Jeri Usbay

I have resisted and resisted and resisted Pinterest.  I have proclaimed proudly that I will not pin, I have no need, I will resist any interest in Pinterest.  After all, I am already addicted to Facebook, do I really have time for another social media site?

Oh in case you haven’t had the pleasure of exploring or being confused by Pinterest yet, in a nutshell it allows you to create bulletin boards and pin images from the Internet on these boards.  Once the image is on a board you can click on the image to retrieve the original web page.  You can also share your boards with others and see other people’s boards.  There are countless YouTube videos explaining how to use it, so I needn’t digress into a tutorial here.

Sadly(?) I must admit I have lost my battle against using Pinterest, and I am starting to understand and dare I say it, yes I see its value as a great tool in our online world.  I am also desperately hoping that I am not developing an addiction to it!

I first knew I should take a serious look at Pinterest when I saw its logo alongside that of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube on store websites.  I thought what is this all about?  Yet it makes perfect sense for a business to post images of products.  And it is great advertising if a potential customer pins an item from a business to their own board for contemplation and for their friends to see.

I have my own little system for saving web pages.  Aside from bookmarking, or saving in Favorites, I sometimes cut and paste a URL and save it in an email that I keep in draft status or send to myself.  Or I save the page to my desktop.  However, this is not that efficient, especially when you are dealing with a wedding for instance where there are dresses, and flowers, and shoes, and hairstyles, and colors, and all sorts of items that you may want opinions on, or wish to visualize all together.

Pinterest has come in very handy in the planning of my daughter’s wedding.  Once I started posting pictures of wedding flowers, it was hard to stop.  Then I knew I was hooked on Pinterest when in my Facebook News Feed I received a link to my niece’s Pinterest board to look at dresses my niece is considering for her daughter, my great niece.   Of course I had to check out the board and render my opinion.  Women can appreciate this, a visual online filing system (and no clutter around the house to clean up).

But how about the guy who wants some power tools or mountain bike equipment for his birthday –  he can pin a whole bunch of gift images on a birthday board and share it with potential gift givers.  What about privacy concerns you say?  Did you forget this is social media?

I finally get it, as I finally have a use for Pinterest.  And now that I am using it I can find more reasons to. Just in case you want to learn more about Pinterest or pick up some tricks and tips check out this CNET YouTube video.