Pinterest Rocks For Artists - Part 2 of 4: A Few More Basics
Are you ready to become a level 2 Pinterest Wizard? As I mentioned in my previous post Pinterest is an on-line bulletin board of epic proportions. As creative types who are natural visual creatures we can harness this tool to 3 main areas: Organization/ Inspiration/ Marketing. In this post I am going to finish giving you the basics of Pinterest Wizardry, priming you to begin the journey to become a total pro at using this free service as an artist. In the last post I covered how to start creating boards and following others and repinning their pins. In this post I will cover how you can pin from the internet and start organizing your boards.
There are three ways to add pins to Pinterest.
#1. Repin pins from other Pinners
#2. Upload a Pin from the photos on your computer
#3. Pin an image from websites from all over the internet.
In the last post I introduced you to #1. Repin pins from other Pinners. Ok so you can use method #2. Upload a Pin from the photos on your computer, it's pretty easy just go to the plus icon. However there are more benefits to #3. Pin an image from the internet when posting something that you are promoting. For example if you want to promote your artwork then it would be great if people can click through that pin on Pinterest and land on your website. There they can see the rest of your work and maybe read your bio. To pin an image from the internet you can get the Pin It button added to your toolbar as follows.
A) Go to the folloiwing link http://about.pinterest.com/goodies/
B) Drag the red Pin It button to the tool bar of your browser, you should see a plus sign appear in some browsers and then it will fall into place in the tool bar. If you are having trouble just check these link to make sure that you are following the right process for your browser.
Chrome Firefox Safari Internet Explorer
C) You should now see the Pin It button in your browser's tool bar.
From this point on the Pinterest game has changed. Navigate to your website and find the first image you would like to pin. Found it? Great - now just click on the Pin It button in your tool bar. Pinterest accesses all the images on the page you are on and give you the option of which one you'd like to pin:
From here Pinterest will guide you through pinning this to one of your boards. It's kind of amazing!
You will be given the option of writing a little summary of information below the image you are pinning. If it's your art you might want to include the name of the piece, the dimensions and your website and whatever else you would like. This is a great way to show your portfolio to people on Pinterest - very organized with decent sized photos and your blurbs right beneath your images.
Now you can actually go on a mission, like say google image searches for a photo of something you are going to paint in your next artist series. Pin all the inspiring images that you find to a board designated to this one research mission. I love to peruse boards before I get started on a new painting and see what images I have gathered there for different categories of inspiration!
Congratulations on becoming a level 2 Pinterest Wizard. 2 more posts are coming your way - until then...Go forth and pin!