Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that lets you organize and share things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share you interests. Many people use Pinterest for things such as redecorating their homes, planning a wedding, saving favorite recipes, and saving inspirations.
To use Pinterest you must first request an invite or get a friend who is on Pinterest to send you one. From there you can set up your account and sign in using an existing facebook or twitter account which will help you find people you are already connect to. You can also sign in with an email address and password you create.
When you sign up you will be prompted to create some boards. You can accept the basic boards that Pinterest suggests and edit them later if you’d like or you can change the names to something that better suits you.
Part if the fun of Pinterest is finding people to follow. If you sign in under one of your social networks you might automatically be following some of the people you are connected with through it. You can always choose to “unfollow” people or find more people using your twitter, facebook, yahoo, or gmail. To do this you can click on the “people” drop down menu and then on “find friends.”
Now it is time to create your pinboards. You can choose not to “pin” anything and just follow others on Pinterest, but you will be missing out on some of the fun. You can always rearrange and rename pinboards whenever you like so don’t worry about getting them perfect. To edit the boards you can click on “Your Boards” in the drop down menu. You can then choose a title, description, and category for the specific board.
After you have created pinboards you can start “pinning.” The easiest thing to do is to “repin” something that is already on Pinterest. As you browse on Pinterest and find something you would like to repin you can hover over the picture with your mouse and choose one of the options: “like” or “repin.” When you choose “repin” you will be prompted to categorize it to one of your boards. You can also automatically share the pin on facebook or twitter using the buttons at the bottom.
If you want to add a pin that you find on another site you can click on “add a pin” and then enter the url and a description. An easier way to do this is to add the Pinterest bookmarklet to your browser toolbar by dragging the “pin it” link to your toolbar. Once you have done this you can click the bookmarklet when you have a page of the picture open that you would like to pin. After you click the pinning tool you will see the images from the page pop up on the screen. Use your mouse to hover over the one you want to pin and then click “pin this.” Then you can choose which board you would like to pin it to.
It is that simple! Make sure you follow the Pinterest etiquette which includes being nice, crediting your sources, avoiding self promotion, and reporting objectionable content. Pinterest is a fun and exciting place to hang out online and a way to be connected to people in the world through shared tastes and interests.
