Pinterest Tips for Bloggers

Rearrange Your Boards on Your Profile

When someone clicks on your Pinterest profile, they will be taken to your page that displays all your boards. Now, granted, we all have personal boards on Pinterest...but this is not what your bloggers and other pinners are interested in! So, you need to rearrange your boards on your profile so that when someone goes looking for the type of things you pin (and blog about) they are right at the top of your profile and easy to find. On your profile page, right next to the "Edit Profile" button, there is a small icon that says "Rearrange Boards" if you roll your mouse over it. You should be putting the boards that are most related to your blog at the top and the least related at the bottom.

Post Your Tutorials!!!

This is huge. You should be pinning your own blog posts every time you blog something. Especially if you frequently post craft tutorials as these are very big on Pinterest. At the top of any Pinterest page, there is a little button that says "Add." Use this to post a link and a photo of your post.

Categorize Your Boards to Match Your Blog

When you go looking for a dinner recipe on Pinterest, you expect to find it in the category "Food and Drink" right? Well, when people go looking for projects or posts similar to your blog, they pick the most obvious category to look in. If you post craft pins, you need to categorize the boards you pin them on as "Crafts and DIY" boards. This seems obvious, but sometimes it can be an easy thing to miss. Your boards are in the wrong category? Just edit them and correct it. 

Want to learn more about Pinterest? Here are two other articles I have written, Why I Love Pinterest, and Why Pinterest is Bad for Bloggers. Both of these articles are constructive criticisms and praises for the use of Pinterest to promote your blog. 

Here's a quick run-down if you've never used Pinterest before:

Pinterest is basically a website full of photos which link back to websites. You can collect these photos into groups (called "Boards") by "pinning them. It's essentially an online bulletin board (you remember, the one you had in eighth grade that was so cool? Yeah, that one). You can also directly post or log in through facebook. You can choose to "follow" people, so that the Pins they collect show up on your news feed when you log in to Pinterest. You can also create "group" boards where multiple people can pin things to the board you share, and you can also create "Secret" boards which only you can see (great for planning birthday surprises!). 

Thanks for reading! -Taylor

Why Pinterest is Bad for Bloggers

Last week, I wrote an article about why Pinterest is so great. This week's article defines why Pinterest can, at times, be not so good for bloggers and handmade sellers.

My Mind is Going (And so is your day...watch as it flies away)

It is so incredibly easy to just pin things, and pin things...and pin things. All Day. Before you know it, you have used up all that precious time you set aside out of a busy day to craft...pinning things. I have this running joke with my mom and my sister that when one of gets on Pinterest, our motto becomes "Pin ALL the things!!" And this is totally true, if you're not careful, your crafting can just turn into pinning, where you don't actually make anything at all. You might as well be watching videos on YouTube (well, not actually, because at least you're looking at crafty things). 

Overexposure

All those pins of cute tutorials and DIYs that you're pinning? Millions of people are doing the same thing...with your photos, your tutorials, and you posts. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, if you're primary goal as a blogger is have as many people see and read and appreciate your work as possible, then it's great. If you're a seller of handmade good or patterns...this may not be best for your business. Instead of selling items, your images are being distributed to millions of DIYers who are seeing your handiwork and thinking, "Hey I could make that!"

Your Pins get Spread but Your Views Don't Go Up

Here's another problem: your pins and images are getting spread around and posted in people's "I want to do this someday" boards but you aren't getting the feedback. The reason: The link on the photo doesn't come back to your blog. It's been distorted in some internet-black hole kind of thing that caused the link to be broken or sent viewers to another website.

 Make Sure You're Getting Something out of Your Pins. 

That's the moral of this story. Do your best to pin your tutorials and projects with links to that particular project, not just to your blog homepage. Treat other's pins the same way. If you share them on your blog, link back to their original post, not just to Pinterest. That's how links get sucked into the internet black hole. 

To read my previous article on why Pinterest is so awesome, click here. Want to know what Pinterest is and how it works? Read below. 

Here's a quick run-down if you've never used Pinterest before:

Pinterest is basically a website full of photos which link back to websites. You can collect these photos into groups (called "Boards") by "pinning them. It's essentially an online bulletin board (you remember, the one you had in eighth grade that was so cool? Yeah, that one). You can also directly post or log in through facebook. You can choose to "follow" people, so that the Pins they collect show up on your news feed when you log in to Pinterest. You can also create "group" boards where multiple people can pin things to the board you share, and you can also create "Secret" boards which only you can see (great for planning birthday surprises!). 

Let's get to know each other

So, this is the year that my blog becomes enjoyable to me and to you (I hope!). I'm striving for consistency in posting, and posting the things that I would WANT to read. This means LOTS of DIYs, recipes, and articles about crafting, other blogs, neat websites, etc. I'm also an avid pinner (Pinterest) and I want to incorporate that into my blog. I'm excited to use my blog as a way of making time for creative things. Sometimes I get crafter's guilt: I feel guilty taking time to create when I could be studying or working. But creative time makes me a happier person so my New Year's Resolution is to allow myself to craft...just for fun.

I've read a ton of articles lately about blogging and I agree with them that weekly features are fun and interesting. So...I'm going to make it a goal to include a weekly round-up of Pins that are fun and unique. Each week will have a theme and the first set of Pintastic things will be here tomorrow!

So, about me (and I hope you'll share too!) I live in sunny, humid, sticky, beautiful South Florida. I go to the green market pretty often to get fresh veggies and eat street food with my friends. I live one mile from the beach and love to walk or run from my apartment to the sand. The sunrise is beautiful (see below) but I'm rarely up early enough to see it :)

I work as a tutor and a teaching assistant, someday I hope to be a college professor in Anthropology. That's the plan...and Florida, as beautiful as it is, is just one stop in my road-trip kind of life. I move a lot. I really like new places and new spaces, so I'm like a packing and garage sale expert. The idea of things staying the same terrifies me. That being said, that's what my blog is really about. Trying new things. Making life memorable. 

Thanks for reading,

-Taylor

I did it!

Today is my college graduation. I am so proud of my accomplishments. I now have a Bachelor's Degree in Anthropology from the University of North Texas with a 4.0 GPA, graduating with highest honors, summa cum laude, and I did it in only 3 years. I am so thankful for my support-my boyfriend, sister and my parents have done so much for me. Thank you. So, in looking back, here are some of my musings about the experience:

1. My mom is going back to school and it tickles me that she gets so excited about textbooks. I remember when I used to be that excited :)
2. Group projects are designed to allow people who only want to be carried along by others to continue doing so.
3. Every once in awhile, someone in a position of power (professor, advisor, etc.) will realize that taking a risk on you is worth it.
4. Funniest thing I ever heard in college: "So...George Washington is the one who invented the equator, right?" 
5. Eventually, being the best student instead of just a good student pays off. Because of my hard work and my gpa I had several job choices and graduate school offers to choose from. I got to choose my future.
6. College is not about learning; college is about mastering the skills needed in a course-test taking and paper writing. 
7. Sit in the front row. Always. Those are seats of power and respect. 
8. Smile.
9. Never buy a textbook from the college bookstore. Never buy the current edition. Most of my textbooks I only paid $2 or $3 dollars for. I usually pay more in shipping than the cost of the actual book.
10. Try new things.

Summer Reading List

So...I love summer. Because it means nearly unlimited brain candy reading. Pure fiction, predictable plots, and delightful reads. Here are a few of my favorites that I read this summer:

The Help. Probably the single best fiction I've read all year. Even if you have seen the movie, the written story is a million times better.

I

Shattered. I had high hopes for this book, but I was really disappointed by the writing, it just didn't flow ya know?

Robopocalypse. Weird sci-fi, end-of-the-world-technology kind of book. Not what I usually read but I couldn't put it down!

Rhett Butler's People: Again...I was disappointed by this book. A very slow pace.

Sooner Or Later: It's kind of a secret (or it was) that I'm a sucker for Debbie Macomber books.L-o-v-e them.I ended up rereading a bundle of her books when I found them on clearance at Half Price Books.

-Taylor