the same hashtag too, though they can still do that through the search option when they type a word with hastag. Need to check it out for sure 🙂
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice week ahead 🙂
Hi Harleena, Thank you. I was so thrilled to see my photo featured on Pinterest!
You’re exactly right, you need to follow some Interests to have them appear on your Interests page in your profile. It’s a very cool way to get to know someone better by looking at their Interests and seeing what they like.
I think you’ll really enjoy using this new feature, Harleena. Your wonderful blog covers a lot of different interests. By following those interests, you may discover new pins, pinners and Group Boards!
As a blogger I should have a good network so I join Pinterest….but you know there is difficult to make a lot of followers ….but with its new features I hope that I can increase my followers also..
Hi Ajay, That’s exactly right. As with any other social media, it can be hard to get started and acquire followers. But with this new feature, people may be seeing your pins even if they don’t follow you. Very cool.
Make sure to include hashtags to help Pinterest categorize which Interest matches the pin.
Also, be sure to check out Group Boards. I have a lot of articles on that to explain how they can help you expand your reach on Pinterest. Even if you don’t have a lot of followers, a Group Board can expose your pins to thousands of Pinterest users. By joining a Group Board you have an instant audience for your pins!
Hi Carolyn,
I saw your comment on Adrienne Smith’s blog and came over to see what you had to say. I use Pinterest quite a lot. A substantial amount of my traffic comes from Pinterest now and I get a steady flow of subscribers as a result.
I hdn’t noticed this new feature so thanks for alerting us to it. I thought I ahd read that hashtags did not work on Pinterest. Is that something that has changed too? I have never added them because I didn’t think there was any point but will start to do so now.
Sandy
Hi Sandy, Yes, #hashtags do work with Pinterest. Some people didn’t like using them because they aren’t very attractive so be sure only to use one or two per pin.
I am a big Pinterest fan and a bonus is that the site sends a lot of traffic to The Wonder of Tech too. You’re very wise to try to make the most of Pinterest, Sandy. That’s great your efforts are paying off! Well done.
You’re a fountain of knowledge. Thanks. But I still don’t see how I can make my screen black on my site. Is that a plugin or widget?
Hi Natasha, I think you’re referring to the Gmail themes article? You have to choose a dark theme to make the inbox dark with light text.
No, I’m talking about right here. I’m writing in a black box.
Sorry, I was confused. Yes, that’s a feature of my theme and skin: Thesis and Chronicl.
This feature will benefit everyone who want to show their good stuff to everyone that are related to ones niche. One thing that is now easy is to find people and follow them. Else before one has to search for boards of similar interest and select people to do so. Social engagement is now getting to the next level Carolyn. What you think ?
Excellent point, Aditya. You’re right, when you find a pin you enjoy through following your Interests, you may want to follow that pinner. So this new feature can help you find both pins and pinners to follow.
Hi Carolyn,
You always bring something new to us.
I am not an user of Pinterest but you know we should learn about every thing.
You are the one who give me amazing information about these social networks and technology.
Pinterest is an awesome website to pin images and every users wish to follow their interests. You have explained it effectively.
Thanks Carolyn.
Have a good day.:)
~Ravi
Hi Ravi, Thank you. Yes, tech is changing so very quickly. Some changes are minor but some really can make a difference to you. This change to Pinterest has the potential to be major, not just for Pinterest but also for other social media sites.
Pinterest is a very powerful site and this new feature makes it even more powerful.
Hi Carolyn,
I haven’t used the mobile app, but that’s something I’ll consider now. Following interests is great, and especially since we don’t have to only see the pins of people we follow. For instance, I don’t follow anyone that pin pictures of the NBA or basketball, but I really enjoy watching them.
Thanks for the tips.
-Jens
Hi Jens, That’s a great example of when you might want to follow an interest without having to hunt for people to follow on Pinterest. Here is the link to follow Basketball as an interest: Basketball on Pinterest.
Happy pinning, Jens!
This is great news for Pinterest subscriber. This new feature “Follow Your Interest” will be very useful and helpful for them. They will surely excite to use this. Thanks for sharing this article. I had fun reading this.
Hi Alexis, Yes, you’re right, this is a very exciting development for Pinterest users. Now people can see more pins that interest them, making Pinterest more useful to them.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, Alexis. I’m so glad you enjoyed the article.
Hi Carolyn,
Glad to be back here after my break 🙂
Well, I’m not too active on Pinterest, but these are great tips and tutorials.
Thanks for giving a complete explanation about this to us. Nice share, Carolyn :-bd
Do have a wonderful week ahead.
Nanda