Dear Pinterest; How Are You Doing?

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Got to say; you really are fun! Who doesn’t like seeing photos of red velvet cake, faraway places, body art and Barbie dolls in retro fashions?

And you’ve been growing in popularity like crazy! Hit 10 million almost a year ago and has been declared as the fastest growing social network ever! Investor money was there for you too; a boatload of dollars! Most impressive.

Had to laugh the other day when I received a comment from a fan on my Groovy Reflections page; she said “I followed you on Pinterest; is that okay?” Uh, yeah…yes it is.

Pinterest (may I call you “Pin” for short?), you have been helpful in promoting blogs for both my business as well as my tie-dye products for Groovy Reflections, ultimately driving more traffic to my webpages. While not a huge traffic source there’s no complaints here since I’m reaching people who wouldn’t be exposed to my websites otherwise. Playing around with subject matter I’ve found what people are attracted to and what they’re not so interested in; some boards are hopping with repins while others are not. 

You’re a great resource for thought starting, to show off your art, photography, or any product for that matter, and for building brand imagery. 

While you’re not a place for a lot of conversation (a picture says a thousand words), it’s certainly possible to have a discussion on your network.

However, “Pin”, I do have a couple of concerns:

3 "fakers"; love the Batman shaped hairstyle!

Fake profiles on the rise. They rarely include a bio of any sort, are usually female, and usually have 4 boards, less than 50 pins, 1000+ followers and following 5000+ pinners. I imagine that they’re going to start in with a lot of advertising of stuff no one really wants at some point. Sigh. Oh, and some of them will include their city. 

"The GUY behind snuggles"? Sure.

What to do? If they look even remotely fake, they probably are. I’ve Googled a few. Let’s put it this way; none of them are members of LinkedIn. How do you plan on dealing with this, “Pin”?

To Pinterest users: If you’re pinning as a fun pastime there’s probably no harm as long as their boards have photos that interest you. If you are a business, they’ll never purchase your product or service; how can they if they’re not even people?

Who ran off with my chowder?

“Blank” Photos. I tend to upload a lot of original photographs to Pinterest. Nothing wrong with that right? And the uploading of a pin used to work just fine. About two months ago, I started noticing that the photos weren’t there yet the description still was! 

Still having that issue and sometimes have to upload a photo three or four times to “make it stick”. “Pin”, this puts quite a damper on growing my boards if I have to spend over ten minutes per pin! 


And, there have been a few times when I’ve signed in and noticed that a photo for a pin that had been there had turned into a white space?  Now, I did find in the support area that someone had contacted Pinterest about it over a month ago. Yes, over a MONTH ago. Still waiting “Pin”!

Aside from those issues, Pinterest really is a great place to be. Keep up the good work and please address my concerns. Thanks! Your Pin Pal, Gerry.

Before Rod the mod became a crooner, he knew how to rock and roll! The title of this tune could serve as a casual reminder to what Pinterest is all about. Now picture this: Our website, Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. And here's a link to our Pinterest board for this blog!