Pinterest Using social pinboards for your newspaper

Pinterest describes itself as a “virtual pinboard.” Just like with Facebook or Twitter, you can follow people, like and comment on pins. Instead of posting your status, you “pin” images you like. You can organize your pictures by creating different “pinboards.” What is Pinterest?

"Pinterest moved in to the No. 3 spot as the most popular social network in the U.S, trailing only Twitter and Facebook, eclipsing LinkedIn, Tumblr." -- PRDaily.com Among referral sites, Pinterest accounts for 3.6 of referral traffic. In July 2011, it accounted for just.17 percent. -- PRDaily.com PRDaily.com Why use Pinterest?

Pinterest has 10.4 million registered users, and it's growing every day. We want to use Pinterest and its immense referral power to increase page views for all GateHouse newspapers. Using Pinterest will also help attract new visitors to our sites and stories. Why use Pinterest?

Visit Pinterest.com and create a new account. You will be prompted to insert a “Pin It” button on your browser’s toolbar. Pinterest will start you off with suggested people to follow based on topics you pick out. How do I get started?

Your Pinterest account must be linked to an account on Facebook or Twitter. You should promote your Pinterest page on Facebook and Twitter, but we don’t recommend posting content to those pages regularly. Connect to Facebook or Twitter?

House ads and other promotional materials are available at: /Pinterest-promo-ads Promote it!

Find a story on your website with a pin- worthy photo, image or quote. Remember, Pinterest is very visual, so make sure your post has good art. Start out with 2 posts a day. Follow our content recommendations for board and pin topics, and choose the best options for that day based on your content. How to create pins

Pull up the story you want to pin from, and click the “Pin It” button that you inserted in your browser’s toolbar. All the photos and images from the story will appear. Choose the photo or image that you want to pin. Add a description (one to two sentences). Be specific. (Continued) Pinning is easy!

Select which board your pin belongs to. Then finish by clicking “Pin It” one last time. A link back to your original story will automatically be included in your pin. TIP: Pinterest recognizes #hashtags, so use them. Pinning is easy!

Post visually pleasing photos and images. Organize your pins in appropriate pinboards or categories. Promote your Pinterest page on other social media networks, but do not duplicate content. Best practices

Google indexes Pinterest profiles, so basic rules still apply. Links are automatically inserted when you pin from a website. Still focus on keywords for both the description of your pin and the name of your pinboards. SEO and Pinterest

If you want to add a price tag to photos for sale or Daily Deals, simply type the $ and a value amount in the description field. For example, “$55 Today’s Daily Deal is a pair of Ray Bans…” Add a price tag

Remember, pinboards are essentially categories for organizing your pins. You may have as many pinboards as you want, so long as it is a category that you can continuously add to. Our category suggestions: Recipes, callouts, wedding/birth announcements, quotes, Daily Deals, local sports, from our archives, photo of the day, prom photos, etc. Creating a pinboard

The category of your pinboard is not necessarily the name of your pinboard - - remember to use proper SEO and keywords. Be sure to be specific in the description area of your pin. For example, say “Glenbrook North football team.” Creating a pinboard

Only choose those with photos. Create a separate announcement board for each category: weddings, babies, anniversaries, graduates, etc. Provide info about the announcement in the description field. Announcements

Create one callout board per month, coinciding with the promoted callout on your website. Allow your followers to pin their photos directly to your board or pull from Local Loop. Good topics includes dogs, crafts, gardens, weddings, etc. Feel free to comment and respond to people’s posts. Callouts

Pick one memorable quote to pin as a quote of the day. Use the quote board template provided by GateHouse. Type the quote into the board, save the image and upload to Pinterest. Quote boards

Pin stories with great photos. GateHouse will recommend good options for Pinterest in the daily budget. Pin how-to tips, DIY projects, crafts, home and garden and health -- if the photos are compelling. Lifestyle boards

Make a Daily Deals board, and pin one deal each day. Add a price tag using the $ sign. Use the best image you have. Daily Deals

Consider pinning political cartoons, maps, great newsy photographs, mugs, etc. Each can have its own pinboard, or make one general pinboard. For example, “News from Rockford.” Remember, the photo must be compelling. Hard news stories

You can create a pinboard for a school’s sports teams, graduation, theater productions, prom, etc. Choose great photos. You can also add in quotes from teachers, students or principals. Schools

Choose your best photo from the day to pin every evening. Go to that story, and click the “Pin It” button to pin the photo. Also consider pinning old photos of town from your archives, front pages, great photos from past years and neighborhood photos. Photography

We are doing a test with our 10 largest newspapers starting at the end of May. Goal: Pin following these rules for 3 months to see if consistency — 2 pins per day — will help drive referrals to our websites. We’ll report back on the results, but we encourage others to jump in and give it a try. GateHouse newspapers on Pinterest

Happy Pinning!