Friday, February 3, 2012

PINS wanted, but nothing to PIN

I recently began using Pinterest as another online publishing/branding/dissemination tool. 

Pinterest is quite good for establishing communities of interest and sharing quick finds online.  However, I quickly found a chink in the armor. 

How to get good information, lacking any viable image Pinterest could 'grab' for PINNING? 

Pinterest is an image-priority social media tool. So, it needs an image to PIN the information. 

This was a problem that evaded me for a couple of days. That is until I decided to find a solution this morning. 

Shortly into a quick note of suggestion to Pinterest, the answer came to me. I needed to create and post an image  (i.e., take a screen capture of the article in-situ) and then PIN the image. 

OK, but I'd already done this. Hadn't I? 

I used Jing [NOTE: The parent company TechSmith replaced Jing with SnagIT®, a far better program.]  Jing was my favorite go-to tool for capturing screen images as stills or in SWF video files (MPEG4 w/JingPro) [NOTE: However, since SWF files are passé such file storage is now nearly impossible to read (ARRRGGGH!, the never-ending frustration of Feature Creep).  Fortunately, SnagIT® provides far superior results for the same need to create an image from any site. 

Fine. Now what? 

I tried PINing this image from inside the browser as a file from my computer; from a server placement; writing a blog and pointing to it. The blog writing worked. But since I write posts for a number of blogs, having to add one more was not on the table. 

So, I walked away from the issue until this morning. 

I knew there had to be something - so simple - that I was overlooking. And yes, when it did come to me it was a real "DOH!" moment. 

I've only used Flickr for the last 5 years, so why not use an Online Photo Management site (OPM) to serve as my 'Sticky PIN' offering for Pinterest? 

I posted the screencap to Flickr, pointed to Pinterst and voilà!, it works like a charm. But as much as I love Flickr, it wasn't the platform I wanted to use for this process. 

The second idea came pretty fast: a GoooglePlus alert popped up. YES! Google+ would be perrrrrfect! 

[NOTE: Well, again Feature Creep ruins the fine oiled machine!  Google canned Google+ in 2019. It was the victim of too many offerings too close in kind and companies bent on dominance.  Google has so many irons-in-the-fire as a company they don't miss tossing something like Google+ onto the fire. BUT... a lot of people placed their time and efforts into the platform. Google's passé attitude did NOT go over well with the user-base of Google+.  NOT the way to good customer service!]

------

For anyone interested in Ancient History, this is the Process for using Google+ as a simple enough vehicle to provide images to Pinterest a PIN it can handle... AND... increase the 'InternetSpin'

  • Open Google+ account
  • Click PHOTOS ( this is Google's OPM Picasa in disguise)
  • Create an Album for your images
  • NOTE: name this album so it becomes your Pinterest album; suggestion, PINS or Pinterest .. or something you can quickly associate with Pinterest; more said on this below regarding a potential problem.
  • Upload your PHOTO/Image
  • NOTE: be sure to make the image PUBLIC and do not lock it.
  • Provide the image a caption
  • Save it
  • Open the image in its album
  • Click the image again
  • NOTE: this opens the image into a slideviewer like format that presents: Image Caption, People TAGS and a COMMENT block.
  • Click the Pinterest Bookmarket [Pin It]
  • Choose the IMAGE you wish to PIN to Pinterst
  • NOTE: after you have a number of images in this Album choice my become a problem, as it seems Pinterest does not offer a scrolling function - past the current page limits - to see other images in the Album: Bummer!| Short-term solution is to Name the Album as, say: PINS.[date] this makes the Album unique, thus reducing the images to choose from; The downside of this, is a rapidly growing number of Albums in your Picasa account; working on a long-term solution.
  • After you do the 'Pinterest dance' there it is, your image, all ready for Pinterest to 'grab'n'post' .

While looking at the slide-viewer screen I noticed there were interesting options.

  • Post the image on Pinterest
  • Post the image to Google+
  • On either platform I could Post the image with or without a comment.
  • I can use, with an image-only-posting, a single URL to lead the viewer to a blog post for a deeper, immersive presentation.
  • NOTE: this alternate use of a URL offers an interesting change-up of delivery; adding a positive -boost to your ability to build interest.
--------

A very interesting way to multiply my efforts in a relative single-action. Double the SPIN - multiply my efforts. I have my solution and at the same time I get a new double-header method for multiplying my publishing. Great solution. Give it a whirl. 

i65D+M

Updated: 07/11/2022

No comments:

Post a Comment