Why I Love Pinterest

Pinterest is an online dream board. At times we need something visual to motivate us to work and push ourselves a little harder. A dream board is commonly found in an office or a bedroom but today it can be found on the internet.

It's a community of sharing ideas and common interests through the use of pictures. I came across this site when I was planning for my baby's 1st birthday and I saw a ton of ideas.

It's by invitation so you'll have to sign up for it and wait for the invite but when you do receive it you'll have a barrel full of ideas to go through.

It's also a good way to pass the time. Depending on who you're following you can be looking through images of food, clothing and dream destinations.

Pinterest has quickly gained many fans and followers. It has become one of the most important and popular online sharing tools today.

After you have successfully joined you will then have some default boards to play with. You can rename them from anything to Sweet Treats to Home Decor. There's no limit to how many boards you can have.

Once you've set up your basic boards you can start to Pin!

Note: You can add more as time goes by when you've seen items that don't fit on any board you currently have.

Before you can start pinning pictures you'll need to install the Pinmarklet. This is easy to install and can be added to most any browser. You can get the Pinmarklet under the About tab. Look for Goodies to get sharing buttons and more.

To start pinning go to a web page that has a picture that you'd like to share. For example if you are looking at an online fashion magazine you press the Pin It Button in your favorites bar and all the pictures on that page show up in a gallery style. All you have to do is hover over the picture you like click Pin It and voila! it's pinned.

When any picture has been pinned the site that it is on is accessible to the next person who sees it. They can choose to go to the site to check out what else is there or maybe get a set of instructions or a how to.

Going to the Main Page you have the option of looking through Pinners You Follow (this is the default), Everything Videos, Popular, and Gifts. As you scroll down all you have to do is hover over the picture and the Repin, Comment, and Like buttons appear on the upper left hand. By Repinning the picture you're adding it to one of your boards and sharing it once again with everyone in the Pinterest community.

Pinterest is not a place to self promote. When you pin items you're pinning to share the beauty of something you've seen or to help share an idea. Anytime you pin a picture it links back to the original source. It's acceptable to pin a few of your own shots if you feel that other people would benefit from it. 

One can actually earn from Pinterest. Meaning you can upload a picture of an item that you have to sell. When you have pinned a picture from your website you have the option of adding a price to it. So when fellow Pinners see this and would like one for their own they'll know how much it costs and they can be directed to your website to see how they can make their purchase.

More than pinning you can actually share boards with fellow Pinners and pin items on the same board.

A great feature is the Scroll to Top button at the right hand corner. It's a small thing but very helpful. No need to manually scroll back up.

To keep Pinterest as great as it is there a few guidelines that we should follow.

1) Always credit your sources. You may get some pictures from Google but make sure that you try and get it from the site that it originated from.

2) Avoid self promotion. As I said earlier it's about sharing ideas and not about trying to get as much exposure as you can for yourself. If this is what you're after then Pinterest is not for you.

3) Report objectional content. Pinterest is intended to be fun and is available for everyone to see. If you should see items that are offensive please report it to the Pinterest management.

These are just a few guidlines that we can easily follow to keep Pinterest the happy wishful thinking place that it is.

I am not receiving any earnings from Pinterest for writing this article. I believe that it is a site worth promoting.