It’s a new year, Modern Philosophers, and I set some goals about getting my writing published outside of this blog, while also bringing this blog to one million hits.
In hopes of achieving those goals, I had my IT Department set up a Pinterest account.
And by IT Department, I mean that I, in all my technologically challenged glory, would try to figure out what Pinterest was and how it worked.
I am now an active member in good standing of the Pinterest Community, but I am still severely confused as to what to do, how to do it, and how to achieve a high score on the site without any of the cheat codes.
So, I was hoping that I could turn to you, Modern Philosophers, for a little help.
My questions are:
What am I doing?
How do I do it better?
Can you please follow me?
I promise that I will follow back anyone who follows me on the site. I’ve sought out fellow bloggers in the follower list of my blogger friends I was able to locate. While doing this was very time consuming, it also made me feel extremely stalkery (which I know isn’t a word, so feel free to pin some items on proper grammar to my Pinterest board).
I believe I can be found on the site at:
I’m not sure if what I just cut and pasted is at all useful, or will even show up on this blog post, but at this point, I’m just pinning stuff up on the blog and hoping it sticks.
The one thing I do know about Pinterest is that it requires the use of push pins. As a result, I went to Walmart this morning and bought a box of 1,000 pins. They were only 99 cents. I don’t know how they do it, and I don’t want to know to be perfectly honest.
I did try to have Melissa help me because My Sweet Irish Girlfriend is much more social media savvy than I.
However, Irish Pinterest is just a bunch of photos of U2, Leprechauns, rugby players, and Shamrocks pinned to dart boards in pubs with darts. So, she couldn’t help much.
Speaking of U2, their classic song “I Will Follow” comes to mind…
If you follow me, follow me, follow me, follow me, I will follow!
While I’m still mostly clueless about Pinterest…
How did she get all that stuff without using pins?
…I did enjoy setting up a few boards to highlight some of my favorite blog posts. I just don’t know if that’s what I should be doing. So help. Please.
I do intend to share your blog posts on Pinterest now, just like I share them on Twitter, Modern Philosophers. I’m all about spreading the Blog Love.
I set up a board called Cool Blog Posts, and that’s where your stuff is going. Again, not sure if that’s right, but it feels good.
Thank you, Suzie!!!
Speaking of Blog Love, Modern Philosophers, I wanted to thank my friend Suzie of Suzie81Speaks.com for honoring me as the first recipient of her Top Bloggers to Follow in 2016 accolade.
She is an amazing blogger, who not only writes well, but also goes out of her way to help other bloggers and spread the Blog Love.
If you don’t follow her blog, you need to do so.
Thank you, Suzie!
Thanks in advance, Modern Philosophers, for any advice, input, or follows you’d like to give this guy, who is still wearing a toga in a social media driven world.
Have you tried expanding you blog’s reach on social media? What platforms do you find are the most helpful? Do you need to borrow any push pins?
The Return of the Modern Philosopher 
I’m a follower now, Austin, and no worries, it’s early days yet, it’s a lot of trial and error. 🙂
I just don’t want to be put on trial without a good lawyer… 🙂
So no Lionel Hutz for you, I guess.
I pinned this on Blogs on https://www.pinterest.com/dpark2/
Thanks, Donna. I will go see what that is now!
Austen, I’m kristinafarrow on Pinterest. I will follow you too! Good luck with your goals in 2016! Your blog rocks! 🙂
Thanks, Kristina. I will seek you out. So glad you enjoy it. Any tips for my Pinterest boards?
I found you and followed you.
I just Pinned this post for you 🙂
I would assume that is a good thing? Is there a place I should be pinning it for more people to see? I feel like some guy putting up flyers in the neighborhood for a Yard Sale! 🙂
lol. nope you just pick a board and all of your follows on Pinterest will see it 🙂
Ok. So I pinned it on my Modern Philosophers Blog board. Thanks, April!
I’ve tried Pinterest but I simply don’t get it. Suzie is the one in the know for that.
Well, I decided to try it because after she bestowed that honor upon me yesterday, I noticed I was getting many hits from Pinterest. She has been very helpful today.
Maybe I’ll try again one day. For now, Twitter,Facebook,Flickr,YouTube and my new radio show keep me busy enough lol
Are you the one have the radio blog party today? Hope it’s going well!
Yeah it went really well. The live request show was so much fun. Will be back live later on Sunday and then next weekend again. I’m loving it!
Excellent! Sounds like a fun way to meet new bloggers!
Pinterest is a bit different to other social media. For most ‘Pinners’ it is really just an online scrapbook to save images they like. It is not a great site for self or product promotion because it moves more slowly and more randomly than, say, Twitter or a blog. The trick is to find people you like and follow them, then scroll through the ‘home’ page pinning things you like. Gradually the follow-backs will appear but there isn’t the courtesy ‘follow back’ that you get on Twitter. It’s really just about what you like, rather than getting other people to like/pin what you like. Hope this makes sense. Happy New Year
It does, Beth. Thank you. That makes sense. 🙂
I tried Pinterest, but I too became really confused and really felt like I was participating in some type of Pinterest Plagiarism Party (PPP). It was just too complicated for me. Good luck with it. If you figure it out, let me know.
I shall. I’m enjoying using my multicolored Walmart pins a lot! 🙂
Are you poking them into your computer screen? I bet it looks really pretty!!!!!!! Kind of like a bejeweled computer screen.
No, I have a cork board hanging up in my study. I print out the blog posts and then pin them to the board. Then I take a picture of the board and put that on Pinterest…
Ohhhhh! seems a bit tedious and time-consuming, but you sound very dedicated.
Noticed you’d dived into pinterest yesterday. Thanks for following me, have followed back. It takes a while to find your way around. I’m no expert but I can give you one piece of advise… pinterest is all about images (which in turn lead to people clicking through to your blog)…so good quality images are key. Vertical images are best for pinterest, they look better on the feed (and boards) and are more likely to get pinned), horizontal don’t do so well, so ideally you need at least one good quality vertical image per blog post. Size is also important (you can resize for free using pic monkey) – optimum size is 736 by 1104pixels… 600 by 900px is also good. Basically length needs to be 3 times width.
Hope that helps… Happy pinning. Kimmie.
Thank you for that input. What I don’t get is why sometimes, I’ll go to pin a post, and the text isn’t attached to the cool photo, but a lame one in the post. Any way to fix that?
What do you mean by fill in the alt text? What do I put there to fill it?
In the alt text you put whatever you want to show under your image when it’s pinned. Filling in alt text also helps with SEO.
Ok. Thanks.
I still don’t know how to use Pinterest properly but will come over to find you.
Congratulations on your award from Suzie 🙂
Thanks! When has not knowing how to use something properly ever stopped us before this??? 🙂
Ha HA! That is very true! 🙂
Great to see you on there Awesome Austin! Can’t wait to see more of what lights your fire. It’s therapy for me, my wish list in pictures 😀
Well, the therapy I need involves more than pictures. Unless, of course, you’re talking about those ink blots… 🙂
You say you don’t know what you’re doing, but it looks like you’ve got the hang of it. My one question is this: unless you’re invited to a board, how do you contribute? I was looking to put my blog on that board, but don’t know how.
Any who, here’s me if you want to follow. https://www.pinterest.com/glendapurvis/
And I’ve already found a blog I want to follow! What a good idea!
Cool.
I believe you would need to be invited by the person who created the board. This is the sort of thing I’m not sure of yet.
I am on Pinterest but I am not very active, but still I am happy to follow you. Happy New Year Austin!
Happy New Year! I will follow back. Promise. 🙂
I’ve just started on Pinterest and found a link to this post thanks to the lovely Suzie who invited me to join the “Share your blog” board. This is by far the most reassuring thing I’ve read about Pinterest because I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing on there! I’ve just followed you and hope to learn more from you and Suzie (I trust you’ve become an expert in the past couple of days? 😉 ).
Thanks for the follow. I’m still figuring it out, but it has been fun. Do you enjoy it?
So far it’s proving a useful place to keep interesting things I find on the internet organized. Before, I was just randomly bookmarking pages, forgetting about them, losing the bookmarks, screaming at myself for being stupid… If nothing else, it might stop me from misplacing information I want to use later. We’ll see 🙂
I believe I invited you to post on my Great Blog Posts board…
You have! Thank you! I’m a bit behind on all things bloggy today, but I’ll post to it later 🙂
Excellent.
Go here http://www.livingwithbatman.com/ and look for Pintastic. It’s a neat little easy to read freebie that was a huge help to me. I am also a Pinterest newbie.
Will check it out.
I’m following you on Pinterest. I’m on it too but still haven’t quite figured it out. My go to social media platform is Twitter. I publish my blog stories on Scriggler and Medium, I like Scriggler best. I’m also on this platform, http://www.thebingbing.com/. I get the most traffic on this site and there are lots of writers on it.
I will have to check it out. Thanks for the tip. 🙂