Pinterest - what's is all about?

Pinterest is essentially exactly what it sounds like – it is a bookmarking social network site - one giant pin board full of pictures that may be of interest and that can be shared with the rest of the online community (Pins of Interest = Pinterest).

If you are completely new to Pinterest then we have written a quick guide on the terminology you may see on Pinterest.

Pinterest lingo:

1. Pin – this is a post (or bookmark) that you share on Pinterest.  It is similar to a Tweet or Facebook post but is an image.

2. Board – this is where collections of Pins are grouped together by the same topic or theme. 

3. Follower – this is an account on Pinterest that has chosen to follow you, your Pins, or a particular board on your account (similar to Followers on Twitter).

4. Following – if you follow another Pinterest account then you will have all of that user’s Pins on all of their boards shown to you in real-time on Pinterest on your Timeline stream. You would follow an account if you are interested in their Pins.

You can follow individual Boards if you just want to see a user’s pins to specific boards

You can unfollow Boards and pins at any time: they will not be notified

5. Repin – this is the same idea as a Reteeet on Twitter.  A Repin is simply when you share someone else’s Pin.  When you repin an image the link will still go back to the original source no matter how many times it is repined

6. Like – this is the same concept as a Like used on Facebook.  A like will show the user who Pinned the post that you Like it but it will not appear on your own board like a repin does.

So this is the basic terminology of Pinterest!  We’ll be back again with another Blog to give a few more pointers on using Pinterest and how to get the best out of it!

It goes without saying that if you could give us some feedback on this Blog such as if it is helpful (or not), or if you have any questions or want to know more about a certain aspect of Pinterest then please let us know!