Currently viewing the tag: "Pinterest"
I know this is one thing that I have heard many people wanted – and now it is available!
Private Pinterest Boards!
Good uses for this might be for gift ideas that you don’t want your family to see – details from AllThingsD:
Perhaps one of the more surprising aspects of Pinterest is that, until today, it has never allowed its users to keep their activity secret. So whether users were saving pictures of kitchen cabinets or wedding dresses or surprise birthday party themes, they were sharing them with the world.
That lack of privacy doesn’t seem to have hurt the popular site, but private pinning was one of users’ most-requested features.
Starting today, Pinterest is gradually, and in a very controlled way, allowing users to create their own secret boards for themselves and chosen collaborators.
The company pinned the announcement on the holiday season, saying in a blog post by software engineer Evrhet Milam, “The holidays are a time for being with family, sharing great meals, and, of course, surprising your favorite people with a special gift.”
Each user gets only three secret boards, and existing boards can’t be made secret.
Do you use Pinterest? It is explosive in its growth – take a look at this from FastCo:
PINTEREST HAS SEEN SO MUCH EXPLOSIVE GROWTH THAT THE NATURAL QUESTION IS: WHAT NEXT? PAY ATTENTION TO THE DATA, AND YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO GUESS.
In our upcoming October design issue, one of the many fascinating feature stories we’ve lined up is a lengthy profile of Pinterest and its elusive CEO, Ben Silbermann. That story goes live later this week, but until then, I wanted to offer a teaser, in the form of an infographic about Pinterest, created by Fast Company‘s staff and designed by our own Ted Keller.
In this profusion of figures, you find out a few, key things about the image-sharing service. For one, it’s dominated by women. Second, something about its layout and culture stokes an enormous buying impulse. And third, major brands are getting in on the act. It’s not a stretch to say that soon, at least on retail sites, a Pinterest button might become as ubiquitous as a Facebook Like. Check out the infographic below, or tour the major findings in the slideshow above.
Sources: ComScore (user growth June 2011–June 2012); Google DoubleClick AdPlanner, June 2012 (monthly page views; average visit; gender; affinity for aesthetics; age); AddThis (events drive activity); ComScore, February 2012 (vacation; preferred brands); Campalyst, July 2012 (most-followed retailers); AddThis, June 2012 (mobile sharing); Apple App Store, August 15, 2012 (days to No. 1 for iPad app); ComScore (top 15 Pinterest categories); Shopify, May 2012 (price-tag power); RichRelevance (selling power, based on a study of 374 million browser-based shopping sessions, which took place on U.S. retail sites between May 1 and May 30, 2012)
You already know that I enjoy Pinterest! I also enjoy seeing how others use it – including this article from Mashable about using Pinterest in your job search!
Brie Weiler Reynolds is the content and social media manager at FlexJobs, the award-winning site for
telecommuting and flexible job listings, and a former career advisor. At FlexJobs, Brie offers job seekers career and work-life balance advice through the FlexJobs Blog and social media, including Pinterest.
Now that Pinterest is a full-blown cultural phenomenon, people have started considering it for uses other than inspiration for recipes, home decor and the latest fashions. And with a shaky economy and millions of people either out of work, underemployed or looking to change jobs, Pinterest is now being used as a job search tool.
At the beginning of 2012, Mashable asked, Can Pinterest Help Your Job Search?, and we’re answering “Yes!” with five ways to use Pinterest in your job search and your career development.
1. Pin Your Resume
Search for “my resume” on Pinterest, and you’ll get thousands of hits. Be more specific with your search terms (writer resume, business resume, graphic design resume) and more results pop up. Some are basic resumes with standard information and layout. Others are stylized pieces with creative layouts and catchy graphics. Most fall somewhere in between. The goal of pinning your resume to Pinterest is to get it shared throughout the site, so make sure it’s somewhat eye catching, error-free and compelling — wouldn’t you want those qualities in your resume, anyway?
2. Create a Resume Pinboard
Rather than pinning your full resume as one pin, create an entire board that represents the different parts of your resume with different pins. Pin pictures of the companies you’ve worked for, schools you’ve attended, places you’ve volunteered and hobbies you enjoy. Because Pinterest is a visual medium, it can provide a multi-dimensional representation of your two-dimensional resume. And, utilize the text box given with each pin to describe the image, how it relates to your career and why it’s important to you.
3. Follow Career Experts
If you’re in the market for some job search advice, Pinterest has a lot to offer. Sites like CareerBliss use pinboards to showcase inspiring ideas and items related to finding work that makes people happy. College career offices such as Penn State’s give tips geared towards newbies in the workforce. And The 405 Club caters to career advice for the unemployed.
4. Link to Your Pinterest Resume
Once you’ve created a board for your resume, you need to tell people about it. Add it to your LinkedIn portfolio, your Facebook and Twitter profiles and your paper resume. Include it in your email signature, and add it to business or calling cards if you have them. The more places you show off your Pinterest page, the more it can help your job search. Just be sure to keep all your boards clean and professional because they’re all viewable by anyone, at any time.
5. Be Inspired in Your Job Seach
If you’re not ready to pin your life’s work experience to Pinterest, use it for its original purpose — for personal inspiration. Job searching can be disappointing and stressful. If you’ve just come back from a particularly bad job interview, or sent 10 applications with no response, head to your Pinterest board for images that help you smile, laugh and cheer up. Hilarious comics, adorable kittens inspirational quotes — whatever boosts your mood is fair game for pinning.
Using Pinterest in your job search shouldn’t take up an inordinate amount of time, and it is one more tool to add to your job search arsenal. If you’re a visual person who enjoys creative outlets, Pinterest can be a great way to let off some creative steam while winding your way through a job search. And it just might help you on your way.
Do you think a Pinterest resume can be effective? Why or why not? We’d love to hear in the comments.
I have posted on this subject before (32 Pinteresting Ideas to Organize Your Home Office), but here is an updated and expanded list of cool and fun ideas from Pinterest for your Home Office – from OnlineCollegeCourses:
Is your home office in desperate need of a makeover or some innovative storage solutions? One of the best places to look for inspiration, DIY tutorials, and great products is Pinterest. The site offers up thousands of photographs of stylish home offices and home office projects, with something to suit every taste and style out there. Here, we share just a few of the great home office ideas being shared on Pinterest, with tips, tools, and images that touch on everything from small spaces to smart solutions.
Inspiration
- Office ladder.What office wouldn’t be cooler with a bookshelf ladder? You’ll be green with envy when you see this one and might just think about creating your own similar space.
- Organized chaos.This office rides the line between being messy and organized. There are bins and boxes for storage, but it looks very lived in and used at the same time.
- Shared desk space.This shared desk space serves two, but doesn’t feel cramped. Plus, the bright color helps bring everything together.
- Hallway office.Even a small space in a hallway can be turned into a functional office.
- Minimalist.This office is pretty minimal but still hits all of the important attributes you need to get work done.
- Vertical space utilization.This office goes up, not out, to make the most of the space.
Storage and Organization
- Corner wall shelves.These corner wall shelves are perfect for using all the available wall space in a corner office.
- Shutter storage.Need a place to put outgoing mail? Consider this cute storage idea.
- Filing chest.This filing system is both functional and highly fashionable.
- Awesome storage solutions.Look to this pin for some really great ideas for office storage, including buckets, wire bins, magnetic tins, and more.
- Clipboard organizers.Keep all your notes, papers, and ideas organized by using this clipboard-based organizational system.
- Organized office closet.Use this pin as the inspiration to get your own office closet in order.
- Chalkboard paint on desk jars.A little chalkboard paint can help you to label and organize all of your office essentials.
- Cord labels.Here you’ll find a great use for those bread bag clips: labeling your cords!
- Cord clips.Keep cords from falling behind your desk with this simple binder clip idea.
- Tuna can organization.Wash out old tuna cans and use them to store pushpins, paperclips, rubber bands, and other office supplies.
- Jelly jar storage.Reuse old jelly jars as office storage when you attach them to the underside of a shelf.
- Cable storage.Keep your cords from getting tangled up in a box by using toilet paper tubes to store them.
- Mail station.This inspirational mail station could be a great addition to any office in need of an in/out area.
- Chevron cork board.This cork board isn’t just a great place to store notes and photos. It is also great looking and super trendy with the chevron design.
- File organizer.Repurpose a dish drainer as a file organizer in your office.
- Peg board storage.While peg boards might be more common in garages and basements, they can be just as practical and great for storage in an office setting.
Small Space
- Simple but chic.Need a small space solution for your place that’s neat and organized but still stylish? Something like this photo could be really nice.
- Small space solution.If you don’t have room for a big desk, consider one like the desk featured here, with a pull out portion that adds a whole lot more space when you need it and rolls away when you don’t.
- Bookshelf desks.For those who need their desk to serve two people, this idea is small space gold, turning a bookshelf and a table into two functional desks.
- Nook desk.This pin demonstrates how even just a small nook in your home can be turned into an amazing place to work.
- Closet desk.If there isn’t room for a proper office in your home, consider the idea offered in this pin, showing how a closet can become a seriously stylish office (complete with chandelier).
- Warm your feet desk.Radiator in your way? This pin shows you how to build your desk right over it to save space.
- Small but organized office.This office is small on space, but big on style, with amazing organization inspiration.
Decorating Ideas
- Happy place.Behind the desk in this workspace is a HUGE photo of a beautiful garden. It could be a great thing to copy for your own space, giving you inspiration to get more work done so you can enjoy your happy places.
- Color boost.While the furniture is simple in white and gray, the accents in this room are incredibly colorful, giving it a fun feeling and making it feel less like a work space.
- Accent wall.In this photo, the desk and shelves are on a wall painted a bright salmon color. It’s a great idea for adding vibrant color to your own work space.
- Inspiration board.Give your office a little pizzazz by creating your own inspiration board like the one featured in this pin.
- Chalkboard wall calendar.This calendar is not only very useful, it’s also amazingly good looking, and will add chic style to your office.
- Pump up the color of your desk.Why should the walls of your room have all the fun when it comes to color? Use this pin as inspiration to paint your desk a bright, fun color.
- Use a comfy chair.You don’t have to stick with the common office chair. Up the comfort level by using a wingback as your desk chair instead, as this pin demonstrates.
- Bold corner desk.This corner desk is great for maximizing both work space and style in your office.
Easy DIY Projects
- Recovered office chair.Give your boring old office chair a makeover with the help of this DIY pin.
- Wallpapered office furniture.Embossed wallpaper can help turn a boring filing cabinet or other office furniture into a thing of beauty.
- Paint chip calendar.Use this project to turn old paint chips into a gorgeous reusable calendar.
- Memo stone.Some chalkboard paint turns a regular stone into a place to leave messages.
- Fabric covered binder clips.Store bought binder clips are functional but boring. Add some style with this simple tutorial.
- Fabric covered magazine holders.While you’re at it, use some fabric to cover your bland magazine holders, too.
- Revamped plastic drawers.Plastic drawers are a staple of many home offices, but you can make yours stand out from the crowd with this DIY makeover project.
- DIY a rug.A simple, cheap rug gets an incredibly stylish look in this DIY pin.
- Unbelievable desk project.You won’t believe this rustic looking desk was a DIY project that cost just $30.
- Collection of rustic desk projects.Reuse old items in your office, from a bed frame to graters.
- Striped chair.Add another layer of style to your desk chair by giving it stripes, just like the chair in this image.
- DIY Desk.This project looks great and even novice DIYers can tackle it.
- Another amazing DIY desk.Bookshelves and a desktop combine to make this attractive desk.
Cool pins from Martha Stewart! Details from Mashable:
Are you one of the millions who draw home inspiration from Martha Stewart’s many social media accounts or apps?
A commanding voice on all aspects of baking, decorating and crafting, Stewart is also a whiz with her social media strategy. With more than 2.5 million followers on Twitter and more than 418,000 Likes on just one of her Facebook pages, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is an influential social media force.
Stewart told a huge crowd at BlogHer 2012 that she prefers Twitter to Facebook. Twitter, she said, just makes sense. She can reach more followers in less time. She told Mashable she does most of her own tweeting. In fact, Twitter is one of the top five ways Martha Stewart’s products and brands get referrals.
In addition to being a rock star on Twitter, Stewart is a prolific Pinterest user, with more than 80,000 followers.
She and her team are aiming to grow the brand even more by harnessing the power of social media and new ecommerce platforms.
In October, Stewart is partnering with Etsy to present, “American Made,” a competition that will be featured inMartha Stewart Living magazine. It will highlight 10 U.S. entrepreneurs working on various lifestyle products. The magazine’s editorial team will select one winner who will receive $10,000 and be featured in the December issue.
All of Stewart’s magazines are now on the iPad, with new editions rolling out each month. Martha Stewart Weddings for the iPad launched May 21 and Whole Living launched on the iPad on April 10.
This summer, in partnership with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, interactive lifestyle brand Happy launched the Martha Stewart CraftStudio app. This app brings paper crafting to the iPad. Users can get creative by making digital scrapbooks, photo embellishments, cards and keepsakes. It’s one of a number of apps for the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch under MSLO, which include: Martha Stewart Cocktails, Martha Stewart Cookies and Whole Living Smoothies.
Mashable’s Jeremy Cabalona found Stewart’s top 10 Pinterest boards, and in honor of her birthday Friday, we grabbed one of the most re-pinned images from each. Check out the gallery below for some of the domestic diva’s best pins.
From Martha’s “My Kitchens” pinboard, this is her country kitchen in Bedford, NY at her estate known as “Cantitoe Corners.”
This “Mile High Apple Pie” received 141 repins and 24 likes on Pinterest. From the board “Martha’s American Food.”
“Martha Stewart Living”
The “Martha Stewart Living” board has nearly 69,000 followers. This picnic-tip pin was a popular one.
On the “Martha Stewart Products” board this coupon-storing idea was popular.
From the Pinterest board, “Home tours of MSLO editors,” this space is explained: “The Reading Nook: Turn a former pass-through between the woman’s and man’s bedroom into a nook that functions as a reading room.”
You might think pinners would raise an eyebrow to a board titled, “My Homes” for its blatant show of wealth, but it’s popular with nearly 70,000 followers.
Apparently, Martha is a fan of Jadeite tableware, and so are more than 67,000 Pinterest members.
Martha makes farm work look easy in this board, “Life on the Farm.” Here, she picks “beautiful aromatic bouquets from the lilac allee” for her home.
Here are some interesting tips for Pinterest marketing for businesses – from Business2Community: (Thx Kasey!)
If you think that publishing is going through an evolution then photography is experiencing a revolution.
There are happy snappers everywhere. The smart phone with the inbuilt high definition camera is turning everyone into a photgrapher. Add some software technology with Instagram filters and an ordinary photo is becoming a piece of art.
Sites such as Pinterest are also allowing us to share this visual art form in glorious color, creativity and ease just by pinning images from the screen with a couple of clicks.
Competitors such as The Fancy.com are taking these concepts of visual pinning even further into the realm of social commerce and have announced that they have reached a whopping one million users already.
The Rise of Social Mobile Commerce
The Fancy has introduced a few new features into its mobile app offering, most notably the ability to buy products (they are reportedly making an average of $50,000 each week from users snapping up the products they fancy). Up until now users could only collect images they fancied, but now you can buy them with one-click purchasing directly from your iPhone or iPad.
This revolution is changing the way businesses perform commerce online. Online vendors are realizing that the habits and practices of buyers online are changing rapidly and that tablet and smartphone users are much more likely to impulse buy with the convenience of one click shopping.
Pinterest has the Numbers
When it is all said and done, Pinterest still has the mind share and the numbers (currently at over 20 million users) but it certainly needs to keep developing its platform rapidly.
Online boutiques such as Boticca have turned their product categories into boards on Pinterest and are generating up to 10% of their sales from clicks from Pinterest. (Read more about that here)
So how do you use Pinterest to market your business?
10 Tips for Marketing on Pinterest
As with all marketing you need to start with a plan to win and Pinterest is no different.
1. Plan for Pinning Success
When setting up your account make sure it is set up properly and branded with your logo. Create boards that suit your target customers and your industry niche. Also make sure that you have integrated your Pinterest platform with your other social media platforms.
2. Remember Copyright
I was attending an online retailer conference recently and ShopNBC pointed out that it is important to ensure that you are not pinning images that have copyright. Also remember to attribute your source.
3. Pin Straegically
The mantra is Pin, Repin and follow. Build up a loyal tribe and they will reward you with significant sharing. Remember when anyone repins the link still points back to your site. Think of Pinterest as a friendly virus.
4. Be a Social Pinner
Don’t forget to comment , like other pins and @tag other pinners by name. Also remember your manners and say thanks when you are repinned.
5. Produce Pinnable Content
The rise of a much more visual web requires you to create and share high quality images. Also remember that you can also pin video as well. For B2B businesses that work in knowledge industries you can also pin images that point to your presentations on Slideshare.
6. Create and Curate
Don’t just post your images curate other quality images and photos from others. Remember to share the love. The power of reciprocation is alive and well and if you share others content they will feel obliged to share yours.
7. Be a Creative Pinner
A lot of business have great images offline that could be placed online to add to your content. Run competitions and include call to action in your pins.
8. Keep Search Engines in Mind
Google notices fresh content and also social signals. So optimize your pins with hashtags, links, categories and keywords. It is very important to pin images and content from your website. Pinterest can drive a lot of traffic to your website if you do this correctly with compelling and contagious photos and images. Infographics work very well on Pinterest.
9. Don’t Forget your Tools
The most essential tool is the “Pin It” button on your browser. Also download the Pinterest app for your mobile devices.
10. Monitor and Measure your Traffic
This will assist you in finding out what works and what doesn’t. Do more of what works. Also monitor what your competitors and other brands are doing and you will be surprised by what you will learn.
