Thursday, August 25, 2011

Very Pinteresting...

Love this poster and must make a copy for my art room! Why am I posting a copy of it here? Because I found it on Pinterest, and this post is about Pinterest. I've recently become somewhat of a Pinterest addict, but I'm still trying to figure out the best way to manage it before it becomes unmanageable. I know lots of you are pinning; what are your thoughts regarding my points below?
  • I've been pinning for maybe 3 weeks and already have maybe 60 followers and follow about the same amount of other pinners (some of those showed up immediately when I joined Pinterest and I don't remember having selected to follow them, but I haven't wanted to "unfollow" them because gosh, that just seems mean). Anyhow, having 60 followers is a LOT in a short time, considering the slow and steady build up of blog followers in comparison. YIKES.
  • Every time someone new follows me, I get an email that asks me "follow (name of person) back?" - originally I would look at the person's pinboards and make a decision, but after a while I just starting clicking "yes" because, well, it's faster and easier. Am I overdoing it?
  • And then, of course, there are people who just follow some of your boards, but are not your followers - maybe a little confusing? And there's boards I follow where I don't follow ALL the boards of that person, so I'm not officially "following" that person. Huh?
  • About the emails: I used to get an email every time someone re-pinned one of my pins, and I had to change that because every time I opened my email I had like a zillion emails telling me "so and so re-pinned your pin...." So now I just get an email when someone leaves a comment or "likes" one of my pins, or begins to follow either me or some of my boards. Good enough, I guess, but still a lot of emails. I don't want to turn it off though, because I like to know when someone says something.
  • Some people I can find their profiles, but sometimes not. I wish I could. I like to know who I'm dealing with. But that's probably because most people are linked with their twitter or Facebook accounts, and I chose to separate that connection because, frankly, I don't need 60 or more people I don't know looking at my Facebook page, since my primary purpose for being there on Facebook is keeping in quick touch with a few family members and close friends.
  • I can't figure out if someone looking at my Pinterest boards will see the link to my blog. I guess I need to put it in my info that shows up under my photo, because I want people to make that connection, since it appears to me there are endless numbers of art teachers using Pinterest.
  • Somehow I think pinners are finding their way to my blog because in the last couple of days I've had a leap in blog followers. Hmmm. Maybe it's not from following me on Pinterest but instead from clicking on things from my blog that people have pinned on their boards. Speaking of that, I wish there was an easy way to find out when people have plucked something from my blog. Every so often I find some obscure image from an old post show up on someone's board. But I guess it would be too crazy to start notifying about all that as well as the other stuff, plus pins can be plucked from any online image, so not just from blogs.
  • When you go to your Pinterest "home page" you scroll through mountains of recent pins (from people you follow, I guess). One thing I notice is that we (art teachers) are all re-pinning stuff from each other, so a lot of our boards are kind of alike. It's hard not to want to re-pin all this stuff; so much is so cool. But am I defeating my original purpose of joining Pinterest, which was to organize ideas?
  • Speaking of organizing ideas, I can't figure out if there's a way to MOVE a pin from one board to another. For example, if I start a new board, and I think an old pin would be better on the new board, is there any way to get it there (other than re-pinning it, and deleting the original pin, which seems cumbersome)? Let me know if you've figured this out.
I guess that's all that I wanted to say, other than, by the way, if you want to check out my pins (and if you aren't already following me on Pinterest), you can find me here. And if you follow me, I'll probably be following you back! Happy pinning!!!!!

13 comments:

  1. Phyl
    I joined Pinterest around the same time as you and am having a blast- instead of finding a cool idea and copying it into a word doc and hoping I can find it again when I need to or even remember it exists, enter pinterest!! As far as moving a pin-super easy. Just click edit (which appears over the image when you hover over the top-opposite corner from "repin") and then a new box will appear. At the bottom of the box is a dropdown menu with all of your boards. Just scroll to the one you want to move it to and I think at the top of the box it says "save changes" or something to that effect. Easy peasy!!
    Thanks for always posting your great ideas - as a relative newbie to art ed, your posts have been invaluable!l
    Sara

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  2. Phyl,
    I feel you...I love Pinterest, but it can be overwhelming.
    I got an email that someone posted on my wall, but can't figure out how to write back. Anyone know how that works?

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  3. I cannot wait to join pinterest! I LOVE all your ideas! I ALREADY drew, painted, and hung up "the earth without art is just eh"!!! I LOVE IT!!!

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  4. My cousin sent me that poster which I immediately hung up in my classroom. I thought it was brilliant!

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  5. I'm still learning, too. Like you said...overwhelming.

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  6. Lol! I have asked myself most of these questions. I am borderline addicted to Pinterest; I justify it with the fact that I am a more organized teacher this year because of Pinterest!

    I want to know how I can pin things I find on the Pinterest site BEFORE I log in. Once I have logged in, I am only able to see the pins from boards I follow. This is so frustrating! Pinterest Powers-That-Be: please solve this dilemma!

    ReadWriteSing

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  7. @Chrissy - What a good question, Chrissy! I have it set up on my laptop that when I go to Pinterest I'm automatically logged in, so I can't figure out how to find random stuff on the Pinterest site at all! Vice versa, when I use the desktop computer I can get to the site prior to login, and then I see all that stuff and you are right, you can't pin it at that point. Sigh...
    @Sadie - thanks for the tutorial! big help!!!
    @Kristyn - I wish I could answer your question, but the truth is, I don't have a clue either..

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  8. Yeah I thought that was weird too... all the sudden I was following a whole bunch of people who I didn't know and never decided to follow! I think with pinterest I'm just going to browse when I have time and not worry about it too much. I think I'll get more out of the blogs I read. I would also really love to know if any of my pictures have been pinned.

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  9. You can click on discussions at the top but that gives you very random things. or you can click on people who have repinned your stuff or you can click on things on blogs you follow.
    I signed in with a yahoo account I don't use for mail, then I'm not bothered with all the stuff from Pinterest. I don't follow anybody and I don't have a blog but somehow I have over 50 followers. I wanted this site for me and it's just great filling in my year plan with new new ideas!

    Found this site by chance, Phyl and love it. You are now on my sqworl account which I check every morning at coffee! I'm at http://pinterest.com/tw5078/ I have over 1400 pins so come and find some new stuff!

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  10. Pinterest is a great way to organize photos for upcoming artwork. As for repins and followers...don't care so much about that. Just a cool organizational tool.

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  11. Yes I love pinterest for organization not so much for following things. Thanks for your answer on my blog. Hope the storm doesn't hit you guys too hard. Monday was already cancelled for us. AHhh we haven't even begun and already a day off. . . flashbacks of last winter. Have fun with the kids when you do get back in the classroom!

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  12. Oh dear, school cancellation already! The weather gets wackier every year. Anyhow, we don't start till after Labor Day so no problem here. I expect heavy rains etc and maybe power outages but I'm more concerned about my "baby" who is living in Boston. Stay safe, Ben!

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  13. I like following people, because I get about half my pins from that. I am just learning, too. I will tell you a few things. When you sign onto pinterest it automatically shows the boards you follow. You can also click on "everything" and see stuff other random people are pinning. You could also see what things from your own site are pinned by clicking on one of them. On the left hand side it shows an area that is "also from there's a dragon in my art room." It shows all of the things that are pinned from that site, not just your followers and those you follow. You are also not giving people access to your facebook account when they are linked. They can see whatever you allow any "non-friends" see.

    There are a lot of things I don't get, either. Responding to messages, no idea.

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