To Re-pin Or Pin Your Own Work To Pinterest

Good question, one that I have thought about, I hope others who actually use Pinterest to advantage chime in to answer your question.

T L Mair
tlmair.com

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. Are you asking whether you should pin others stuff to your boards versus your own stuff?

Greg,

I believe she is asking if she should pin works of hers that she finds on Pinterest that others might have already pinned to boards other than hers, which woukd be seen as re-pinning.

Greg N and Greg J,

Greg J is correct in what I am asking- Should I pin my own image to my board that I find on Pinterest, or pin the same image to my board from my own website? Which is better?

I have my main board for my pins and I pin to other boards. Sometimes I will pin to a different board first and re-pin to my main board. I think its best to link from the website with the same pin if you want to pin that one. I don't pin every image I have on FAA.

I pin from my AW to my own boards and shared boards. I want the link to go directly back to my AW. And now with the new AW sites that no longer have the canonical reference back to FAA, there is much greater potential for promoting your AW in search engines. I don't worry when one of my images is pinned by others to their boards, because it still links back to me. But when I am doing the pin, the shortest distance back to my AW is preferable to me. Hope that helps.

What seems to work great for me is to pin from my artist website to community boards. I then use the most popular board to re-pin to my own board. I rarely get any re-pins from my own boards (I should market that better), but re-pins from the community boards (such as The RE-PIN Exchange), get an abundance of re-pins. Some images have gone viral.

Here are a couple of my favorite community boards.
https://www.pinterest.com/robchiv/the-re-pin-exchange/
https://www.pinterest.com/robchiv/awesome-views/

One advantage the re-pin gets is, the original pinner gets the re-pin attributed to their profile stats. I have a Pinterest business account, so I get analytics, telling me what re-pins of my images I have. Maybe in the future P will somehow monetize re-pinning. So I'd originate your own pin from your own website, even if it's already on Pinterest. Just my opinion! :)

I pin from my AW to my own dedicated photography and art board that only has my work as I can then control the verbiage, make sure it's linked correctly etc., and then repin from there to other boards I've created (blue, animals, photography, art etc.) which I intersperse with repins that go with the theme of the board but are not my work. By pinning/repinning images other than my own I gain more followers who then see my work, and also have had Pinterest suggest several of my boards as things I would like via email (why yes I do like the color turquoise but that's my own board. However, these email suggestions go out to more than just me, as I will get the email, and all of a sudden get a flurry of followers to my turquoise or art board etc). I also repin from my main dedicated photography and art boards onto group boards, as described by Dale. This way, I don't repeatedly pin an image to a particular board (I can see where I've already repinned my original pin), and also only need to create the pin once (my hands and arms are in really bad shape, so this minimizes typing).

Good thread, very informative.

I've never put much energy into Pinterest, I only pin a few things to my own boards.

I never knew there were community board that could be pinned to and I never knew there was value in repinning.

I'm going to research community boards to see if I can come up with a list or art or photography related ones.

Keep the suggestions / knowledge coming !

Thank you everyone for your replies and advice!

I pin from my Artist Website to one of my own boards. From there I pin some to group boards.

If anyone is interested in my Fine Art America Group board: http://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=2037331

Another question:
Some of my images that are pinned from others do not have a link back to my website, those pins just open in page with the image. I'd like to contact those pinners and ask them to replace the pin with a linking pin. What is the best way to do that?

I have more questions than answers.

1. If you repin one of your images, won't that bring someone who clicks onto that repin to the repinner's page and off of yours?


And Dale,

Regarding the 2 boards you cited.

It seems to me that the first one frowns upon work/images that is being marketed.

and the second one seems to me to be a "Quid pro Quo" board

Am I wrong?

I also re-pin my own images to several of my boards. For instance, I have a Pillows board, but I also take coastal decor themed pillow pins and put them on my Beach House board, and/or on my Turquoise Aqua and Blue board. I re-pin my vintagey looking pillow pins onto my Vintage Home board.I have 90 boards and over 30,000 pins/re-pins. Most of my pins are re-pins of others' pins (obviously) but I think having many boards of your interests, and not just your own art boards, brings many more contacts into your sphere. I get 300-400 re-pins a week (per my analytics) but I spend a lot of time on Pinterest.

Joy,

I'm dumbfounded by your Pinterest usage

But I can't find your page.

There are 4 other "Joy McKenzies" on Pinterest..But where are you??.

Roger, go here:

http://www.pinterest.com/leopardjoy

@Jennie, when I find an image without a link back to my AW or another source page it had been repinned from I do try to contact the pinner and leave a comment with the correct link to the image. On several occasions I did hear back from pinners and they actually repinned the image using the link I provided.

I think, it depends on the pinner. Some people just pin and forget about it and do not feel like looking at their old pins. Also, there are a lot of people who may not know English so will not be able to understand what you ask of them or would not bother translating your comment and correcting their pin. But it does not hurt to try and ask them so I usually do. Some people are really very nice about it and even start following you after such exchange.

Raisa

Joy,

I checked it out

That is quite IMPRESSIVE, more than that,... EXTRAORDINARY

My measly page ..https://www.pinterest.com/feralcoot/ just disappears by comparison.

But I still wonder about your board "Public Eye" and other boards like that.

Doesn't that invite those on your page to leave you?

I have a hard time thinking that that is a good idea

Do you guys think that it would be a good idea to have a comment feature accompanying each pin?.

Something like they have on Flickr.

There have been many times my work shows up on that site....I thank the one taking the photograph for appreciating my work enough to not only take a photo of it but to post it..And then I make sure that everyone will know who did the work photographed and that work IS for sale and how that artist (ME) can be contacted

You can comment on any pin, Roger! Some pins have multiple comments and long running conversations.

I just read your other comment on here, Roger...thank you!!! I do put a lot of work into my boards. Not sure I understand your question about my Public Eye board?

People only follow the boards the want to...you can pick and choose. So if they don't care for a board, and they follow some other boards of mine, they will never see my pins from the boards the don't care for in their feed. My followers increase every day, so it's not a problem :)

Joy,

I see now how to comment..You have to click on the image first and then comment.


Oh, by the way, Joy, with your beautiful mandalas on Zazzle, have you considered using a transparent background (PNG)?


Edit:

Perhaps your "Public Eye" board might be better displayed, after all your boards with all your beautiful work come up....Just a thought

Some good ideas, thanks Roger! :)

Roger, your question:

" If you repin one of your images, won't that bring someone who clicks onto that repin to the repinner's page and off of yours?"

If you mean by clicking on the image itself, it should be linked back to your website, or your FAA page if it was pinned from there. I hope that is what you mean?

Ben and Raisa, thank you for the answer, I will try that!

Roger - re:
...."Regarding the 2 boards you cited.
It seems to me that the first one frowns upon work/images that is being marketed.
and the second one seems to me to be a "Quid pro Quo" board
Am I wrong?"....

I typically do not use a sales pitch when pinning to community/group boards. Just the title of the work. But more importantly is to find community boards that fit well with your art. Those boards happen to do well for me with photography.