I discovered pinterest a while back; I was immediately smitten and wanted to join. It was a bit confusing at first on how to join but eventually I figured it out. You either go on the wait list or be invited. Crap, what kind of “special club” was I missing out on? Well after about a day and a half (I have no patience) of waiting, I made a plea on twitter for someone to invite me. Luckily for me, someone showed mercy, and thus my dueling affair with Pinterest began. PS–it’s easy to join, just find someone who already has and talk them into inviting you.
Why I LIKE it.
- Inspiration. I am visual. I love pictures. Beautiful pictures inspire me. Pinterest has LOTS of beautiful pictures.
- Organization. Remember the old fashion days when you used to rip out pages of magazines and file them into special folders? Or more recently, go online and attempt to “bookmark” your websites or add them to your “favorites”? Raise your hand if you thought that was a big pain in the tushy? Me. Pinterest is a bookmarker’s dream. You can create an entire board and name it whatever you choose and pin websites directly to it. Yum.
- You can or (at least you USED to), track your own website’s pins. That’s always fun!
- You can create great design boards. I use this tool aaalll the time. Most of my recent projects in my home started out in pinterest.
- I love the idea of sharing ideas. I think blogs are very good at it, this is a great place to see it all at once. Sharing is caring.
- You can use pinterest to create boards for clients. I use them right before my photo shoots, I create a posing guide and use it for inspiration prior to my shoots. If I get in a rut or feel a little nervous, I can just quickly glance and get some quick inspiration. Great tip for beginners who are just starting out.
- If you have a project you are working on and want to work closely with someone, you can designate them to pin to your board too. Genius.
- I can name a dozen different categories easily that you can create, the sky is the limit. Just examples of some (for someone like me): recipe list, books to read, hair tips, photography tips and tricks, clothes you love etc.! Whatever you want….go on and get crazy.
- You can follow other people’s pins.
- You can limit what you follow on other people’s pins. You can follow specific boards, repin only, or just click “like”. It’s the social network for the visually stimulated.
- You can save a website or blog you love to a board and return to it later.
Here are 2 boards I have used recently and what they transformed into….both still WIP’s.
Kids Art Room
Inspiration
Final Room
Kitchen
Inspiration
(Please excuse dirty dishes and crooked rug.) Yikes! I will take a better picture later. 🙂
Why I am still trying to LOVE it.
- Their “pin it” bookmark is setup to only find photos. You can’t pin pages that have no photographs. No fun!
- All of a sudden my tracking ability for my own website is gone. I can no longer see what pins of mine are being posted. And I know they are there. I hope this can be fixed.
- There are some trademark/copyright issues that may come around with this site. I can see why, especially if the pins can’t be tracked.
- It seems to be still ironing out glitches. Lots of error messages. Lots of times.
- I wish they had a subcategory and parent categories, so I can really let me OCD run. Let it run. I like letting it run.
- And maybe have at least one board that you can make private, in case you are working on a super-secret, special birthday gift for someone (and they follow your board too). I think sharing should stay the fundamental philosophy of the site but I think we all deserve one “super secret” one too.
- You can’t move around pins on a board that is already created (they have a edit mode to move around boards but not pins). Boo! Please fix.
- There are a few more…as I think of them, I will add them.
For the record:
I believe that criticism should always be constructive, I am not just blasting pinterest. They received a copy of my suggestions too. I want to see Pinterest succeed, I think it’s a brilliant concept.
Even with all of my complaints I really do think there is something special going on here and I think I will stick around and watch.
For those of you who are on it already, what do you think?
For those who might be interested, let me know in the comment section, I will send out an invite asap! And after I invite you, make sure to takes 2 seconds to invite your friends.
Do it, it’s so much fun.
If you would like to follow my boards then click here: Paintchips & Cupcakes Pinterest Boards
UPDATE: since this post, pinterest has fixed my issues. Thank you PINTEREST!