Clean Up Your Pinterest Boards

…and so, it is finished (for now)

Posted by Nat on Apr 27, 2012 | 3 comments

Man, oh MAN!  I had my work cut out for me!  Granted, I did not have eight hours of uninterrupted Pinterest editing, which made it a challenge (Yes, I do place diaper changes above editing my pins).  I did not get nearly as far as I thought I would.  You can tell in my first post from yesterday that I had high hopes to accomplish a lot.

In reality?

I cleaned up one board, my former Food and Drink  board.  Now it’s my Main Course board.  I also added:

Sweet Tooth (for all of the tasty desserts and sweet treats I’ve found)

Side Dishes

Apps. As in Food. 

Drinky Drinks for adult beverages (I need to pin more of those).

Breakfast Bliss (Breakfast is my favorite meal)

Snack It Up

Breads. Carbs. Love.

I can now find pinned food much more easily, so that will be nice.

I’m so glad I figured out a way to edit a pin board quickly, but it still took a lot of time- especially when I found pins that weren’t “legit” due to a lack of a good url, or an incorrect url.  I still have work to do.  I didn’t get to “give credit” where it’s due on every pin.  But my intent is clear:  I want to be a good pinner.

I’m not sure why it’s important to me.  Possibly because I’m a crafter, and I’d like to know that if someone pins content I created, I get credit for it.  Or that if someone pins something of mine, and someone sees that pin, they’ll be able to find me on this huge thing we call the Internet.

Regardless, I plan to continue to update my boards until they are all updated.  I’ll be sure to post when I “finish”- if that ever happens.  I do plan to not add any pins until I’m done, unless I see something I absolutely can’t bear the thought of forgetting about.

How to Edit Your Pinterest Boards; #CUYPB2012

Posted by Nat on Apr 26, 2012 | 6 comments

Hi everyone!

I’m dilligently working to update my Pinterest Boards today.  I came across a way to edit your boards to make it less cumbersome.  I hope you find it helpful.  It is my great hope that Pinterest can develop a way to edit our boards that is easier- more drag and drop, less clicky-click, please.

Also, some other general tips for you including:

-credit

– descriptions

– 502 errors

And lastly, Broken Pin info:

Today’s the day! #CUYPB2012!

Posted by Nat on Apr 26, 2012 | Comments Off on Today’s the day! #CUYPB2012!

Just got back from dropping my two oldest at school!  I can’t wait to get started after I have some coffee and let the caffeine do some work.   If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here to go to my original post!

Here’s my plan:

I’m going to start with my biggest boards and weed through them, pin by pin.  I’m going to check sources, and then (this will be painful) I’m going to divide them into smaller boards.  My Food & Drink board especially needs work- it’s too hard to find what I want when looking for recipes.

I’m going to look for misplaced pins.  Sometimes I end up with a funny pin in my Things I’d Like to Make board.

I’m going to move to smaller boards as I can.  The big boards may take quite a while.

I’m going to update all of my covers.

I’m going to assess my board titles- do they make sense?  Is it easy to tell what each board is about from the title?

Are you joining in?  Let me know!  Tweet me- I’m @nataliechiles on Twitter, and our hashtag is #CUYPB2012!

Are You Ready for CUYPB2012?

Posted by Nat on Apr 25, 2012 | Comments Off on Are You Ready for CUYPB2012?

“What’s CUYPB2012?” you ask?  It’s Clean Up Your Pinterest Boards Day:  TOMORROW!  I am very ready to do a virtual house cleaning of my Pinterest boards.  I’d love for you to join us!

We’ll be tweeting throughout the day using the hashtag #CUYPB2012.

We will also be:

Cleaning up descriptions.

Correcting incorrect sources.

Deleting “bad” pins or ones we have changed our minds about.

In essence:  we’ll be getting our collective Pinterest sh** together.

Who is the “we” I speak of?  I’m hoping lots of people.  For shizzle, it will be Wendy of Wendy Will Blog (did you know she’s got a great fitness challenge going on, too?), and Ashley of It’s Fitting (Ashley is hosting a giveaway for business cards so get on over there!).  These two ladies signed up right away and I will forever love them for it.

It’s going to be the best organizational moment of my life.  Or not.  But I’m sure I will walk away inspired to do more with my Pinterest stuff because it will all ROCK.

Join us!  You can grab the button in my sidebar over there —————————->.

Hope to “see” you tomorrow cleaning up your boards!

Clean Up Your Pinterest Boards!

Posted by Nat on Apr 16, 2012 | 14 comments

The time has come.  Someone needs to say it.

As a Pinterest Population, we are getting sloppy, friends.  We’re pinning and repinning and we’re not doing right by each other.

You know what I’m talking about- I’m sure it’s happened to you:  You see something you like on Pinterest, and when you go to repin, the source is not direct.  Maybe it’s a Google image of a project you would be interested in, and there’s no link provided; just a lovely picture.  Maybe it’s an awesome top you’d love to buy, but you have no idea where to find it.  Regardless of the type of pin, the source is all out of whack.

Let’s talk about your boards, too.  Are they organized?  My boards have an organized facade, especially since Pinterest started letting us choose covers for our boards.  But underneath…. there’s a whole bunch of chaos going on.

The pinning party is over.

It’s time to get real.

On April 26th myself, Wendy at Wendy Will Blog, and Ashley at It’s Fitting, are dedicating the whole day to cleaning up our Pinterest boards.  We’re going to take a day to reorganize, refresh, and yes (gasp!) we may even delete a few pins.  We’re calling it Clean Up Your Pinterest Boards Day.

Want to join us?  Here are the details:

On April 26th, devote as much time as you can (within reason) to not pinning, but doing a digital clean up of your own Pinterest boards.  If you plan to participate you can grab the button in my sidebar and post it in your own sidebar to help spread the word.  You could even write a post about it!  We will also be using the hashtag #CUYPB2012 if you are a Twitter geek rockstar.  You could also pin the button onto a Pinterest board to spread the word on Pinterest itself!

“But what does it mean?”  This will be different for everyone.  Everyone uses Pinterest for their own greater good, so do what feels right.  Hopefully, in the end, we’ll help future pinners because they will repin legit pins, and we’ll save ourselves some headaches, too.

Some things to help you out if you’re not sure where to start:

{Check Sources}

Do your pins lead you to the correct place?  Do they lead you ANYwhere?  If you click on a pin and it takes you to Google or some other search engine, right back to Pinterest, or if you get an error message…  it’s not pinned correctly.  From here you have to decide if it’s worth your time- either find the original source and update your pin, or delete it.

{insert record scratching here} “Wait, you mean I have to go through all my pins and check them all?”

That’s up to you.  But think about how many times you’ve seen something on Pinterest and just pinned it instantly without checking the source. Not only is that not fair to other pinners, it’s horribly unfair to the person who created the content you are pinning.

If editing all of your boards is overwhelming, consider just working on your biggest board.  Then you could go back and work on smaller boards as time allows.

{Update Descriptions; Make Pins More Searchable}

Do you have any bad pinning habits?  Pins are not very searchable (and therefore not very useful) if you just write “Love this.”  Or “OMG!  So cute!”  Go back to those pins and write “Love this headboard for my bedroom” or “OMG this leather Coach purse is so cute!”  Also, if your pin comes from a blogger of any kind, consider adding the name of their blog to the description.  They worked hard on that post and are proud that you pinned or repinned it.  It would be nice to give them credit.  For example, when I write a description for a pin from a crafting blog, I will type, “I love this teacher appreciation gift @ Skip To My Lou.”

{Update Your Board Covers}

It’s easy to do, and it makes it easy to visually distinguish them from other boards.  If you haven’t done it yet, read this.

{Update Your Followers}

Take a few minutes and look through people who are following you.  You can see all of them by going to your main board page and clicking on your number of followers.  You’ll see everyone who is following you.  Is your aunt on there?  Maybe you should follow her back.  Your best friend from college?  I bet she’d like you to show her some love, too.   Take another few minutes and follow some new people.

When you’re done you will feel like you’ve completed a digital spring cleaning of your Pinterest boards.  You can pat yourself on the back, and then pin with more knowledge.  Be sure to keep up your good pinning habits so that we can keep Pinterest a great place to be!

If you’re going to participate and are a blogger, please copy the code for the button in my right side bar (towards the top).  You can add the button to your sidebar or post and help spread the word however you like- Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest itself, or any other venue you choose.  Not a blogger?  You’re still rad!  You could share this post on Facebook to let others know.

Remember, our Twitter hashtag is #CUYPB2012.  

Hope to hear from you on April 26th!  I’m looking into having a linky party and lots of tweeting!