How I use Pinterest

I promised you when I celebrated my one year anniversary of starting this blog I would share a little of what I learned along the way.

There are so many opportunities for bloggers, or anyone for that matter, to share with others what they love through Social Media.

Pinterest

Facebook

Twitter

Google +

Stumble Upon

If you try to do all of them, actively, you'll lose your mind and a lot of sleep trying to keep up. 

The biggest advice I can give anyone, blogger or not. Chose the 2 or 3 you enjoy using and go with it. Don't worry about the rest.

The two I'm most comfortable with are Facebook and Pinterest. These are also my top two referral sites to my blog. That old saying, "you get out what you put into it" is true.

Pinterest is the fastest and easiest way to start getting exposure for your blog. Set up an account and start pinning away. Now if you want followers, you need to pin more than just your own posts. Hopefully you're blogging because what you write about is something you love (or at least like.) Let that show through in your pinning. If you love food, like I do, pin all those delicious, mouth watering photos you see everyone else post.

I use Pinterest as a virtual recipe box. No more printing out recipes then forgetting what I did with them or wondering is this what it is supposed to look like?

Just look at these Rolo Bars from A Little Bit of Everything

I love them, I will be making them. I Pinned them!

The more things you pin, good things, that you like, the more people will want to follow you on Pinterest. Then when you go to pin your recipes/crafts/ tips-your posts, the more people will see them, repin them, come visit your blog to see more information about that wonderful photo that lured them in to look in the first place. 

Make sure you fill in that header space. This is your opportunity to lead followers somewhere else! Link up your website, facebook, twitter. The more ways you give someone to follow you, then the more likely someone is to check it out. If you have a logo or button for your blog, use that as your profile picture. Branding. You what followers to see the same thing every place they go. Also put your website address in the description. Put in your city and state or if your not comfortable with your city, just put your state. People like to follow their neighbors and it can open a line of conversation.

Organize your boards!  What do you want people to follow? Put those first. If you are all about the food, don't put fashion, gardening or favorite places to visit as your first boards. PUT FOOD! Also, if you have a board for your blog posts, don't put that in the first few rows. Mix it in with the rest of your food boards. You want people to Follow All. If followers see things they don't like in the first few rows, they will start picking and choosing boards. Then when you create new boards, they won't know about it. Follow all is your goal. As you can see, I made my boards Alphabetical but since I'm all about the sweets, I did move Cookies to my first board. Appetizers is not want I wanted people to see first. I want the sugar fiends following me! At First glance the sugar fiends will see Cookies, Bars, Candy, Cakes, Cheesecake and Chocolate Recipes! Hopefully they'll just hit that Follow All instead of scrolling down to find Ice Cream, Pies /Puddings and Sweets.

Now I have some boards that are odd ball boards but still food related. I put those after my alphabetical list. This is also where my group boards are. And you see, my blog board is down there too.

Speaking of boards, do you have a blogging board? You should. Makes it so easy to save all the tips, like this one, that you'll come across.

While I use Pinterest to promote my blog, I also use it for myself, to remind myself of things I like, projects I want to try so I have boards for Gardening, Sewing, Crafts, etc. I just put those at the end, in alphabetical order.

There's so much more to how I use Pinterest so when you're ready, check out How I Pin to get the most exposure for my posts. For now, go organize your boards and pin away!

Thanks for stopping by and if you'd like a pinterest invite you can leave me a comment or privately e-mail me at mrsjlhayes@gmail.com and I can send you an invite.

I'm sharing this at some of these great parties!