This month, Pinterest announced the addition of “secret boards,” which are available through the holiday season. Account holders now have the ability to add up to three “secret boards” that won’t show up anywhere else on Pinterest, limiting visibility to the creator and any collaborators they choose to invite.

Is this new feature valuable for businesses? Does this privacy capability defeat the purpose of creating and sharing pins that go ‘viral’? How can PR pros, bloggers, and marketing professionals successfully use private boards?

Pinterest recommends creating “secret boards” for holiday wish lists, and special events. While these are great ideas for personal use, brands also have the opportunity to think outside the box by using "secret boards" as a powerful inter-office collaboration tool.

The private boards offer a secure space for visual brainstorming among multiple departments in the office, and thus, they may benefit a variety of industries.

With just one click, invited board contributors can share concepts, pin articles, capture images, videos, and link to content inspiration without revealing their latest ideas with all of their Pinterest account followers.

Are you lacking inspiration on how your company can use private boards? Here are three ideas to consider:

1. Social media content development board

Social media managers usually plan the posts and images they’re going to share several weeks in advance. By using private boards, community managers can collaborate and brainstorm together, and pull inspiration from the board to generate future social media content.

For example, if you pin a holiday specific infographic, you can save it for a timely and relevant post in the future.

2. Launch board

When creating a board specific to a new product launch or an upcoming announcement, it may be valuable to develop a well-crafted board before it is made public. By creating a private board first, marketers can create and design a Pinterest campaign before unveiling the content to the public.

Private boards are also helpful because marketers can avoid bombarding followers with multiple pins simultaneously.

3. Event planning board

Secret boards offer a great way to collaborate on an upcoming event. Contributors can share images of venues, decor, themes, links to vendors, food ideas, music inspiration, etc.

The private boards also enable users to plan an office holiday party, off-site meetings, and other events where private collaboration is helpful.

Will you take advantage of the “secret boards” feature?

RELATED: Pinterest launches business accounts

Lili Beck for the blog MadGirl PR, where a version of this story first appeared. She is a Pinterest addict and a coffee lover. Follow her on Twitter @lilibeck.

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