Pinterest has the reputation of being the social network platform of women. There are hundreds of boards that fit the typical cliché of teenie girls with movie star crushes, women in their twenties and thirties obsessed with their future wedding dresses, bored housewives decorating their fictitious mansions, shopaholics who pin their dream wardrobes. Probably all true, but just as with any other social network platform, there is another side to Pinterest, if you are willing to give it a try, dig deeper, experiment and are willing to become a pioneer of trying things that no one has tried before.
Pinterest is a platform to keep in mind for the future. It is growing, it is evolving, it is being innovative (from the inside… the company… (How Pinterest is trying to appeal more to men, Pinterest Acquires Image Recognition And Visual Search Startup VisualGraph ) but also from its users who are finding new and innovative ways HOW to use and for WHAT to use this visual social bookmarking services (10 Creative Ways to use Pinterest, 12 most strategic ways to use Pinterest for Marketing)
I recently conducted a webinar with a group of teachers in Argentina. We touched upon the following points:
- take advantage of a bookmarklet by installing a button in your browser (desktop or mobile device) to make pinning easier
- one can pin images (connected to links/URL on the web)
- one can also upload images directly from the computer (without a connection to a web address)
- the organization and curation on Pinterest is achieved via boards one can create with a theme, topic, subject or other strategic connection between the images in mind
- one can find new images on the web to add to one’s boards or
- re-pin images from within the platform and re-organize them in one’s own boards, connected and presenting them according to your own way of curation
- we add value to our pins by adding a brief description to the image or the link it might take us to. This description could be a summary, a perspective, a point of view, etc.
- it is possible to create boards that are private (only you and chosen members can see and contribute), open (for everyone to view and pin) or collaborative by inviting other members to contribute to the same board
Like all social network platforms, every user has to experiment and learn for themselves in what way the platform would be useful to them to continue learning, connecting and growing in their profession
Don’t underestimate the power of Pinterest. I am NOT a power user of Pinterest, nevertheless the platform is driving traffic to my blog. As you can see in the statistics table of my blog below, Pinterest comes in 5th place of the top referrers… without really doing much on the platform. The only connection I see, is that the Langwitches blog is “ripe” for pinning on Pinterest, since I include at least one visual in EVERY post, which might encourage pinners to pin away.
Pinterest is the only platform I have chosen to semi-merge my professional and personal identities. I do not mix personal writing on Langwitches or share my personal life with family and friends on Twitter. I also have two distinct facebook accounts (professionally and personal) While I am not a power user of Pinterest (I am foremost a blogger and on Twitter), I have identified the following ways of using Pinterest for my purposes.
- Social Bookmarking and Curation
- Social Networking
- Research
- Window Shopping
- Creativity
- Branding & Marketing
And for the Spanish speakers among the readers, here is a “pinnable” visual en español for you
An area I am keen to explore further is to see HOW to use Pinterest with students. If you have used Pinterest with students or are also interested in exploring further, please join the conversation.
cross posted at langwitches.org/blog
Silvia Tolisano is a Curriculum21 faculty member, author of the book Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and founder of the Around the World with 80 Schools project. Read more at http://langwitches.org/blog.
