Everyone loves Pinterest! One word describes it – beautiful! The pin’s (photos, images, tutorials, crafts, etc.) are all so gorgeous and inspiring. You can get easily lost in a time warp with Pinterest (I know that from first hand experience!). Its one of the fastest growing sites as well as becoming one of the most important tools for driving traffic – if used correctly. There are also some pitfalls – such as violation of the copyright laws. Sometimes people are unaware of the copyright laws and without realizing it, violate them.
One way to avoid infringing of copyrights is to secure permission from the image owner before pinning it. Plain and simple – case closed! Some people may not want an image they posted pinned and Pinterest recently developed some code you can use to prevent pinning of an image. Meanwhile others love having someone pin their images (and I’m one – see below). And when you do pin something, always provide a link to the blog or website that the image came from (read below for the correct way). Always!
I found this blog that explains how to pin correctly with 4 simple tips. Basically, when you pin, find the link where the image is located. Do not give the general url for the blog or website but use the permalink. For a blog, click on the title of the article containing the image. That will give you the permalink showing at the top of the web page and is the link you should use. In Pinterest, click at the top on “Add”, then paste the permalink. You will get a dialog box where you can select the image that you want posted.
When pinning correctly, someone can click on the image pinned and go to that web page to find out more information about the image pinned. This way, you are really “sharing the love” of the pin. I have found many interesting blogs and a lot of useful information by clicking through the image.
I want to say that I personally love to have someone share my images on Pinterest, if done correctly with a permalink.
Also, to help protect your images when you are posting an image on your blog or website, place your name and link directly on the image so that it has your identifying information on it in case it “strays”, whether on Pinterest or elsewhere. I recently had one of my images found in Google inages show up on someone else’s’ blog without crediting me (a big blog no-no and a copyright infringement). Someone I know saw it because of my identifying information and contacted me. So protect your images (and put the identifying info where it can’t be easily cropped out by someone unscrupulous, and yes, unfortunately there are some of those people out there)!
Also be aware that Pinterest’s Terms of Service are becoming quite a controversy. I’ve read a lot on the for and against them, mostly against, and personally feel that they need to really make some big changes in them, BIG changes. So you need to weigh the pro’s and con’s when pinning an image.
For more on the benefits of using Pinterest for marketing, here are 56 ways to market your business on Pinterest.
Have fun pinning the correct way!
Phyllis
UPDATE – Flickr has now added coding so that the images on that site cannot be pinned.
