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Pinterest is a new and very exciting approach to social networking. It's rapid growth and success is based on it's simplicity and ease of use. The concept is powerfully simple: when you see pictures of what you like or find interesting on any website, use your "Pin It" button-that you easily install on your toolbar-to "Pin" the images to your virtual bulletin board. You can also "like", "repin" and comment on things that you see on other people's boards.
That's it really.
In no time at all, you will have a selection of images that really speak about who the owner of the board is (you). When you see another persons boards, you will quickly be able to know if you have similar interests and can then choose to "Follow" a person or follow just an individual board of theirs. Your social network can grow very quickly. Your message can easily reach hundreds or even thousands of people with not very much effort. If your goal is marketing, promoting a service or building your own business-this type of networking is very powerful. If used properly also can be very profitable.
Pinterest has quickly become a very large player in the social media arena. It's the fourth largest behind Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Not bad for a website that's just barely 3 years old and only just becoming known in the recent months. It's already grown to be a main player, and in very short order will be consistently used in conjunction with the other big names. There are recent questions about copyright issues arising that I will address in another article.
There is a flip side to how wonderful Pinterest is. Not all pins are great. Use your caution and don't believe everything you see. The scammers and advantage takers, the people who have nothing better to do than try to rip off other people have noticed the huge volume of surfers using this site. These people put up bogus pins offering a variety of complimentary items that when clicked, will lead you to a survey scam site.
As always be careful what you click through to and be wary of entering information, including-and especially credit card information into a site for gifts or complimentary items for visiting a site.
The most recent examples that've popped up are gift cards for the most common coffee shop, and designer purses for only visiting a website. Sounds fishy right from the beginning.
Like mom always said, "If it seems to good to be true, it probably is." This is no different on Pinterest or on the internet in general. Be smart and don't allow yourself to be taken advantage of. Doing this will ensure you will have an enjoyable time networking and sharing the many cool ideas and pictures on this dynamic new site.
Where there is opportunity, there is scams unfortunately. Pinterest like any other system is getting gamed like any system with a user base like this, hopefully they will implement some technology soon that will limit this and allow for the user base to rid the system of things like this. It is tricky to handle and there is a fine line and a lot of subjective aspects involved with addressing potential spam.
Well, all the ones I found were comments on pins and not new pins, so I didn't use the report pin button. Perhaps I was thinking wrong, but I didn't want the pinner to get in trouble, just the commenter. I went to the commenter's boards, but there's no way to report the commenter. Is there a way to contact Pinterest direct? HMMMMM. how to solve this one.
Holy cow! I was just on Pinterest and checking those scam pins. I clicked the name of 20 or so of the people claiming to have gotten a prize or gift...and 100% of the ones I checked were names (I doubt even real people) with either no boards at all or one board with one picture (ie just enough to join) They didn't even change the text of the "winning" pin. So I would suspect yup, a scam for sure!
Really wanted to know more about what Pinterest is and how it works. I actually joined in recent months and have a few items on few boards. Now I get it thanks to your article. Good to know what the scammers are up to on Pinterest. Luckily, I don't shop much or go for free trials (which rarely end up being free) online, so will avoid that even more now!
Pinterest is very cool, with lots of great ideas and potential but it just needs the same caution everything else gets. Sounds like you are already doing well, knowing that free doesn't really mean free usually will save you a lot of headache. Thanks for commenting!
Great article, use the site myself, as yet no scammers, but thanks for the heads up I will be on the look out. Look forward to your article on copy rights, have often wondered about that.
Thanks, I like Pinterest too. I'm safe from Starbucks-don't like coffee, and I don't wear designer stuff, so for now I'm good lol. I thought I had quite a bit posted there til I found someone today that had 250+ boards and 22000+ pins. I thought there was a limit, guess not! How do they have time for that I wonder?
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