What's In A Pin? - Pinterest.com Explained

Pinterest is a fun social media type website where users can create boards to organize and share photos, images, and videos. It has been described as an online scrapbook. Think of it as a bunch of collections in the form of photos, images, and videos.

Pinterest is more than just a waste of time, though. It can be quite useful. Personally, I have already found and made quite a few recipes for dinner and dessert. There are tons of great meal ideas from heavy meat and potato type meals to very light and very healthy soups and sandwiches.

Boards can be created for all sorts of topics. Say you are planning a wedding, or maybe just dreaming of one. You can find hundreds if not thousands of wedding dresses, reception themes, engagement rings, wedding bands, hair styles, cake ideas, and everything else on Pinterest. Repin or upload what you like onto your wedding board.

The same can be done with thousands of different ideas from birthday parties to meal plans, to yoga workouts to ways to decorate a bedroom.

Here are some great ideas for Pinterest boards. As you read through them, you will start to get the gist of the site. After each topic, I have written a same board name in parenthesis.

bucket list (Thing's to do before I kick the bucket)

crafts (DIY & Crafts Galore)

food/menu (What's For Dinner)

inspiration (Inspiration Can Come From Anywhere)

living spaces (My Dream Living Room)

wedding (White Wedding Ideas)

fashion (My Dream Closet)

nature (Find a Happy Place)

favorites (These Are A Few of My Favorite Things)

colors (All Things Blue)

tips (Why Didn't I Think of That?)

baby (For the Baby)

art (Movie and Other Posters)

geek (It's Fun To Be A Nerd)

There are three different ways to pin. The first is to repin something that has already been pinned. These pins can be pretty much anything. If you like it, repin it.

The second way is to pin something from another website using the Pinterest "Pin It" Button. This button is attached to your browser's bookmark bar. When you go to a website and see a picture, image, or video you like, press the Pin It button. A new popup will appear displaying all of the available items on the page that you can pin. Click on the Pin It button over the picture, image, or video you want to pin, and then choose which board to pin it to. Don't forget to write a description for it.

The third way to pin something is to upload your own. This is great for photographers, graphic artists, and other creative people. The images to the right of this text is are examples of my work that I have uploaded to Pinterest. I created the top dragonfly image with GIMP a few years ago and I drew the jellyfish with pen and marker. I wanted to share and organize my work so I uploaded them to my Portfolio of My Work Pinterest board.

The only problem with Pinterest is that it is super addicting. I know I can spend hours surfing through the thousands of pins. In a little less than a month since I have been a part of the site, I have over 800 pins and 24 boards. Follow me on Pinterest!

You can comment on pins, follow certain boards or all of someone's boards, but you cannot directly comment or post to another pinner. To me, this is a good thing. Facebook, twitter, and other social media sites are great for communicating with words, but Pinterest is best just for pictures and videos. You can learn a lot about me just by looking at the things I pin.

One other aspect is important to mention. Businesses are benefiting from this site as well. Magazines, retail stores, TV stations, and others have already begun to find ways to boost sales by posting photos and videos on Pinterest. For example, the Travel Channel does a good just with posting images of places around the world that they have done specials about. They also have a board showing pictures from behind the scenes from shows like Man V Food.

Whole Foods is also on Pinterest. They have boards showing products both raw and used in recipes. They also have boards showing gift ideas, ideas for different seasons, and to show how green they are.

With the many benefits for businesses and the enjoyment pinners get from it, it is no wonder why Pinterest is the number one fastest growing social media website of 2012.