As someone who has been
avidly using Pinterest for about 6 months, I can honestly say it has greatly
impacted my internet consumption, creativity and blog content. I know many of you are on Pinterest, but
probably a greater amount have only stuck your toe in the Pinterest waters or
are thinking, “I don’t need ANOTHER thing online.” This post is for ALL of you.
I hope these tips will help you start or improve your Pinterest experience.
Create very specific boards
This is very important. When you first get started on Pinterest, you will be
tempted to have general boards. Don’t do this. What will happen is that you
will start pinning all recipes to recipes and then before you know it you will
have 300 recipes – from dips to desserts to crock pot beef stew. Segment as
much as possible. Some examples
- Tips and tricks (for posts like this one!)
- One board per type of recipe (meals, crock pot, desserts,
breakfast, sides and apps, parties, etc.)
- One board per holiday (Christmas, Valentines, Easter,
Halloween, etc.)
- Sewing
- Project Life
- Memory Keeping (general scrapbook pages/scrapbook ideas)
- Printables
- Favorite books/books I want to read
- Inspirational words
- Photo inspiration
Create a completed pins board
I have pinned about 2,000 items to Pinterest. That is a lot. I have found it
very gratifying to create and use a completed pins board. Once I have made a
recipe, done a craft project, etc. from Pinterest, I will repin the item to my
completed pins board, along with comments about what worked/didn’t work, etc.
This is very helpful for me – and for the followers of that board.
Follow a lot of people
I
love following a lot of people on Pinterest because it means I find a lot of
great items to pin. Interestingly, Pinterest also adds you as a follower to
boards that their algorithm thinks you will like. This helps you to find more
great stuff to pin.
Pin from your favorite sites
If you see something you like on a website pin it! (I have the Pin It tool
installed on my toolbar, which makes it really easy to pin from any site. It
takes about 5 seconds to install.) Pinterest is only as good as the stuff that
is pinned on it, so it needs people to pin new items to it. Plus, pins help
drive traffic to your favorite sites. (I’m so thankful every time you pin
something from this site.)
Pin the specific URL of a
post to Pinterest (not the generic site URL)
This is an important one! When you
see something on a site that you want to pin, be sure to click on the post so
that you pin from the actual post – and not the main site URL. Otherwise, once
that post moves from the main page, no one will be able to find it. (Similarly don’t pin from a google
image search – pin from the site the image came from).
Search pins to find new
inspiration
If you are researching ideas, check out the search function on
Pinterest to find new ideas. The search function isn’t as robust as I would
like it to be (it isn’t endless, you can’t sort by recent or popular, etc.),
but I do always find SOMETHING worth repinning. I especially like using search
when I am looking for a recipe, home dec ideas or party inspiration.
Write meaningful
descriptions (include key words, @+a name will tag someone)
Pinterest requires
you to write a description of some sort. It is frustrating when a description
is something like yum or must try and doesn’t tell the viewer what the picture
is of. Be sure your description tells what the pin is. It is also nice when you include the blog
name or tag someone. You may have
noticed that more and more bloggers are including text on their images to make
the images “Pinterest friendly” and helpful for viewers on Pinterest.
Don’t post an entire blog
post in your pin
It is poor etiquette to paste an entire post/recipe etc. on a
pin. Instead, when you pin an item, write a simple description of the item so
people will click to get the full tutorial, recipe, etc.
Comment! Pinterest is a
social site like Facebook and Twitter, so interact!
What would you add to this
list? Please feel free to leave your Pinterest name in the comments so I can
follow you. AND, if you are not on Pinterest and need an invitation, send me an
email and I will happily send you an invite.
