Whether you are an active Facebook fan, a more passive follower on Twitter, a business user of LinkedIn or a social media Luddite, there is no escaping the fact that the growing variety of social media websites is revolutionising the way we communicate.
Even if you find some other social media sites not to your taste, you might be pleasantly surprised by what Pinterest has to offer. Think ‘interactive scrapbook’ and you begin to get a feel for what Pinterest is all about.
Search the internet for anything – from pictures to poems to recipes to remedies – and then ‘pin’ these ideas and inspirations in your own personal collection. Think of it as your own virtual pinboard.
Pinterest links the two strongest elements of social media: visual content and the ability to share your collection with friends and family or the whole world!. You can follow people, share and make comments as well as receive real time updates called “repins” – the equivalent of Twitter ‘tweets’ in the Pinterest world.
Its flexibility means that it has an appeal for every generation. It may be that you want to use it as a way of expressing who you are, a mood board perhaps, but for many it has a more practical purpose as a collection of inspirational images and ideas for a project. There really is something for everyone…
Linking with your Facebook and Twitter friend’s means it’s easy to ask for honest advice and opinions for when it comes to making those big decisions. Be it about how to ‘upcycle’ your old coffee table, gut your kitchen or bake that triple-decker red velvet cake. Using more than one set of eyes on a project can vastly improve your decision-making and avoid making wrong and costly choices.
Suppose you are thinking of having an extension built on your house or even planning to build your own home, you can use Pinterest as a place to gather your ideas for what the building might look like. Include pictures of whole houses, bifold doors, sliding patio doors and panoramic windows. Look at roof windows, verandas, brick colours and curtains. The graphical page style makes it simple to collate inspiration for furnishings, fixtures and fittings while you continue with your research. This is the ideal setting to create a mood board with side-by-side product comparison for each room within your home. You can use this collection as a great way to explain to your architect what you are hoping to achieve, and you can invite the opinion of a much wider audience if you so choose.
Keep only the best combinations in each room. It’s just as simple to unpin an item, as it was in the first place to pin it to your mood board.
It is mind blowing just how much valuable content is available at your fingertips. Pinterest is a great tool to help you bring some order to all this material and to help you plan your home improvements. Even if you are not building your dream house quite yet, there is a lot of fun to be had in storing your own list of ‘things I would love to have” – it’s always nice to dream.
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