Have you decided that it has become a case of ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ with regard to Pinterest but you’re a tad baffled by it? Here’s an explanation of many of the Pinterest terminology.
Pin – A pin is a picture that is ‘pinned’ to pinterest. When you decide to ‘pin’ a picture to Pinterest from your website or another website, you will be asked to choose a pinboard to post it into, and to write a descriptor.
Pinterest Board – a board is a virtual pinboard, resembling a scrapbook. You can ‘pin’ as many pictures as you like onto a relevant board and you can create as many boards as you like. Popular titles for boards include ‘My Dream Kitchen’, ‘My Wedding’, ‘For My Home’ and ‘Recipes’. You can pin as many pictures as you like to each board.
Repin – to repin means that somebody pins a pin that they see on pinterest – partly to share it so their followers can see it and partly because they want to include it on their boards. A pin can always be linked back to its original source by clicking on it. When you repin, you can change the descriptor of the pin if you wish.
Like – Liking a pin means that it isn’t added to your boards or your collection of pins but it will show on your profile as one of your ‘liked’ pins. The originator of the pin will receive a notifcation that you have liked it.
Comment – As with so many other social media tools, one can comment on other pins. However, very little time is spent doing this. People tend to either like or repins pins they like, rather than commenting. Hence, is pinterest going to be the place to develop relationships? Time will tell if this changes.
Following – You can follow all of another pinner’s boards or you can choose to follow selected boards. Following all means that you will see new boards as and when that pinner creates them.
Because my boards are set up in my personal name rather than for each business, my boards tend to be a mixture of social media, interior design and farming along with other things I like so I have noticed people following selected boards rather than selecting ‘follow all’.
You can unfollow someone and they won’t be notified. When you follow someone, they will receive an email showing a number of your pins to encourage them to follow you back.
Sharing to Facebook and Twitter – note that you can choose to have your pins coming through to facebook but that it is to your personal facebook page, not your business page. I tend to let the very occasional pin go to my facebook page, however, I let all of my pins and repins update my twitter stream, being careful to do so ‘little and often’.
Sharing a pin with another user – if you want to bring a pin to another pinner’s attention, you can comment on the pin and by using the @ symbol with the pinner’s username (you need to be following that pinner) , that person will be alerted to your comment and hence, the pin.
Sharing a board – you can share a board with other users so that they can also pin to that board and it will also show up on their page of boards. (See our post on how to share a board)
If you have any questions on pinterest, leave a question in the comment box. You can follow Marie on pinterest here and Lorna here.
