What makes Pinterest a preferable social network for organizations such as libraries to embrace?
Pinterest is a social network (a place where people come together to connect) which focuses on visual content, such as pictures, graphics, diagrams, logos, videos, animations and other imagery. In fact, without an image or a video, you can not post to Pinterest. This sets it apart from other social networks, like Facebook, where a posting can be text-based.
fig 04 – princeton public library
Libraries can make use of this visually oriented service to engage patrons and other stakeholders differently than they can in person, on other social networks, or through other communication methods. Because of the visual focus of the system, Pinterest can become a visual catalog for browsing departments, a magazine of the latest program offerings, or an archive of events and milestones. Used effectively, following guidelines and examples below, you may be able to entice an otherwise untapped audience through visual means.
What is the social networking benefit of Pinterest?
fig 05 notifications
Libraries may wonder how Pinterest is of value comparative to other social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest is useful from a social marketing perspective in several ways. Many of its users consider it addictive, and spend hours using the system each week. As users click on one interesting item, they are shown other related items of similar interest. They can collect the most interesting items they find into ‘boards’, essentially making them curators and explorers of valuable content. People can then find, share, and follow those pins and boards, creating a sort of community of common interest. When users in the system find other users with similar tastes, they can follow those users and be exposed to more interesting, valuable, curated content. In the case of libraries or librarians as users, one can connect with patrons, be exposed to library trends by following other interesting libraries, follow publishers and media producers who share content that they find to be of value to their patrons, staff and other stakeholders. In particular, because Pinterest is a purely visual sharing system (as stated above, to create a pin, you must upload or find an image, graphic, photo or video,) it allows a user to very quickly assess if they are in philosophical, ideological, or simply visual alignment with another Pinterest user. Compare this to other systems, where you might have to assess alignment by reading through a few (or many more) tweets or status updates, which can be time-consuming and analytical. With Pinterest, a patron can look at a library’s page of pins or boards of another user and judge ideological alignment much quicker, sometimes in seconds. When libraries make sensible, brand related choices about their pins and boards in Pinterest, it can be incredibly powerful as a community building tool.
The following posts were written and proposed as a book chapter on Pinterest for Libraries, but the chapter was not accepted. Sad, except that now it means that I have some content to share publicly with you! Over the next few days, I’ll be publishing the chapter as a series of posts.
John LeMasney of LeMasney Technology and Design Consulting will discuss Pinterest, a visual social bookmarking system that is often dismissed as simply a place for wedding photos and pictures of vegetarian recipes. Pinterest is a way to collect, curate, share and discuss photos and videos of any kind, and this article will discuss 10 ways you can use it to engage patrons and other stakeholders in the visual brand, items, and topics at libraries. You can increase the visibility of your programs, and give people new ways to click through to discover and borrow your assets.
A Pinterest glossary
fig 01 – lemasney on Pinterest
I thought that it would be useful to start with a short glossary of terms related to Pinterest for the uninitiated. There is a culture to Pinterest, and with any good culture comes a kind of vocabulary.
Pin – A pin is a single shared image or video on Pinterest. A pin consists of a digital image or video, an optional link to the original site, and a description for the pin, up to 500 characters long. Great pins are attractive regardless of their context, but their context, history, and source should be present. Think of a pin as a way to inform people of information literacy, scholarship, and ideological respect in addition to the basic idea of the pin itself. Libraries can use pins to share elements of their organizational brand: what makes them unique as a library.
Pinning – Pinning is the act of sharing a pin on Pinterest. Pinning can be done exceptionally well or rather lazily. Pinners who care will add metadata, a reasonable description, links back to source sites, and encourage discussion. Pinners who are just passing the time will put up a single word description, not consider the link or source, and not respond to discussions, repins, and other cultural niceties. A library pinterest effort might include an emerging technologies librarian as the sole pinner, but there is a potential for richness when administrators, staff, and patrons are all invited to pin.
fig 02 – also pinned to
Repin – A repin is the act of taking a pin that already exists on Pinterest and sharing it on one of your own boards, effectively giving it a vote of confidence and admiration. Repinning is a kind of moral engine on Pinterest, helping people’s pins to reach larger and larger audiences. When libraries repin pins, they show that they are looking at other people’s pins, making a decision about their alignment with that person, and inviting them to check out the library’s pins. Repins are important in building a community.
fig 03 – the pin it button
Pinmarklet – A combination of the words Pinterest and Bookmarklet, the Pinmarklet is a javascript button that you copy to your bookmarks bar and click whenever you are on a site where you find something worth sharing. It greatly simplifies the pinning process compared to the “share pin” feature on the site itself. Libraries who use pinterest should consider adding the pinmarklet to staff computer images, so that they are encouraged to pin library related pins.
Comment – each pin on Pinterest has the ability for anyone to comment. By commenting, you effectively notify the pinner of your interest in the content, and give them the opportunity to begin a conversation with you. One can argue that the very point of social media in any form is to begin a discussion. If you pin a new acquisition and have it link through to your ILS, that’s an invitation to borrow that item. If you start a discussion to talk about why the media was acquired for your collection, you engage not only patrons and potential patrons, but also give the opportunity for a better understanding of why your library makes the choices it does.
Board – A board is the curation space on Pinterest, where you add, share, comment, and collaborate on pins. Your boards for your library should be essentially a visual version of your catalog, but also a business card, a note of thanks, a reminder of programming, and an insight into what your library really is, behind the buildings, people, and things in it.
Shared board – Boards can be co-curated by 2, 10, 100 or more pinners. You can invite other pinners that share the common interest of the board. The board’s creator may remove pinners at any time, or pinners can remove themselves. For libraries, shared boards are great opportunities. You could have a “patrons’ picks” board, in which only patrons post. You might carry a theme for the month, like “flying” or “government” and make boards that invite experts amongst your staff and patronage in those topics to pin what they know.
Follow – Pinners can follow boards that they like, with the key benefit being that they see new pins from those boards prioritized on their homepage. Pinners can choose to follow another pinners individual boards, or can follow the pinner wholesale. One can unfollow tiresome boards at any time. It is essential that you follow people with the library account. Following shows that you are not just interested in yourself, and also makes your home page far more interesting. When you follow people whose pins are related to yours, you see more of those kinds of pins when you open Pinterest.
Private Board – One innovation that Pinterest implemented in response to users was the ability to pin to a private board, which can also be a shared (collaborative) board. Their key example in explaining the function was to do party planning without the party’s purpose knowing about it, but many others cited that the prurient or otherwise controversial nature of some pins makes one less likely to repin them if others are watching. Private boards solve that issue. As a library, you might have private planning boards for upcoming events where you can collect pins related to the idea. Then when it is time to advertise the event, you can make the board public.
Like – One may like a pin rather than repin it, which adds it to a liked list, a kind of board in itself. Liked pins have all of the function and purpose of a pin or repin, but are useful especially in cases where the pin does not easily fit into your existing boards. You might like things that you do not necessarily want to associate with your library directly, e.g. an academic science library might want their boards to focus on science topics, but they might also ‘like’ pins about food. If the food is science related, even better.
Pinner – A user on the Pinterest system; one who pins. In creating an account for a Library, it is better if your personal Pinterest account is not used, so that you can separate your personal brand from the library brand. In fact, it is better to have a Library as a business account in Pinterest, so that you can get the added benefits of that mode (below).
Certified users and business accounts – you can associate yourself with a particular URL by going through an authentication process that allows you to gain statistical insights about pins from your web site. Libraries on Pinterest should consider this process since they may want to know if people are clicking on pins to visit their ILS for instance. Polaris, amongst other social media aware cataloging systems, allow for the pinning of assets by patrons right from the catalog if enabled.
I recently had the opportunity via LibraryLinkNJ to speak on the topic of Consumer Device Support in Libraries at several of their Tech Speed Dating gatherings, in which librarians from across the state of New Jersey come together to learn about the technologies they might love. It is a platform for dissemination of new technologies and best practices, but also potentially a place to introduce an idea. My idea: New library policy documents about the support for Consumer Devices in Libraries. Please take a look at this document, and use it as you wish, as it is Creative Commons – Attribution licensed. If you use it as is, you need do nothing. If you decide to change it, please mention that is was by John LeMasney via lemasney.com and thanks!
55 of 365 Coffee Mug by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
55 of 365 Coffee Mug by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
This is a three-dimensional coffee cup created in SketchUp, the Trimble-owned, free, three-dimensional modeling application. Given the increased importance of making and three-dimensional printing in contemporary libraries, I have decided to focus a bit on 3D modeling as an area to extend myself into. I taught a class on this for a full-day staff development session recently for the Long Island Library Resource Council (LILRC), a long-time friend of LeMasney Consulting. I think we discovered a few architects in the audience.
I fell in love with it when Google purchased it. The thing I love about it, despite also loving open source tools like Blender, is that it is incredibly easy to use and learn, comparatively. Honestly, after watching four short ‘getting started’ videos on http://sketchup.com, you’ll know enough to start building very complex shapes. A beautifully simple tool.
Hand-made, stamped, recycled business cards by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Hand-made, stamped, recycled business cards by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Hand-made, stamped, recycled business cards by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Hand-made, stamped, recycled business cards by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
On caring for nature
I was once in an environmental action committee for an organization. In the meetings, we’d plan events to raise awareness for recycling methods, whole food and gardening, saving electricity, promoting alternative fuel sources, and so on. It was quite successful. I was proud to be a part of it, and was active in the meetings.
There were a few times when I think I might have gone a bit too far in my suggestions. For instance, when there were popular suggestions to give out recyclable water bottles and t-shirts, offer games of chance to promote awareness with store-bought-beanbags, and print agendas for the meetings, I protested a bit.
I suggested that we promote the use of already owned recyclable water bottles, (since it seems like everyone already has 10 of them,) and that we offer a small sticker to anyone who shows up with a used bottle, so that we could still share and remind people of our brand.
I said that the new, printed t-shirts should be on-site printed recycled t-shirts, and that the bean bags should be from hand-sewn fabric scraps.
In the case of the agenda printing, I suggested that we use Google Docs instead. This is fairly common for me as a suggestion. Anytime someone offers me a piece of paper with something on it that may change, I suggest that we’d do better, stay more organized, and save costs by moving the document to GDrive.
This is all to say that I take ecological concerns pretty seriously. Which leads me to the point of this post:
Recycled, hand made business cards
I hand out a lot of business cards. If I meet a shop owner, a card almost always comes out. You never know who may need your help someday. I used to get the most beautiful miniature cards from Moo.com that everyone would say something nice about. But because I was printing on new paper, I felt like a hypocrite, when I print so little otherwise.
I work with index cards sometimes to organize my thoughts in physical space, especially for momentary lists, daily to-dos, or to take notes in a phone call. I decided to take these 4×6 cards, used on the lined side. I’d quarter them to use as business cards printed about 20 at a time with a custom stamp I got from staples.com with my contact information and (jl) logo on it. They were fun, obviously hand torn and hand stamped. Imperfect and beautiful, a lovely combination.
A new way to re-use otherwise cast-off cardstock
As I was throwing away a box that held a bulk set of tea bags, I broke it down and opened it up, and realized how nice the weight of the paper was, and how the designer paid attention to the palette to create a soothing package. I decided to cut the box into card sized slices and stamp the unprinted side. The result is lovely: my contact information on one side, and an interesting pattern on the back. They remind me of the recycled vinyl signs that end up as messenger bags. I’ve used the hand stamped cards for about a month, and have gotten some great responses. People I know tend to love hand-made objects of any kind, and my theory is that people are so used to seeing perfectly edged things all day long, that when they see the ‘thumbprints in the clay’, the kind imperfections, I think that they pay special attention to them.
What do you think? Am I a good ecologist, and respecter of nature, or am I just cheap? 🙂 One thing is for sure: my secondary branding is definitely represented by using these cards. Anyone who gets one should be able to see that I’m interested in recycling, that I’m frugal, and that I like making things. That’s a pretty solid set of brand attributes that I’d be proud to align with.
51 of 365 on meeting management by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
51 of 365 on meeting management by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
On the importance of the Calendar in my work.
After a recent conversation with a client in which we were discussing appointment finalization, we discussed how I kept track of my meetings. It made me realize that my workflow for meeting management might make for an interesting template for others. I had another friend ask me what it was that allowed me to manage my work best. I replied without thinking that if something exists on my calendar, it’s real. Otherwise, it’s just an idea.
In that light, here is the way that my calendaring works:
I use Google Calendar as the basis for everything. Because both my personal account and my business account both are Google based, it makes sense that I use the various tools there, including, drive, music, photos, contacts, Gmail and calendar. http://calendar.google.com
Because Google understands my contacts in context, it makes it especially easy to add people and places to the meetings. I am sure to add geolocation data when I enter business cards and contact info into contacts. When I start to type a client’s name in my location field in Calendar, it autocompletes with their location if present in contacts. http://contacts.google.com
I use a Gmail feature that makes recognizable dates and times in my email into links that create new events in Calendar. http://email.about.com/od/gmailtips/qt/et_mailtoevent.htm
I use Rapportive to give me socially-contextual information in my right sidebar. https://rapportive.com/
I use Doodle.com. Doodle is best known for its service for letting multiple people arrange their meeting time. However, they have a less known feature called “Meet Me” pages, where you get your own Doodle URL that people can go to and choose an open spot (all busy times show as simply busy) on my Google Calendar. Meanwhile, I do not have to go through the relatively restrictive controls on sharing my Google Calendar with someone without a Google account, or with one I don’t know. Also, I do not have to make my calendar public. Doodle sends me a notification, and I confirm. Doodle updates my calendar, and syncs changes I make from Calendar. The openness of Google Calendar’s APIs allows Doodle to make a better tool. http://doodle.com/lemasney
I use If This Then That (IFTTT, pronounced ‘ifft’) in order to add certain social activities to my calendar. IFTTT takes the response from one service, and outputs it to another service. In particular, I have a calendar that just shows scrobbling (a log of what I listen to on my devices) from last.fm, and I add checkins (places I visit and geotag) from foursquare to my meetings calendar. http://ifttt.com
Finally, I like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but I also enjoy both chocolate and peanut butter. With Google Calendar, I have multiple account calendars. One for public meetings, one for my time with my boys, and one for my personal meetings. I have a second account on Google that has its own calendar. You’d never know I have all of those calendars, because they all appear on one Calendar, with custom colors to differentiate them. Within Google Calendar, you can either create a new calendar, subscribe to another Google Calendar user, or subscribe by ICS to anyone using a standards based Calendar. This is one of the reasons I love open standards.
What I’m Pinning
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The New Gdoc Binder: An Evolution of the Free Online Organizer
Recycling Plastic Water Bottles
