What is Pinterest? Is it worth joining Pinterest to promote my online work?

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social media sites. It is creating a buzz on the web and many article writers are beginning to wonder whether they should jump on board while it is young, or whether they should wait until legal arguments relating to copyright infringement come to a head, and potentially damage the reputations of anyone who posts there.

Pinterest is essentially a pin board in which you can create collections of similar items together for future reference. Whether it is photography, movies, recipes or even SEO that you are interested in, you’ll find hundreds of items related to your interest that you can pin to your board – you are also encouraged to pin your own content to your boards to share with the community.

When you pin, Pinterest uploads a full copy of a picture from the website you are pinning and then adds a link back to that website.

I just found out that if you add a URL to the description, it actually adds a link within the description. As an example I just pinned this Hub and added the description:

Other ways to be a spotter that are very effective is using cover to move stealthily around the map so you are on the heavy tanks flank or back, and then dodging in and out quickly to spot them – usually they don’t have time to shoot at you so you should retreat quickly.

© Simeycook.hubpages.com

The 'simeycook.hubpages.com' automatically becomes a hyperlink.

Advantages of Using Pinterest

• Text Links are do-follow
• Gain followers to your articles
• Find useful research items

Disadvantages of Using Pinterest

• Difficult to protect copyright
• Users may be ‘turned off’ Pinterest if it becomes another ‘dump’ for articles.
• Comments may be negative and stop people from viewing your article.

• Get invited - the first thing you need to do is get an invite – you can click on the link of the homepage to receive an invite eventually, or you can get one of your Pinterest buddies to send you an email invite. (Let me know if you want an invite and I’ll send you one!).
• Create your profile – you are able to add a bio/ description, a web site, a twitter account etc. Take time to fill out as much information as possible as this is effectively your ‘calling card’ – every time someone clicks on your name, they see your profile.
• Maintain your boards - on opening a new account you are given five boards. Take time to think about what you will be posting and whether all boards are relevant to you. You’ll find users will search for items and with the right ‘board name’ you could get a lot of followers to the board. As you add boards, make sure you go back and edit the board as you can then add a description – for some reason you can’t do this when you first setup the board.
• Re-arrange your boards – this is something that I neglected initially, however once I started viewing other member’s profiles I realized the importance. When anyone clicks on your profile they will see all of your boards – it is therefore very important that you go and arrange your boards so that your best boards are listed at the top. Use the drop-down under your name to view your boards and click on the ‘rearrange boards’ button – simply drag and drop your boards.
• Navigation – the default view you will see on log on is a list of all Pins by anyone you are following. Underneath the ‘red’ Pinterest log you will see ‘Pinners you follow’ bolded – click on the items to the right to navigate to different groups of pins – within the ‘Everything’ you can choose categories.

There are several methods to Pin something within Pinterest:

• Many sites have a Pin-It button on the article or picture that you wish to pin. You can simply click this icon and Pin the article a board of choice. Note, it is very important that you have the right to pin an article – make sure you seek permission from the owner of the article, and also ensure that the picture that the ‘Pin’ will use is being used legally and can be shared.
• Copy the URL of the article you like and click the ‘Add+’ menu item and select Add a Pin. You will be able to select the picture you want featured, and add a description – the system will automatically add a description.
• Upload a Pin – click the ‘Add+’ menu item and select ‘Upload a Pin’ – you will then be able to upload a picture or video from your local disk drive.
• Re-pin – as you browse Pinterest, you can re-pin any picture into one of your own boards – simply click the ‘re-pin’ button on the picture and choose the board to pin it into – you have the option to change the description.

• Don’t Spam – like any site, if you Pin 50 articles in a minute you’re unlikely to get much traffic – pace yourself and Pin perhaps every ten minutes or better still try and Pin only a couple of articles a day! This is something that I am learning as I begin to use the site!
• Quality Pictures – Pinterest is a visual site, so quality pictures will always attract interest.
• Interesting – while you may think the life and times of a glow worm is really interesting, Pinterest seems to be more about mass-interest items. Fashion, Movies, Photographs, Recipes and Products all seem to do well – niche items seem to be less visited.
• SEO – yep, just like anything else you have to think about keywords and phrases when posting to this site – whether it’s in the description of your pin, or the name of a board, good keywords and phrases will come up in search results, helping you get more re-pins, likes and traffic.
• Be active – like any forum, directory or social media site, the more active you are and the more you become known as an ‘expert’ or at least a someone who is constantly re-pinning, commenting and liking the better. From my own habits I’ve noticed that I tend to visit the profile of anyone who likes or re-pins one of my articles. Again don’t spam – if you are not interested in someone, don’t follow them – only follow people you are interested in and visit their pins often, commenting where appropriate. What you will find is that many people will follow you, especially if you have similar interests.

There are some very legitimate concerns about intellectual property being stolen on Pinterest. A lot of article writers use their own photographs on their articles and are afraid that their work can be pinned without permission onto Pinterest. I understand that Hubpages are looking into ways to allow members from opting in to the ‘Pinterest’ icon, but this still doesn’t stop articles from being pinned without permission.

While the advice below may not help everyone here’s what I suggest:

• Only upload ‘poor’ quality images – when I say this I mean images less than 100KB – they still look great on the web, but are of no use if printed. While you potentially lose some ‘pennies’ with people stealing a stock image for an article, you are still able to sell the high quality version of the picture – this is where the real money is when selling pictures.
• If you have your own website you can add <meta name=”Pinterest” content =”no pin”/> to your website and this stops (supposedly) your content from being Pinned.
• On non Hubpage articles add a watermark to your images with your URL or copyright – this won’t stop all people from stealing the photos but should help.

While I started using Pinterest to market my articles I never really thought it would increase traffic to my articles, I was more interested in getting back links. While I am seeing some traffic from Pinterest, this has become secondary! The site is strangely addictive and I am finding a lot of interesting articles that I am clicking on and reading. So at the very least I’ve found a fun site to discover new recipes, products, photos etc – I’ve made a few new friends, and hopefully I’ll get some traffic.

Most of all, whether or not I succeed in gaining traffic, I am having a lot of fun!