Demystifying Pinterest: A User's Guide For Guys

While it's been around for a minute, Pinterest still remains an enigma to most guys (mainly because it’s still shaking it’s false rep as a digital playground for soccer moms, fashion victims, scrapbookers, and recipe-bloggers.) But with so many dudeswe trust using it religiously to manage their awesome lives, we needed to know what we're missing out on. So we tapped the men who know it best — the ones who work there — for some advice on becoming a Pinterest power user. Here's what they said.

Surprise! Pinterest isn’t just for weddings and home decor. Try searching for camping or fishing ideas, baseball cards, BBQ recipes, or ways to brew beer.
Everett Katigabak, Brand Manager: I’m the proud owner of a 1965 Vespa ss180 and have all kinds of tools and videos in my Vespa ss180 Restoration board.

Follow publishers and media sites like The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, and Mashable to collect good articles to read, and Pin to save for later.
Skip Bronkie, Brand Creative Producer & Filmmaker : I keep track of all my most fascinating reads in my board Every Article I’ve Read Starting 7/16/13. It’s a great way for me to wrap my head around what I’ve consumed and learned from week to week. I do the same for novels and movies too!

Follow Pinners and boards you like and you’ll get updates into your Home Feed.
Kevin Knight, Agency and Brand Marketing: One of my main uses for Pinterest is discovering fly fishing techniques, gear and places to go. I start by searching for boards and Pins with the "fly fishing" search term. When I find one I like, I follow it. I've been amazed at how active the fly fishing community is on Pinterest.

Create a Secret Board to keep your ideas under wraps.
Matt Crystal, Head of International: I use Secret Boards to organize all kinds of projects. Most recently, I planned a summer vacation to France via Secret Board.

Collect great ideas for recipes to prevent mundane dishes, and use Recipe Search to discover even more.
John Rauser, Data Scientist: My wife and I are terrible about planning for dinner.  We usually start thinking about dinner plans at about 4 p.m., when we're often tired and a bit uninspired.  As a result we have that conversation that I'm sure is incredibly common. ‘What do you want to have for dinner?’  ‘I don't know what do you want?’ Repeat until you're either sad or eating delivered pizza. I've started a board of reliable weeknight recipes that my wife and I can look over for ideas when we get into this little quagmire.

Create a group board to share your vision for a specific idea, and collaborate to make it happen.
Dave Kim, Marketing: I’m working on an outdoor deck and our architect is using it to get a sense and understand what we want.

Plan a long-term project and get inspired by others who are experts in the field.
Gabe Trionfi, User Experience Researcher: I have an old VW camper van. I recently started collecting links for tips on repairs and projects. That way I can plan what I want to do and have all the guides to do them in one place.

Create a Places board to document your favorite spots.
Jason Costa, Developer Relations: Some friends and I created a board around the Best Doughnut places. It started as a collection of doughnut hot spots nearby, but now we’ve branched out to the Best Doughnuts in the U.S.

Send a Pin or Board to a friend.
Victor Ng, Designer: One of the few things I consider myself an expert in is selecting the perfect animated GIF to respond to certain situations. It’s now so much easier to send a reaction "For When Life Isn’t Fair” or “For Shutting It Down” right on Pinterest to friends and coworkers.

Stockpile ideas for outdoor getaways
John Yi, Marketing Developer Manager: I bookmark things I want to do — trails to backpack, routes to bike, and camping tricks.


Joe McGauley is a senior editor for Supercompressor. He's very busy making a zillion .gif boards.