© 2012 by Stacy Lynn Harp

Today I wanted to introduce you to a relatively new social media platform called Pinterest.  I say, “relatively new”, because the truth is that Pinterest has been around since 2009 and it wasn’t until a few weeks that I heard about it.

Why did it take so long for me to hear about it?  To be honest, I’m not sure, since I consider myself pretty aware of what’s happening in social media.  If I had to guess, I’d say that most of the people that I hang with in social media circles had not been on it either…until recently.

The good news is that I am now on Pinterest and you can follow me and also join yourself.  Here are a few tips about joining and getting the most out of your experience with Pinterest.

Who Should Join?

Anyone who would like to share what interests them online.   Some of the people I follow are authors like Tricia Goyer and Donna Shepherd.  But you can follow anyone in your networks, as Pinterest makes connecting with your social media accounts very easy.

How You Join

Technically, Pinterest is still in “invited users” mode, which means that someone has to invite you directly in order to get involved.  The truth is that you don’t have to worry about that though, because you can go directly to the Pinterest website and just ask to belong by signing up there.  After a short period of time, you’ll receive an email that says they accept you and then you can get involved right away.

Others have written about the method that Pinterest has used calling the sign up method “brilliant”.  I’m not so sure I agree that it’s brilliant since numerous years ago Google did the invite only and exclusive access method of participation when they rolled out their Gmail platform.  If you’ve been online for at least seven years blogging, like I have been,  you probably recall the excitement when Gmail was introduced that way….in my opinion, Pinterest is just copying Google’s playbook.  Which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s certainly not brilliant.

Understanding Terms

Just like Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest has terms that they use within their social media platform.  You may have heard Oprah recently say that she couldn’t use the term “wall” on her website because Facebook has a copyright to the term.  In like manner, the terms for Pinterest are in keeping with their platform.  There are really three terms that you need to understand.

• Pin: A pin is an image added to Pinterest. You can link to an image from a Web site or upload an image from your computer. Pins can include captions, like “This is my dog Grover”

Here is an example of one of my “pins”

• Repin: A repin is adding an image you find while browsing Pinterest to your own board. When you repin an image, the user who first pinned the image will also get credit. Repins maintain the source-link of the image no matter how many times it’s repinned.

Here’s an example of something I’ve repinned.  What can I say, I’m a softie for little puppies.

Next, we have the term board – which is not “wall” because as I said before, Facebook has that copyrighted and you can only use that term on the Facebook platform.  For pinners, the word is BOARD, which makes sense considering if you were actually using a normal cork bulletin board, you’d call it a board.

• Board: This is where your pins live.  You can have as many boards as you’d like.  I have one for Pets, Scripture and Praise Notes, Technology I love and Books. Here’s a screen shot of the categories that Pinterest suggests to get started.

As you can see there are numerous ideas for how you can use Pinterest.  The trick is for you to figure out what you want to use Pinterest for.

A few things to consider before you join Pinterest

There  are a few things I’d like to share with you before you get heavily involved in Pinterest.  Just as with any social media, you really have to consider whether or not using it is a time waster.  My initial thought after I got into Pinterest was first, “Hey this is cool” to “Man, I could waste all day on here looking at pretty pictures”.

I can see how it is very easy to want to spend all day on Pinterest just pinning away because there are things that are very cool and worthy of being shared.  So use your time wisely.

The other thing I noticed instantly was that somehow I am now up to following 119 other people, and I’m not sure how that happened because I know I didn’t go in and just hit the follow button for all of these other people.  If anyone has a clue how it happened that I followed so many people without actually doing this intentionally, please leave me a comment and let me know.

Other than these two things, I think Pinterest has a lot of potential and I expect marketers and businesses will be using it to further their products.

One thing  you should know however, is that Pinterest discourages blatant promotion of your products or services, so be careful with how you choose to use it.

Now It’s Time for You to Share

Do you pin?  If so, what has been your experience?  Would you recommend others getting involved in pinning?