10 Tips for Using Pinterest Well

10 Tips for Using Pinterest Well

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 pay a lot of attention to what you “pinners” are pinning from The Mom Creative – and I thank you!). 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.

1. 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

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Learn your URL If you are a blogger, use this formula to search  pins from your site: http://pinterest.com/source/URL/ So, for the Mom Creative, my URL is http://pinterest.com/source/themomcreative.com/. This is also a handy way to see what has been pinned from your favorite sites.

5. 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.)

6. 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).

7. 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.

8. 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.  (ie: all-tecknows crock pot beef stew from @gmkk). 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.

9. 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.

10. Comment! Pinterest is a social site like Facebook and Twitter, so interact!

Bonus Tip for Bloggers If you are a blogger and are interested in generating revenue through Pinterest, optimizing your boards for SEO, and more – click here to check out this class by Dan Morris. I met Dan at NAMS last month and he is BRILLIANT. When you buy this class, you also get free access to his weekly mastermind site, which has incredible resources on it. Definitely worth the $9!

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.

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