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If you live in the United States or China, you’ve probably heard of basketball phenomenon Jeremy Lin. His meteoric rise to becoming an NBA star has made him an overnight household name.
Jeremy Lin is to basketball as Pinterest is to Internet sites.
Pinterest is the hottest site on the Internet, breaking the record in January for a website getting 10 million visitors a month in the shortest time. Whether you’re interested in exploring for fun or learning, you should check out Pinterest and see what the fuss is all about.
What Is Pinterest
Pinterest is a social media site that allows you to “pin” images to boards that you share with the world. You can also explore others’ boards to discover images, website, infographics, travel destinations, recipes, etc.
To join Pinterest, you can request an invitation from Pinterest or from a current member and sign in with your Facebook or Twitter accounts. When you join Pinterest, you start with a few boards such as Favorite Places & Spaces, My Style and Home. You can add boards in categories such as Photography, Technology, Travel & Places and many others. Think of these boards as your virtual scrapbooks.
How to Pin
After you’ve added a board, you’ll want to add images to that board. The easiest way to add an image is to use the Pin It bookmark. Go to Pinterest Goodies and drag the Pin It bookmark to your bookmarks toolbar in your browser.
When you visit a website that you want to share with others, click the Pin It bookmark on your toolbar and all of the images from the website will appear. Move your cursor over the image you want to pin and a Pin This icon will appear on the image. Click on the icon and you will be given a choice of which of your boards you wish to pin the image to.
You can also include a description of the image. Pinterest gives you a whopping 500 characters to use in your description (a novel by Twitter standards). Most descriptions on Pinterest are short and sweet – one sentence, maybe two. Don’t let the 500 character limit go to your head.
All boards are public, meaning that if you choose to share family photos the world will be able to see them. As of now there is no way to protect your boards from prying eyes so make sure you share only images you want to be public.
Note: You can block the pinning of images from your business or personal website. Pinterest just released a code this week that you can add to your site to prevent others from pinning your images.
Exploring Others’ Pins
When you go to Pinterest, you can explore by going to the home page and clicking on a category you want to explore. Need a giggle? Check out Humor. Want ideas for a new ‘do? Check out Hair & Beauty. Want inspiration to get in shape? Check out Fitness. Want a fun trip down memory lane? Check out History. Want to make a bucket list? Check out travel.
When you discover someone with interesting boards, you can follow her. Click on a name under a pin and you will be taken to her page where you will see her boards, how many pins and Likes she has, and her recent pins. You can follow all of her pins or just certain boards.
When you find a pin you like, you can re-pin it to your board. Click on the image, click the Repin button, choose your board and either keep the description or add your own. You can also Like and comment on others’ pins.
Why You’ll Go Crazy
Now that you know how to use Pinterest, you may still be wondering why everyone is going crazy for Pinterest and why you will too. Pinterest requires a leap of faith at first, you need to explore to see why the site is so enticing. Here are some reasons why the site will grab you and why it will be tough to let go:
1. Fun – Pinterest is addictive. You will find yourself captivated by the site, losing track of time. There’s always another board, pin or category to pique your interest.
2. Beautiful – You may be surprised at how many photographic masterpieces there are in the world, and Pinterest seems to be a repository for stunning photos. The site itself is clean, simple and ad-free, a suitable frame that steals none of the limelight from its pins.
3. Easy – Pinterest is intuitive. Navigating around the site is easy enough not to distract you from your quest to find nirvana, er, I mean pins.
4. Informative – If you want to learn about a topic, a picture says a thousand words. Scroll through the images in a category or search for a keyword. If you’re considering visiting the Ring of Kerry in Ireland this Summer, search “Kerry Ireland“. You’ll be booking your trip as soon as you can peel yourself away from Pinterest.
5. Time Waster – In case you’ve been wondering what to do with all of your excess free time, you have now discovered the answer.
Apps
If you find yourself having withdrawal symptoms when you’re away from your computer, don’t worry, you can access Pinterest from your smartphone. Pinterest has a free app in the iTunes App Store. There is no official Pinterest app for Android yet, but you can always access Pinterest from your mobile browser.
Happy pinning!
Do you use Pinterest? Have you been wondering what the fuss is about? Let us know what you think of Pinterest in the Comments section below! If you would like an invitation to Pinterest, please mention that in your comment and I will send you one. If you would like to leave the link to your Pinterest account in the Comments section, by all means, please do so!
Loved it Carolyn!
I just went onto Pinterest just yesterday and signed up, and sent you a friend request also! I had been reading so much about it all over the Internet, that it was hard to not get into the roll 🙂
The best of course is the ease with which you can learn to navigate right through it. And of course, I just love the awesome images and pictures Pinterest is filled up with! Just makes you feel like pinning up right along!
The features of using boards to put up what you truly like is wonderful, and there is actually no limit I think to the number of boards you can really create. And I liked the option of leaving comments if and when you like a particular picture. Wonderful indeed!
Thanks for sharing and hope to see you on Pinterest as well 🙂
Hi Harleena, Wow, you got a lot done on Pinterest in one day. I especially like your Landscapes board, beautiful photos.
I agree, PInterest is filled with amazing photos. I spend a lot of time looking at images on the Internet for this blog and I don’t know of another site with a higher concentration of stunning shots. 🙂
First you come out with Facebook and how I can get my arms around it and now you have the Pinterest primer as well. Yes, I am signed up and have the app; but I think I have all of 4 photos ‘pinned’.
This will help me when I decide I REALLY need to be in the know. Thanks for sharing. Headed out the door for my day job and shan’t return until nigh……….:)
Hi Bill, The good news about Pinterest is the learning curve isn’t steep at all. It’s really easy to use. The bad news is that it’s so easy to get caught up in the site, exploring and re-pinning.
Have a great day and nigh! 😀
I dunno Carolyn…maybe I’m a kill joy, but when I started hearing about Pinterest, all I could think was “oh no…not another social media platform”. As it is, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn suck the life out of me! But I know that if I don’t jump on this bandwagon, the learning curve will be even more dramatic, and since I tout myself as an expert (to some degree) in this space…I can’t afford a steep learning curve. So…here I go to waste some more time :-).
Hi Ruth, PInterest is quite different from the other sites because it’s so visual. Very little text is involved, so it’s easy to learn and easy to filter what you want to see and what you don’t. The site is so aesthetically pleasing that you may really enjoy exploring it. After you check it out, I will be very curious to learn what your impressions are.
Let me know if you would like me to send you an invitation. 😉
Thank you for sharing with us Carolyn how to get around in Pinterest. I joined last year upon the recommendation of a friend and just switched from Evernote to here. So I really don’t just pin things when I’m visiting a site unless I want to revert back to it. I know I haven’t gotten into it to the extent other people have but it’s the time factor involved to just play around in it I guess.
If I spend a lot of time there I’ll get so caught up in looking at the photos, they do catch my attention.
I saw a post from an acquaintance on Facebook this morning that he got his boards deleted for copyright infringements. All from pinning photos so I guess some sites aren’t too keen on that! Oh boy, here we go again.
Thanks for the wonderful tips and I’ll be sharing this post with my friends. They definitely need to know.
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne, That’s interesting that your friend viewed Pinterest as a substitute for Evernote. I would not have considered those two together, mostly because Pinterest is public and Evernote is private. Pinterest also does not have as advanced searching capabilities as Evernote.
I agree with you, it’s very easy to get caught up in the photos. So many of them are quality images of places that are spectacular.
Pinterest has had to address some copyright issues lately and they’ve responded with the code I linked above. I would think that most people would want their work featured on a site with 10 million+ monthly visitors but not everyone feels this way.
Whether the code will quell the complaints remains to be seen. The code seems to be more of an opt-out feature, which may put too much burden on the copyright owner. The question in the long run is whether Pinterest will be seen more as a site for searching, like Google, which can display images without the copyright owner’s permission, or as a photo storage site, like Flickr, which requires that the person posting the pictures owns the copyright.
I hope that this gets sorted in favor of Pinterest as I am a big fan of the site.
Great post! I love Pinterest. I’ve only been on it for two weeks and really am enjoying it. I do have one complaint about it though … it’s sucking up all my time! I can get lost so easily just randomly “wandering around” in it. :-bd
Hi Carol, You’re absolutely right, that’s a danger. In fact, this article was quite time-consuming to write as my research took much longer than usual as I repeatedly became entranced with the site. But now that I’m done writing the article, well, I still become entranced with the site! 🙂
Hi, Carolyn, love Pinterest (probably because it is so easy to use!) but have some reservations as well regarding copyright issues and affiliated linking philosophy. Early days yet, the future will tell!
Hi Barbara, Yes, Pinterest does need to get some things sorted out. Hopefully their solution of the code that was released this week will work to eliminate the copyright concerns. Their disclosure of affiliate links should settle that issue as well. I’m actually glad they use affiliate links because I would rather have them make money that way than to clutter up the site with ads.
Carolyn, aloha. Thanks for writing this on Pinterest because I have been wondering why everyone is so excited about it and what it is driving masses amounts of traffic to blogs. In fact, I was going to call a friend who is very involved with it and have her tell me why it’s so great.
The reason it didn’t appeal to me is because I don’t take photos and didn’t see much point it. Now, of course, I understand that people do so much more having different boards for different topics. Because of something I want to do, I may explore.
My concern, as always, Carolyn, is the amount of time that has to be invested to learn and to maintain it.
Your post goes a long way to helping me understand more. Thanks so much, my friend. Wishing you a Terrific Thursday. Aloha. Janet
Hi Janet, I find that very few of the images I share on Pinterest are photos I have taken. Instead I am re-pinning others’ images or pinning my favorite apps or images from others’ sites. In fact, I have pinned some images from your blog, Janet because you always choose such lovely images. I hope that my pins have resulted in traffic to your amazing blog posts.
Don’t worry about time to learn it, Janet. You won’t be taking time at all to learn it, Janet. And there aren’t time stamps on the pins so there is no obligation to keep current. What causes the time investment, at least for me, is the sheer beauty of the site. There are so many stunning images of breathtaking places that my time ends up being spent exploring others’ pins. If you find someone who has the same taste as you, you are in for a treat. Judging by the photos on your blog, Janet, you enjoy beautiful images just as much as I do. Of course, living in paradise, perhaps all you need to do is look out the window for your beautiful images! 🙂
Nowadays, all the blogs are full of hyping about Pinterest. I feel a little bit sceptic with it. I’ve given it a try, it is really nice and easy to use, but I’m looking forward, and I wait some time. I won’t think that this incredible high rise of this site would go on, that last month was really amazing, but I think, it was just a hype of the newcomer.
Hi Julie, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You have a very good point. Whether Pinterest will stand the test of time remains to be seen. I think the site is compelling because it is beautiful, is easy to use and has great content. The site has actually been around for a while but really started taking off recently. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
I have been liking Pinterest so far, i have created boards for Blogs Worth Reading where most of your followers and commenters are already PINNED. I also realized that if you choose your board category wisely, you will end up with a lot more visitors.
I am waiting for the Android App for Pinterest, the only loss so far after switching over from iPhone 🙁
Praveen,
I find I can at least look at pins on my Droid with the mobile version of Pinterest. And occasionally repin, though it is awkward.
Hi Praveen, I like your Blogs Worth Reading board, I started a similar one on Pinterest. But I have to tell you, Praveen, your blog, Daily Morning Coffee, is the only one I have listed. As much as I love your blog Praveen, the reason it’s the only one I list is because your header is the only one that appears when I use the Pin It button. I’m not sure why that is, but I wish I had that option with other blogs, including my own. Someday I will do the background work necessary to pin other blogs, but they won’t be nearly as easy to do as yours.
Even with the Pinterest app on the iPad, the experience doesn’t compare to seeing the images on a computer. Pinterest is best enjoyed with the full screen in my mind.
Carolyn,
Well written and clear introduction! Look forward to following your Philadelphia board. Once I figure out how to follow you – I don’t find finding the names of others on Pinterest that I know easy to find. I liked Pinterest a lot at first, because I kept finding more and more art. Then I started following people that had a techie connection – I think if I see one more infographic I am going to scream. I’m kind of tired of those.
I can’t believe Harleena has only been on Pinterest for one day – she reposted a whole lot of my pins!
– Leora
Hi Leora, Yes, Harleena has been very active on Pinterest. Imagine what she will do on Day Two!
You’re right, it is challenging to find people on Pinterst. If you want to follow me, you can click on the Follow Me button on the sidebar of my blog. I’ve also added a Pin It button to the end of the posts should anyone be so inspired.
I have an info graphic board, but they can be very difficult to read on Pinterest.
I look forward to seeing your pins, Leora!
I think Pinterest is just awesome! I just joined up last week. It’s all about pictures and pointing and clicking. What could be more fun!
I haven’t had the time yet to get seriously into it, but I reckon’ it can be a powerful marketing tool if you are dealing with visual things, such as clothing, paintings, interior decoration etc.
Hey Kris, I’m so glad you’re enjoying Pinterest. It’s interesting that quite a few commenters just joined Pinterest but are already hooked. With other social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, it takes people a bit of time to get comfortable with the site. But the learning curve isn’t nearly as steep with Pinterest.
If Pinterest continues to have exponential growth, it could turn into a marketing powerhouse. Think of Coca-Cola. Their biggest product is a brown, fizzy liquid, not visually appealing. But imagine how Coca-Cola could visually market Coke on Pinterest.
Pinterest could make all of marketing more visual. Time will tell.
I was surprised by how much I like Pinterest, but I really do enjoy it. Some of the pictures have been simply spectacular. I can see it becoming a real time suck so I have been careful not to spend too much time on it.
Hello Jack, I agree with you completely. I have been surprised at how much I am enjoying the site as well. I think there are many factors that make it a great site but the quality of the photos is the major reason why it works for me.
You’re right, it is dangerous because it’s easy to get caught up in the beauty of the site.
The visual powers of attraction!
Yes, Hajra, I find them to be quite strong! 🙂
what a great idea and a wonderful way of posting your photos and captions.
Hi Les, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right, it’s a very handy way to organize your photos and share them with others! 🙂
I love Pinterest and I can’t say I am that addicted, but when I start posting picks I find myself doing it for a few hours. Ok, I am addicted. LOL!!!! What a great website for checking out pretty pictures and sharing stuff you love. I get to show people my personality and what I love most.
Hi Sonia, Yes, I think we’re all going to need Pinterest rehab soon! But the first step is admitting you’re a Pinterest addict so you and I and other commenters have taken that step.
You’re right, Pinterest allows you to show your personality, taste and style. Where you can really get to know someone is Humor. What some people think is funny will strike some others as odd, I imagine. 🙂
Hi Carolyn,
I have created my Pinterest account last week and enjoying surfing this site. It has so beautiful images that you could lost there for hours. I generally logged in there when I have extra time, I rather avoid to go there in my working hours as you find quite difficult to come out from there.
Hi Ravi, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I agree with you. In fact, the comments seem to be unanimous about how addictive Pinterest can be. I like the pretty images there and often find myself on the site for much longer than I had planned to be! You’re very smart not to check into Pinterest when you’re at work. 🙂
You know, for some reason my Pinterest won’t login since the last week and I am showing signs of addiction. It just keeps saying, reload the page or operation timed out!
I did go pinning before that and I loved it. But I feel how much can I pin, it has to bring in other applications or features. I mean after a while, there really isn’t much you can do with it right?
Hi Hajra, Interesting point. I would imagine there has to be an expansion of their content at some point, but they shouldn’t dilute the site either.
I don’t know if I will tire of seeing all the beauty on Pinterest.
I also don’t know why you had trouble logging on to Pinterest. Perhaps the traffic driven from this post overwhelmed their servers? 😉
I thought that the traffic caused it too…but its been a week! I think there is some other problem 🙁
How do I pin images from iPhoto into my Pinterest albums?
Hi Mary, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Great question! On the top of the Pinterest site you will see “Add +”. Click on that and you will see the option to upload an image from your computer.
Have fun pinning!
Okay, so I admit that I haven’t jumped onto the Pinterest bandwagon just yet, but I have a good excuse! I have been working on a product I have under development! 🙂
I am about to cut out and take some snow-fun time for the next several days in celebration of my 35th birthday this month. Before I head out, I do fully plan on allowing the Pinsanity to begin in my little world though!
Great writeup of the Pinterest bulletpoints, Carolyn! I can hardly wait to start using it now!
Cat Alexandra
Hi Cat, Happy birthday! I hope you’re having a lot of snow fun in celebration of your big day!
You’re probably wise to stay away from Pinterest for a while, at least until you have your project finished. I think you can tell from the other commenters that the site is quite addictive! When it’s time to join, I’d be happy to send you an invitation.
Have a great weekend, Cat!
I admit it, I am a complete Pinterest addict! With over 450 Boards and nearly 80,000 pins I’ve got everything from Antiques and History categories to Steampunk and Shabby Chic. Even have four boards for Baking. Always something new to discover on Pinterest ! Just search for Charmaine Zoe on Pinterest to find me 🙂
Hi Charmaine, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You have a very impressive collection on Pinterest. I’m thinking you might have the record for highest number of pins. I will definitely be checking you out on Pinterest!
Hi Carolyn,
I used to play basketball all the time, and I have even played in the US when I was an exchange student on High School. But, that’s a very long time ago. Now I hardly ever watch NBA anymore, and they used to be my heroes. I watch the news, and look at NBA.com once in a while, and I have been reading about Jeremy Lin. It’s hard to believe the story, and how he can be totally unknown and now dominate the games. I love stories like that. And he’s such a huge inspiration for all of us, no matter if we’re interested in basketball or not.
When it comes to Pinterest, I find it more and more interesting, and I love images. But I’m still not using it a lot. There are too many things going on in my life right now, but I try to pin or repin something a few times a week 🙂
Have a wonderful weekend Carolyn.
Hi Jens, My oldest daughter played basketball for the first time this Winter and really enjoys the sport. Jeremy Lin has really captured the hearts of America, he is a very big deal here.
I can imagine with starting a business you don’t have much time for Pinterest, but perhaps the site will help you with marketing at some point! 🙂
Fun, beautiful & easy; sounds like it was made for me, huh?
And what do mean ‘go to ‘her’ site’? Dude’s can’t have good sites too?
Thanks for the primer; another site I need to know.
Hey Bill, You have some great images on your blog. I imagine that Pinterest could drive a lot of traffic to your site.
Half the time I use “his” and half the time I use “her”. Equal opportunity here at The Wonder of Tech!
Hope you’re having a great weekend, Bill! 🙂
Pinterest has taught us that people love putting pictures together and will spend the time to do it. I would think if you could put a clever marketing message together you may be able to generate some income. Pinterest looks to be a great way to create a social media presence.
Hi Dean, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! You’re right, Pinterest has caused a fervor in the social media world. Harnessing that enthusiasm for marketing is a great idea.
Hi Carolyn,
I really wanted to explore pinterest by myself but couldn’t find enough time lately. this is a good overview and will help me get started on pinterest.
after reading it, I have decided to add a pin button onto my blog too
Hi Faran, I’m so glad you’re trying Pinterest. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by what you find there. I hope your Pinterest button helps people find your great blog! 🙂
A very interesting and informative post. As a newbie to Pinterest, you have totally convinced me that it has a lot of benefits.
Hi Isabelle, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! I’m glad you’re enjoying Pinterest. I think the more you use it the more you will enjoy it! 🙂