Ever since Pinterest hit, I’ve been pinning obsessively…and editing obsessively! I spend a huge amount of time pinning and then editing my Pinterest boards. Why? Well, because, frankly…I’m a sloppy pinner. There, I said it. I’m a sloppy pinner, and worse, I get really frustrated with other sloppy pinners. Hence the obsessive guilt-induced pin-editing ~ and attempts to reform from my sloppy pinning!
Pinterest was designed so that you’d be able to bookmark and store things you like for later use, either by you or people who follow your boards/brand. When you pin things just because they’re pretty, without checking to see where your pins take you when you click on them, you’re setting yourself up for trouble. For one, you won’t be able to find how to actually bake that cake, do that project, or shop for that dress you liked. For another, you might be encouraging some sloppy pinner or Tumblr user who reposted something because it was pretty with no sourcing and no credit to the artist who created it. And worst of all, you might be promoting spam! Yes, an unfortunate side effect of Pinterest opening up the floodgates to everyone is that now you can post a pretty picture that takes those unfortunate enough to click on it to a spam site or a malware site, and you might not even know it! Cue more guilt-induced pin editing!
Image: KC Saling, P-logo: Pinterest
However, there are some things you can do to pin more responsibly and create better {i.e. more pin-friendly} content!
- When possible, create your own visual content. That alleviates some of the direct copying, at least. Chances are, when creating content, you will be influenced by people, but making a design based on someone’s influence is more original than simply copying them without credit. Oh yeah, if you’re influenced by someone, give them a shout-out at least ~ it alleviates bad feelings that can grow from out-and-out idea thievery.
- Find your image source. First off, find this bookmarklet and drag it into your bookmarks bar. It’s called src-img {thanks SO much to {av} for sharing this resource on her blog - and yes, the post is all about cleaning up Pinterest} and it lets you search the internet for your image so that you can find the originator {most of the time it works, but other times, tons of people have shared the same image so it’s difficult to find where it originated from}.
- Help by posting sourced images on your blog/website. Those of us who create content would like some credit for it, thank you very much. A lot of the editing I do is to make sure that, if I haven’t created the image myself, the image is properly sourced and linked back to the person who created it. At least then, if you get pinned by a sloppy pinner, folks can follow the link from your blog to the original source.
- Pin from a post-specific URL. Don’t just use the generic page URL to source your pin. If you’re sharing my carrot cake souffles, chances are people are going to click on your pin because they want to make my carrot cake souffles, not because they want to hear me rant about Pinterest {although this is useful stuff, people don’t want to click all over the place to find a source – we’re an On Demand generation here!}.
- Play well with others. This one is going to be unpopular as it goes for both sides. If you pin someone’s photo, pin friendly and realize that you’re pinning someone’s creation. And if you post a photo/design…well, do the things you can to protect your art {water marks, source code labels, etc.}, but having taken two semesters on copyright laws, patent laws, and intellectual property, you have to do A LOT more to claim something as yours than just say “that’s mine” or “copyright so-and-so” to have it stand up if you need to go toe-to-toe with someone over your idea. Here’s a good primer on intellectual property laws from Allbusiness.com for your reading pleasure.
With today’s focus on visual content on all different forms of media, learning to use Pinterest is essential, and learning to use it properly is just another step in good online social management.
