pinterest 101: how to get set up and get the most out of pinning

Remember last week, when I talked to you about the giveaway we're having at ABK to celebrate our 5 year blogiversary?? You don't remember?? Here's the post. Take a look.
Ok, so the deal is, you have to have a Pinterest account to enter the giveaway, which you won't want to miss. One word.
BLENDTEC. 
The giveaway starts Tuesday. As in September 3, 2013.
If you aren't yet acquainted with Pinterest, I've asked my daughter Corrine, who is a professional Pinner :)  to give you step by step instructions!  She has her own blog Mint Arrow, where she posts awesome deals on quality products every day. Check out Mint Arrow here.
No recipe today. Just a Pinterest tutorial.
Hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!
See you Tuesday,
Si

three years ago when i was planning my wedding, i found myself running into the most annoying problem over and over. every time i found a beautiful picture of a floral arrangement, a cake topper, or a bridesmaid dress online, i would right click the image, save it to my desktop, and then move it into a wedding folder. well that's great except a) it was taking up a lot of needed space on my hard drive and b) the bigger problem: when i wanted to go back and look at the whole entire blog post, i had absolutely no clue where it originated.

enter pinterest.

pinterest opened up a whole new world for me. not only could i instantaneously go right back to the original source of any blog photo, i could organize all sorts of information into virtual pin boards. it was literally like being able to rip out a page in a bridal magazine and pin it up on a wall. except it was like i could search thousands of bridal magazines at once! i was hooked. three years later, i have over 6.6k pins and i actually get paid to manage the pinterest accounts for two well-known companies.

today i am going to show you how to get started with a pinterest account, and then i'm going to share some of my tips and secrets to making your pinterest experience as productive, enjoyable and amazing as possible!

first of all, pinterest allows you to sign up with an email address or a facebook account. don't worry - we can be sure that the things you pin don't show up in your facebook friends' news feeds!

if you have a facebook account, sign up through that so you can automatically find all of your facebook friends' pinterest accounts. you can choose to automatically follow all of them, or manually chose those whom you'd like to follow. i highly recommend manually choosing, and here's why: you probably have facebook friends from all walks of life, but that doesn't mean you have lots in common with all your facebook friends!

i manually chose friends whose tastes i like or admire, people who i felt like cooked well, had good style, cute homes, and overall similar likes to mine.

when pinterest asks you this question below, say yes! the more you can do to cater your pinterest experience to your likes, the better.

once you are following a few friends or, if you set up your account with email, once you've picked a few suggested boards to follow (they will prompt you through this), you can start re-pinning things!

every time you log into pinterest, you will see new images your friends have been pinning. if you see a pin you like, you can hover over that photo and click the "pin it" button so you can go back to that pin anytime.

for many people, this next tip is where many people miss the best part of pinterest! if you're reading one of your favorite blogs (like a bountiful kitchen!) or you see an online article you find interesting, instead of thinking, "oh i better print this recipe right away" or, "i hope i remember where i saw that," you can just pin it! it's literally as if you ripped out a page in a magazine and push-pinned it to a cork board in your kitchen. except you'll never lose it.

the pin it button can easily be added to your internet browser if you just click on the plus sign in the right hand corner on pinterest. this will come up:

you can click on the "bookmarklet" link to add the "pin it" button to your bookmarks! then you can click that anytime you're on a blog or webpage where you want to pin something.

those are just some of the beginning basic steps to get you started. if you need more help, you can check out pinterest's help center where they have even more thorough tutorials about the basics of pinterest.

now here are some of my favorite tips that will make your pinterest experience more enjoyable:

how to be sure you don't blow up your friends' facebook feeds with your pins:
go to the right hand side of pinterest, click on your name and select "settings."

from here you can scroll down and under "social networks" make sure that you select "no" to posting activity on your timeline.

under settings you can also decide how often you want emails from pinterest. i prefer getting one email per day, notifying me of how many people have re-pinned my pins, followed me, comments on my pins, etc. 

how to name and organize your boards: 

when you first start out with pinterest, don't worry about thinking of every board you might need. just start out with 3-5 basic boards (recipes, DIY, fashion, home and kids are a few examples) and then as you see pins that you like but don't fit into these categories (like health or travel), you can create a board that fits that pin and start pinning other pins to that board.

organizing your boards is helpful eventually. the two most popular styles i've seen are alphabetical or categorical. it's nice to have a rhyme and reason to your boards so that when you're looking for something, it's easy to find. this is as easy as dragging and dropping them into whatever order you prefer.

find other awesome pinners:

it's not weird or creepy to follow people you don't know on pinterest. it's actually really smart and totally normal. if you see a friend has re-pinned something you love, or a few things you love, see who your friend re-pinned that pin from, and follow them! 

if you love a company or a brand, like martha stewart, follow them on pinterest! chances are they will pin stuff you love.

unfollow people who aren't awesome pinners:

they'll never know you unfollowed them, but if someone is pinning stuff that isn't interesting to you, and especially if it's offensive, don't hesitate to unfollow them. you can even unfollow just one of their boards you're uninterested in. i can't tell you how many times i've unfollowed someone because i'm not that interested in seeing a billion pins about something they love and i don't.

use your mobile app:

if you have a smart phone or a tablet (like an iPad or a kindle fire), pin on those bad boys! i love love love pinning on my iPhone. as soon as i discovered i could pin from anywhere, i found myself on pinterest at every doctor's office or pedicure appointment browsing pins instead of magazines. 

USE your pins:

if you've spent time pinning yummy recipes or DIY projects or ideas on how to decorate your house, use them! i love getting on my "foodie" board to find a recipe for a party, or looking at my "interiors" board to see the gallery walls i've pinned to get a guide on how to hang pictures in my home. i look at outfits i've pinned on my "style" board if i'm trying to figure out what to wear. i love that pinterest allows you to search your own pins now too, so if you can't remember where you pinned something like "how to get sharpie stains out of carpet," you can search key words like "sharpie" to pull up that specific pin.

nobody's real-life looks like their pinterest account:

my biggest tip with pinterest is to have fun and not get overwhelmed. it's easy to see all the amazing things your friends are pinning and think, "is she gonna buy that outfit," or "is she really gonna make all that for dinner tonight," or "are you kidding me, the elf on the shelf has his own wardrobe this year?!" 

don't take it too seriously or get too overwhelmed. it should be fun and inspiring and helpful, not daunting. one of my favorite boards is my inspire board. i look at this when i need a pick-me-up on a bad day.

i hope this helps everyone love pinterest like i do! if you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below and i'll do my best to reply and try to help.

happy pinning!

xo,

c

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