8 Things I Love About Pinterest

Pinterest is designed  for someone like me. I used to print interesting articles that I wanted to save, putting them in notebooks.  I always look for new craft ideas, information on creative techniques, ideas for painting or refinishing furniture, repurposing just about anything, and research various topics.  Needless to say, I had a great collection of notebooks.  Pinterest saved me from being buried in binders, for now I can save information and ideas virtually, which is the number one thing I love about Pinterest.  I use information that I have pinned to my boards often, whether it is for personal reasons, like making  homemade finger paint for my daughter, creating new greeting cards, or reading some of the inspirational quotes that I have, or for business, like building my own business, inspiration, marketing ideas, or research for an article or book that I am writing.

I also love the plethora of creative ideas at my fingertips without searching the web if I don’t want to. Pinterest  saves me time, and is searchable, a handy feature that I make good use of constantly. It is like creating my own magazine. I can feature any topic I want in my boards and pins.  I find great information about small business and entrepreneurship, social media, ADHD, military resources and educational material, and I connect with people who are way smarter and way more creative than I.  I appreciate people’s willingness to share.  I hope that  my contributions to the world of pinning are of benefit to others as well.

I actually have two boards.  One, I started almost eight months ago, and is solely my personal account.  I started a second, Elephant Tree Features  (I know, go figure) to promote my freelance writing, yet it too only has boards of personal interest.  That brings me to the third thing I love about Pinterest.  I can have as many boards as I want. Some of my boards are duplicates, such as my boards for Small Business and Social Media, as well as boards for beauty, educational material, inspiration, and creative stuff.  Most of the pins are unique, however, and I have boards that are exclusive to each account. For instance, Elephant Tree Features has boards called Writing Is My Favorite Form of Expression and Pallet Envy, as well as a board called I Love Elephants (I collect them). My personal account has boards for Cards and Paper, as well as DIY Jewelry, DIY Storage and Organization, Furniture and a board for food called Yum!   I need to separate some of my boards into new ones, for the pins that I have collected are very general, like the board for Great Ideas, and I like my boards to be more specific. This makes it more usable for me, and, I hope, for others as well.

Fourth, I love the community-driven nature of Pinterest. The idea of sharing and collaborating is very ideal for me, for I am a team player, a sharer of  ideas and a constant learner.  I learn a lot from information I find on Pinterest.  I learned recently that you can collaborate on projects via Pinterest, and it makes total sense.  Think of the last project you worked on, and how projects are  made up of elements and stages, such as ideas, research, color schemes, marketing, partners, graphics, marketing, resources and tools for  managing and tracking all of the different pieces of a project.  If you are working with people and organizations outside of your own, Pinterest is the perfect place to gather all information, ideas and resources, with all parties contributing.  Once specific options are agreed upon, you can create a board for that, keeping everyone on the same page.  Not only that, you can create a board and invite others to contribute to it. Simple and flat out brilliant!

The fifth feature that I love about Pinterest is that it can easily be integrated into your own website. The Pinterest button is easily embedded and Presto! You are connected.  I have the Pinterest button at the top of my browser, and I can pin anything. If I run across an article that has no pinnable images, I can upload one and then include the url for the article. Easy peasy!

I love the usefulness for small businesses and nonprofits, which is the seventh item on my list of things I love about Pinterest. Pinterest provides a high-traffic platform for drawing awareness to a cause or important social issue, such as my board on Without A Home and More.   This board is aimed at drawing attention to human suffering and the high number of people doing without basics that we take for granted, such as our homes or food. Pinterest also provides valuable information for market research, and there are a number of services, such as PinLeague, available to help you  maximize this benefit. Just clicking on your followers can help you learn more about them.  You can also track how many views and the number of repins from your site, by topic or by time frame. Pinterest drives more traffic that Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin.  Find out more about using Pinterest to drive traffic to your website.

The eighth thing I love about Pinterest is that it’s FUN!  I can easily spend hours perusing new pins, repinning, reading new information and sharing great material that I have run across. It’s all so Pinteresting!

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• 4 Reasons You Should Consider Pinterest as Part of Your Marketing Toolbox (neolane.com)
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