Pinterest Tutorials: Overview and Getting Started

You know how you always see something somewhere and then you try to find it and you can't. Story of my life and since the Momnesia has set in, it isn't any easier. The Internet is filled with ideas, tricks-of -the-trade, shortcuts, recipes, learning possibilities, Do-It-Yourself projects and oh so much more. Gone are the days of bookmarks that are comprised of long lists of website names that mean nothing to us. And for those who lean toward the OCD side of organization, we tried to create folders for those streaming lists of text to compartmentalize a little.

Now there is Pinterest. It is a visual bulletin board of sorts and it even allows it's users to create categories to help organize their ideas.

User Main Screen

There are two concepts to understand when using Pinterest; the first is "Pins" and the second is "Boards".

Pins are individual sites that you want to collect. They are bookmarked using an image. Boards are collections of pins. You may have a "Recipes" board, a "For the Home" board... the possibilities are truly endless!

Get your "Pin It" Button for your Bookmark Bar
Go to "About" at the top of your Pinterest Screen and select the "Pin It Button" option.

Pin It Button

The next step is to grab the button they provide and to drag it to your bookmarks bar.

Pinterest Add Button Screen

Important note: See how it mentions that it will "credit the original creator"? Awesome. Once someone clicks on the image, Pinterest takes them to the website where the image originated. Perfect.

Pins
Where do you get these pins? There are three ways.

1. Follow other pinners. As others pin their ideas to their boards, they will show up on your main Pinterest screen (accessed when you log in or by clicking on the Pinterest logo at the top of the screen).

Repin Screen

When you click on someone else's pin you get three choices: Repin, Like or Comment. If you see an image that you would like to "repin" you click "repin" and then you can edit the information to suit your needs. Notice that you will be choosing a Board to place your pin on. You can select one that already exists or create a new one. More on that in a second. In addition, you can click on the Facebook box and share your pin (or not) with your friends on Facebook.

2. Pin while you are surfing the Internet. While you are cruising through your favorite kitchen gadgets website you see that MUST HAVE item, but you cannot afford it right now so you just head to your Bookmark Bar and click on your "Pin It" Button. 

3. If you have the web address of the site you would like to Pin. Copy it and select "Add +" at the top of your Pinterest Screen. You will see three options, select "Add Pin" and then paste in the web address of your chosen item. It will prompt you to choose an image from the screen and you are ready to go!

That's it! You are ready to start pinning!

Finding other Pinners
At the top of your Pinterest Screen, you will find your name. Click your name and you will see the following options:

Find or Invite Friends to Join Your Pinning

You can invite friends to pin with you or your can find friends via Facebook or Twitter.

Creating Boards
There are two ways you can create Boards.

1. As you are pinning or repinning, you might find something that doesn't quite fit into one of your preset Boards. When you go to the drop down menu for the Board selection, you can scroll to the bottom and create a new Board by typing in your title of choice.

Adding a new Board while repinning

2. If you know ahead of time some of the Boards you would like to create, you can go to the Add + choice at the top of the screen and then choose "Create a Board".

That is all for today! Get pinning!

Coming soon...organizing your Boards, sharing your Boards, using Pinterest from mobile devices and spicing up your blog with Pinterest. Do you have other tasks you want to learn about? Just let me know and I will take you there with this great organizational tool.

Follow Mental Chew on Pinterest 

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