Pinterest tips

Pinterest: cyber scrapbook/virtual inspiration board

Philosophy: Selective or less-selective? (Depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.)

Boards: More boards the better, but don't be shy about changing your mind along the way. I started off with too few, too broad, and have been editing ever since.

Following: Find some good bloggers/style mavens/designers who have the same interests, and follow them. You can always unfollow later. I do a lot of picking and choosing of boards to follow, rather than "follow all."

Searching: Try different word combinations, and do the same search every few weeks--it's amazing what new stuff pops up. And the spectrum of Pinterest is very wide; there’s something for every interest. You’ll see that as you browse the main “everything” feed.

Pinning properly:
* Always make sure the source line is properly attributed in your pin. If it says "google" or "flickr," it may not link through to the right web site. Link directly to the site/blog/image that you want to pin, not to a home page, which makes it difficult to find the image/content in the future. If you find a pin that has a broken link and you can fix it, please do.
* Make sure to put words in the title that are descriptive. A period or space or even the word “yum” or “beautiful” won’t help anyone else to find it and it won’t help you know what you’ve pinned (especially for recipes) when you go back and look at your boards. Don’t use a lot of words; be succinct. (I have been guilty of breaking these rules, but am resolved to do better!)

Repinning: When you pin originally, you'll be pulling from a website or blog and pinning the image url TO Pinterest, to one of your boards. Repinning is when you take a pin someone else has added, and put it on one of your boards.

Editing your boards: If you decide that you want to split your "Sweets" board up into "Desserts," "Baked" and something very specific that you’re wanting to highlight like "Cupcakes," you can do this easily with the edit button.


Bookmarklet to pin your own images
Bookmarklet specific to iPad

Turning Pinning into action

The Pinterest Challenge
52 Weeks of Pinterest Challenge and her 52 Weeks board
Pinterest blog weekly round-up

For bloggers: adding a pin button to your posts
To promote blog content
More tips 
FAQs

General tips and overviews
Overview
Wiki-how 
Daily Digi
Tips from Four Plus an Angel
The Blog Stylist

Copyright/ethics
Etiquette

Some tips on using Pinterest as a business resource

Further investigation: Quora vs. Pinterest