Pinterest is a popular social media platform that’s so different than all the rest.

For starters, it’s completely visual.

Next, it uses “boards” to organize your posts (called “pins” or “repins”).

Pinterest is considered *the* viral platform, and the activities that take place on Pinterest aren’t ones that jive – shall we say – with existing social media management tools like Buffer, HootSuite, TweetDeck, or Sprout Social. Pinterest works so differently than Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, and because of that, it needs its own type of management tool (if management tools are how you like to work).

Personally, I was never pulled in to Pinterest like so many others. However, I do use Pinterest professionally and personally, and I know that certain times of day are optimal for pinning and repinning. But since Pinterest isn’t something that you can connect to your preferred social media management tool, how can you schedule pins to post at the best times of day?

Enter: BoardBooster.

Currently in Beta, BoardBooster allows you to schedule your pins, plus much more.

Using BoardBooster to Manage your Pinterest Account

Begin by connecting your Pinterest account to your new BoardBooster account. Once you do, you can add your pin boards to your BoardBooster Pin Scheduler.

For my test, I added 3 of my boards. You can always add more boards in the future, so just choose a few to get started.

Next, set the schedule for your selected pin boards. You’ll initially have the same schedule for all the boards you selected in the previous step, but can easily tweak those settings for individual boards in a later step.

You have the choice between Multiple Pins per Day, and One or Less Pins Per Day, and then Basic vs Advanced settings.

With just a single pin a day, you select the specific time for the pin instead of a time range.

The Advanced settings allow you to set a different schedule on weekdays vs Saturdays vs Sundays. You also have the option to select from 1 pinning window a day, and 2 pinning windows.

If you choose 2 pinning windows a day, you can set both time frames and have a different number of pins made in each window.

Once you set up your pin schedule, you’ll see the overview of your boards added and how many pins per day you’ve set up. You can add more boards at this time.

Hovering over any of your boards shows your publishing schedule.

Clicking on any of your boards allows you to edit that board’s settings (click on the gear), see your BoardBooster history for that board, and add Pin Sourcing for that board.

The purpose of Pin Sourcing is to locate popular pins and then repin those popular pins to your board. You have 2 options with Pin Sourcing. You can set up a Board Monitor Agent for someone else’s board. It will periodically check the designated board for pins that have a lot of repins, and then add those popular pins to your corresponding secret board. Search Agents use Pinterest search to locate pins based on keywords.

Both of these Pin Sourcing options cost a penny a pin.

Once your boards and pin schedule are set, BoardBooster explains how to modify your pin schedules that you just set up.

How BoardBooster Works

Once you’ve selected your pin boards and setup your pin scheduler, BoardBooster explains how their scheduling tool works. BoardBooster utilizes the Secret Boards function of Pinterest to create one secret board for each of the boards you added to your BoardBooster account. Those secret boards share the same name of the boards you added, but have a “-” added in front of each board title.

A fantastic aspect of using BoardBooster is that you don’t need any special browser add-ons or buttons to use it. Simply click on the regular Pin It button you use, and you’ll see your list of boards appear like usual. Select the appropriate secret board, and then click to Pin It.

BoardBooster offers some additional features like Doctor (to locate broken links and content duplication), Groups (for managing group boards), Campaigns (Scheduled and Random), and Looping (for identifying and then reviving old pins).

BoardBooster lets you pin your first 100 pins for free, and then you must move to a paid plan from there.

All in all, I’d sum up BoardBooster by saying it’s the “Buffer of Pinterest” (before Buffer announced its integration with Pinterest). I love Buffer and the ease at which is fits in my workflow. And at just $5 a month for 500 pins, it’s hard to say no.

How do you manage your Pinterest activity? Do you have a preferred Pinterest management tool?