Pinterest is a self-described "visual discovery tool" that allows you to upload "pins"(pictures) to boards that you have created or you can add pins from other peoples boards to yours.
The site was launched in March of 2010 by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp and is managed by Cold Brew Labs its estimated value is five billion dollars.
It has a Google page ranking of 9 an Alexa ranking of 26(worldwide) and a bounce rate of 33.
So you can see that this is a quality website that gets a ton of traffic everyday.
Getting started with Pinterest is very easy just go to their website and register.
Once you have done this go to the settings page and enter all your profile information.
Try to be as detailed as possible and make sure you fill in all the information that is asked for.
Upload a nice profile picture this can be a picture of yourself or a picture of your websites logo.
Now you're ready to start showing the world your works of art.
Start by creating a board and giving it a title.
You can title it something like"Paintings By Me" or "Artwork I've Created" use your imagination and give it a title that will make people curious and want to view it.
Upload some pictures of your work onto that board, you may want to edit them some so I suggest using a photo editor like Lunapic or FotoFlexer they both have great tool kits that are packed with features for editing.
Be social and visit other people's boards that have areas of interest to you and re-pin some of their pictures onto your boards.
Be careful when editing your pictures because you want to keep them as original as possible in other words don't go crazy with enhancing them.
I only say this because these are pictures of your original artwork and you should be proud of them as they are.
There is nothing wrong with adding a little brightness to improve the quality of the picture itself better but there is where I would stop.
You may come across someone who would like to see your artwork in person maybe a private buyer or a representative from a gallery and if you've gone overboard with enhancing it than the image in the picture may not look the same as it does in person.
Try to limit using the editing tools to crop or re-size the picture to the dimensions you think look best.
You will need to add a description of the picture.
Use this to your advantage by being as detailed as possible.
Include the title and subtitle if it has one of the painting, sculpture, drawing or whatever it is you created.
When you made it, the dimensions as well as the material used, is it an oil, watercolor or an acrylic? You may even want to include the type of brushes used.
If you have the artwork listed on your website and there is a story behind it then include a link back to the address of the page on your site where people can read about it.
This is a great way to get people to visit your website but don't count on getting a link to Pinterest this way.
Linking to a high-ranking website is every website owners dream because it will also help your sites search engine ranking but websites like Pinterest have what are called a no follow integrated into their site's code.
When Google sends out their spiders and robots to crawl the Pinterest website the no follow tells them to ignore those inbound addresses like the one you posted with your artworks description.
Yahoo and Bing do follow the links but they do not figure them into their ranking calculations, in other words you get no value from it.
The main reason large popular website's have no follows is because they are havens for spammers and advertisers.
So it's easier to block all of them rather than have to weed out the spam from the non-spam.
Create boards that feature artists that have influenced you.
Choose nice clear images of them and make sure you write a few lines about them in the description area.
Then create another board featuring their artwork making sure to give as much information as possible about each image in the description area.
A good source for free images is Wikipedia Commons there you'll find high quality images of artwork and of artists.
Getty Images also has free pictures you can use through their embed codes.
These will only work when using them on a website because it is code therefore it has to be implemented into a code environment in order for it to work.
Pinterest doesn't have a way to upload or interpret code on the user side when uploading images.
If you own a website then you'll want to create a Pinterest icon and place it somewhere on your homepage.
I'd suggest placing it on the sidebar or on the footer although you can place it wherever you want.
You can get some really nice Pinterest icons at Icon Archive in addition they also have lots of other social media icons and icon sets.
You'll need to manually create the code linking the icon to your Pinterest page using an image hyperlink.
Open the file where you want to place the icon for example the footer, sidebar, header etc and type in the code for your hyperlink.
You might have to experiment with the codes placement in order to find out exactly where it needs to go in the file for it to show up where you want it to on the page.
You can also install a "pin it" button which will allow visitors to your site to automatically pin images from your site to their boards by clicking on the button.
If your site is built on WordPress you can download a "pin it" plugin which you can easily implement into your images.
You are now well on your way to showcasing your artwork with Pinterest and hopefully gathering a throng of fans! Remember Pinterest is a nice social media imaging website that can work to your artistic advantage.
Just make sure you read and follow their terms of use and don't do anything shady that might get you banned.
Good Luck and Happy Pinning!
The site was launched in March of 2010 by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp and is managed by Cold Brew Labs its estimated value is five billion dollars.
It has a Google page ranking of 9 an Alexa ranking of 26(worldwide) and a bounce rate of 33.
So you can see that this is a quality website that gets a ton of traffic everyday.
Getting started with Pinterest is very easy just go to their website and register.
Once you have done this go to the settings page and enter all your profile information.
Try to be as detailed as possible and make sure you fill in all the information that is asked for.
Upload a nice profile picture this can be a picture of yourself or a picture of your websites logo.
Now you're ready to start showing the world your works of art.
Start by creating a board and giving it a title.
You can title it something like"Paintings By Me" or "Artwork I've Created" use your imagination and give it a title that will make people curious and want to view it.
Upload some pictures of your work onto that board, you may want to edit them some so I suggest using a photo editor like Lunapic or FotoFlexer they both have great tool kits that are packed with features for editing.
Be social and visit other people's boards that have areas of interest to you and re-pin some of their pictures onto your boards.
Be careful when editing your pictures because you want to keep them as original as possible in other words don't go crazy with enhancing them.
I only say this because these are pictures of your original artwork and you should be proud of them as they are.
There is nothing wrong with adding a little brightness to improve the quality of the picture itself better but there is where I would stop.
You may come across someone who would like to see your artwork in person maybe a private buyer or a representative from a gallery and if you've gone overboard with enhancing it than the image in the picture may not look the same as it does in person.
Try to limit using the editing tools to crop or re-size the picture to the dimensions you think look best.
You will need to add a description of the picture.
Use this to your advantage by being as detailed as possible.
Include the title and subtitle if it has one of the painting, sculpture, drawing or whatever it is you created.
When you made it, the dimensions as well as the material used, is it an oil, watercolor or an acrylic? You may even want to include the type of brushes used.
If you have the artwork listed on your website and there is a story behind it then include a link back to the address of the page on your site where people can read about it.
This is a great way to get people to visit your website but don't count on getting a link to Pinterest this way.
Linking to a high-ranking website is every website owners dream because it will also help your sites search engine ranking but websites like Pinterest have what are called a no follow integrated into their site's code.
When Google sends out their spiders and robots to crawl the Pinterest website the no follow tells them to ignore those inbound addresses like the one you posted with your artworks description.
Yahoo and Bing do follow the links but they do not figure them into their ranking calculations, in other words you get no value from it.
The main reason large popular website's have no follows is because they are havens for spammers and advertisers.
So it's easier to block all of them rather than have to weed out the spam from the non-spam.
Create boards that feature artists that have influenced you.
Choose nice clear images of them and make sure you write a few lines about them in the description area.
Then create another board featuring their artwork making sure to give as much information as possible about each image in the description area.
A good source for free images is Wikipedia Commons there you'll find high quality images of artwork and of artists.
Getty Images also has free pictures you can use through their embed codes.
These will only work when using them on a website because it is code therefore it has to be implemented into a code environment in order for it to work.
Pinterest doesn't have a way to upload or interpret code on the user side when uploading images.
If you own a website then you'll want to create a Pinterest icon and place it somewhere on your homepage.
I'd suggest placing it on the sidebar or on the footer although you can place it wherever you want.
You can get some really nice Pinterest icons at Icon Archive in addition they also have lots of other social media icons and icon sets.
You'll need to manually create the code linking the icon to your Pinterest page using an image hyperlink.
Open the file where you want to place the icon for example the footer, sidebar, header etc and type in the code for your hyperlink.
You might have to experiment with the codes placement in order to find out exactly where it needs to go in the file for it to show up where you want it to on the page.
You can also install a "pin it" button which will allow visitors to your site to automatically pin images from your site to their boards by clicking on the button.
If your site is built on WordPress you can download a "pin it" plugin which you can easily implement into your images.
You are now well on your way to showcasing your artwork with Pinterest and hopefully gathering a throng of fans! Remember Pinterest is a nice social media imaging website that can work to your artistic advantage.
Just make sure you read and follow their terms of use and don't do anything shady that might get you banned.
Good Luck and Happy Pinning!