One of the missing features on Pinterest was the ability to block or report people. That functionality has now been added.
Announcing new user controls today, the social bookmarking site has given users the ability to block whole accounts. Here is a round up of the new features.
Block a user
If you want to block a user completely, go to their profile and look for the small flag icon on the right of their profile. Click this to bring up a contextual menu and choose the option at the bottom to block the user. Blocking not only stops you seeing their content in your stream (which you could do by unfollowing them), it also blocks them from seeing or interacting with your content. This is a great feature if, for example, a troublemaker is adding silly comments to your pins or re-pinning your pins in a negative way. A user is not notified when you block them, but they are notified if they then try to interact with your content.
Report a user
From the same flagmenu you can also report a user to Pinterest. This sends an alert to the Community team, who will review the account. When you report a user, you can select one of several options to give a reason.
Email notifications
There are new controls for email notification. For example, you can set your account to send you emails when people comment on, repin or like your pins, as well as notifications about people joining Pinterest who you follow on, say, Facebook. The granular email controls are easy to manage. Facebook could learn a think or two about designing account settings interfaces from Pinterest.
More features will no doubt arrive over time as Pinterest matures. If you want to read more about using Pinterest for marketing, take a look at my previous post What is Pinterest? Is it good for marketing?
Steve Masters
Steve started professional life as a magazine journalist, working on music magazines and women’s titles before becoming a web editor in 1997, then joining MSN to work purely in online publishing. Since 1999 he has worked for and consulted to a broad range of businesses about their online marketing. Steve is a Campaign Delivery Manager for Red Rocket Media.
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