I’m on Facebook and Twitter, figure I may as well completely join the 21st C. and set up an Instagram and/or Pintrest accounts. Is it worth it? Especially if you don’t post any pics yourself?
I resisted Pinterest because I couldn’t figure out why it’s useful and was mad that my clients were making me set up more useless SEO shit on their sites in the way of Pinterest buttons.
But it turns out I do like the site. To me, it is a graphical representation of all the pretty, yummy, clever and cute stuff on the Web. It’s not a critical tool for anything, but it is lovely to look through. I like all of the people I follow, and when their shit gets stale (and it does get stale quickly) I scroll through the pre-determined categories like Geek and Tattoo.
It’s a nice little time waster, and I occasionally run in to stuff I will actually make or buy. Mostly I just gawk.
Instagram…haven’t checked it out.
Think of Pinterest as a scrapbook. If you need to gather photos for a wedding, or of art you like, or in preparation for an event, Pinterest is great for that. It’s not really for social networking.
I have no opinion on Instagram, apart from that it’s annoying it’s not integrated with Twitter anymore.
I resisted Facebook, though I did join, but no photo and no real details. But I took to Pinterest very well, not surprising really, I have a lot of hobbies and interests.
But it occurred to me the other day that my Pinterest boards are way more revealing than anything on FB! What I like to eat, decor I like, what I find funny, places I want to visit, clothes, jewelry, etc, etc.
Even though I actually never post anything, it’s much more telling, in my opinion! Which I hadn’t really considered when I started.
Will somebody please explain Instagram to me? I don’t understand making pictures look deliberately crappy, all the time. The retro look once in a while is kind of cool, especially with the right subject. But generic shots of people sitting around, or someone’s lunch (ick), or random pets all done through a 1970’s filter? Bleah.
Is there any other reason or use for Instagram?
I like FB, but I see no need (for me) for Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram. What am I missing?
Pinterest drives me nuts…every time I want to find out more about what is posted, a recipe or a source where I could buy the product, clicking on it takes me to the blog where my friend found it, then to the blog where that person found it. 9 times out of 10 I never find the “source”…irritating in the extreme!
I got sucked into Pinterest for a bit, then backed off. There are much worse time-wasters out there, and yes, it’s handy if you’re “scrapbooking” certain things, but I found myself being more oversaturated with the sheer volume than I did just oohing and ahhing at all the pretty things.
I’m on Instagram, and honestly days go by when I forget I have the app. I like fooling around with graphics, though, so every so often I’ll take a bunch of photos, put them through one of my graphic apps, and post it. I’ve discovered, though, that Instagram is becoming for like Pinterest for the younger set – there are accounts on there where all they do is repost stuff directly from the web. There’s also a Twitter-like quality to it with the use of hashtags.
They’ve both become heavy-hitting marketing tools too. Certain websites will crosspost on either or both of them, or a company might make an account exclusively to show you particular features of their product (a lot of graphic/photo apps do this, for example). Mobile marketing, if you will.
Or it’s just literally a link to a picture of something delicious, without any reference as to where you can get the recipe.
I also sort of dislike how people are careless with re-pins, comment-wise. Like someone will re-pin something and just leave the original pinner’s comment which is “My husband and I make this every weekend in the summer on the grill. So easy!” and you’re thinking “Uh, that person isn’t even married…?”
Tumblr is really bad for this. It’s very user-unfriendly, in my opinion.
That is pretty annoying. I mainly use Pinterest as a bookmarking/scrapbooking tool for myself. I’ll find a picture I want to save, and “pin” it, and then I’ll be able to refer back to it later. And I’ll try to be careful to go back to the original source, when it’s one blog referring to something on another website, I’ll pin to the original place. It’s much more useful than just bookmarking pages for certain things, since with Pinterest you can look through the pictures of all the things you’ve bookmarked, rather than the list of titles of pages you’ve saved.
But it does seem like a lot of the most popular pins are fairly useless. I don’t know if people repin things before they check if they actually link to anything worthwhile, or if they just don’t care if the link is useless.
I like Pinterest, but I’m baffled by the people who have hundreds of different boards containing a zillion pins. I wonder how they make a living when all they do is pin things. I suppose many of them are retirees or stay-at-home parents, but even then it’s mind-boggling to think of the amount of time they are spending on it.
Yeah, I only pin stuff I’ve clicked through on, so I’m getting instructions, or directions, or recipes say. It only takes a second.
I am surprised at the number of boards I’ve now created. I have a lot of hobbies, like needlepoint and sewing, and like to travel, plus I do lots of creative stuff, so I save images I think I might use, etc.
It has definitely expanded rapidly. But I’ve always kept a large bulletin board in my house with the same sort of collection of bits, so I was a natural, I suppose.
(I just finished making lovely, cottage inspired floral pillow slips with a hand embroidered detail. It was actually a combination of two pins I saw. I am giving them as a gift to friends with a cabin I visit every year, they came out really sweet and I know they will adore them.)