After spending time learning about the relatively new social media site Pinterest (still in beta so you need an invite from a friend or the site itself) I am beginning to appreciate its attraction.
Perhaps I’m helped in this understanding because the site is apparently skewing towards women in the Midwest, and I’m a woman who grew up in the Midwest.
I do think that the sharing of photos without the need to friend people as on Facebook is a huge draw. And the site itself is very attractive without all the distracting bells and whistles of Facebook.
And, yes, I’ll admit I had to first watch the video on how to install the “Pin It” bookmarklet.
Once I did install the bookmarklet, though, I “went to town,” as the saying goes, creating boards and pins. (Basically, a pin is one photo with a description and a link while several pins go on one board, which has a theme, such as “My Books and Ebooks”)
I can also see that pinning can become addictive. And, yet, for book authors, service professionals, and business owners, pinning can also become a strategic part of an integrated online marketing strategy.
Here are two uses of Pinterest that I tried:
1. I often write guest blog posts, although I do not link to these posts from any of my websites because I do not want to take people off my own sites. Yet I like the guest posts I have written.
With Pinterest, as long as there is at least one photo (besides my headshot) used on a guest post, I can pin the photo with its automatic link to the blog post to a board on my Pinterest account. You can see the result of this in “My Guest Blog Posts” (I only pinned my most recent guest posts that had photos accompanying the posts.)
2. I have two relatively new blogs, each of which promotes my books and ebooks. I created separate boards for these – “LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDER Blog Posts” and “PZM Blog Posts” – and pinned all the posts of each blog to the blog’s board.
Future efforts:
I have to decide if I want to go back and create a board for my Miller Mosaic Social Media Marketing blog posts. If I do, I will pin only the most recent blog posts.
I did, in a way, get around this by creating a board labeled “My Blogs” that board has a link to each of my major blogs but not links to individual posts.
Question of copyright:
The one area that I am pondering in connection to Pinterest is copyright protection.
I know when I pin a photo from my own blog posts that I have legally obtained the photos I use with my own blog posts. And if someone puts a guest post of mine on his/her site and adds a photo, I see no reason to worry about how that photo was obtained as the photo is not being used on one of my own sites.
But, if I create a pin from someone else’s site with a photo that accompanies a guest blog post of mine, what is my responsibility to the possible copyright holder of that photo?
I am NOT a lawyer so I am only pondering the question of copyright. If anyone would like to weigh in on this question, please do so below in the comments.
© 2012 Miller Mosaic, LLC
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter and @ZimblerMiller on Pinterest) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com, which is now WBENC certified and helps clients effectively use social media and other online marketing strategies. Check out Phyllis’ books and other projects at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: coachjudy
February 27, 2012 at 11:38 am
Hi Phyllis, I read this blog with interest. So many new games to play, and will it be worth my time? Thanks for laying your actions out for us to see.
I’m not a lawyer either, but get a few as clients. Will ask them your question on copyright.
Let me know when you’d like to guest post again. My book writing/marketing audience will benefit from your expertise!
Twitter: ZimblerMiller
February 27, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Judy –
Thanks for this comment.
In answer to your question about whether Pinterest will be worth your time, I think it is probably too early to tell. But I tried an experiment today by choosing for a blog post a photo I thought would attract attention.
And it certainly did! I got several repins because of the photo. Here’s the pin — http://pinterest.com/pin/27584616437616403/ — and you can see the repin info at the bottom of the pin
I’d like to write a guest post for you about authors using Pinterest. Would you be interested in this?
Phyllis
http://pinterest.com/zimblermiller
Phyllis it interesting that you are putting your toe in the water with Pinterest too….just got mine up on Sunday–yes, I needed to watch the video for the pin too.
Still pondering what the boards will have on them. Wondering if this should be a place where people come to find out about me, my thougths and dreams.
No question this in the infant stages, but we need to congratulate ourselves that we got on the bandwagon to learn it.
Twitter: ZimblerMiller
February 27, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Kathy –
Thanks for this comment, and I agree that it is good that we have started learning about this new site.
What is your Pinterest URL? I’ll check it out.
Internet copyright law is still pretty murky. The law moves very slowly, and is having trouble keeping up with the latest technology. Still, the rule for copyrights is that the owner has the exclusive right to copy, distribute, and/or display his or her work. Taking a picture from one website and putting it on another is, technically, a violation. The only exception is fair use. Google faced this when it was sued for having thumbnails of copyrighted pictures on its search engine. The court found that having thumbnail images of the pictures was technically a violation, but that Google likely had a fair use defense, because the thumbnails were smaller and poorer quality than the originals, and they had links that would take you to where the originals were lawfully posted.
So in short, pinning a photo from another’s website, without the permission of the photo’s copyright holder, is likely a violation. However, there may be a fair use defense. To learn more about what fair use is and how to apply it, please look at my blog post on the subject: http://www.writersfunzone.com/blog/2011/05/27/all%e2%80%99s-fair-in-love-and-war-%e2%80%93-but-not-in-copyright-law/
Twitter: ZimblerMiller
February 27, 2012 at 11:17 pm
Kelley –
Thank you so much for sharing your expertise here in regards to copyright and for including the link to your blog post on the subject.
I think most people would understand NOT taking a photo from someone else’s website to use on their own site.
The question, though, is in connection to using a photo on Pinterest.com:
If I re-pin someone’s pin (which is a photo) on Pinterest, I probably do not know if that person had the right to use the photo. Therefore, should I not re-pin anyone’s pin because I don’t know if the person had the right to use the photo?
It doesn’t matter whether the photo is posted on your own website or on PinInterest, the point is that a copy has been made. As I understand it, when you re-pin someone’s photo, you make a copy from the photo on their board and put that copy up on one of yours. This technically is a violation of copyright. Copyright law doesn’t take into account the nature of sites like PinInterest; as I said, it has not kept up at all with technological or social trends.
There are a few options that can be taken here. One is, as you said, to only pin photos that you have a copyright to or that you know are in the public domain, which is the safest route. Another is to trace the photos to the source and ask for permission, if permission is needed. You could also take the risk and pin the photos anyway. It seems to me that there is a low risk anyone would object to your use of the photo, given your stated uses for PinInterest, particularly if it has already been pinned by someone else. Still, it’s not a guarantee, and I’d be careful if you chose to go this route.
Twitter: ZimblerMiller
February 28, 2012 at 8:23 am
Kelley –
Thank you again for all your sage advice. I hope anyone reading this discussion thread is now aware of the caution that should be taken when pinning and re-pinning photos on Pinterest.
I personally plan to proceed with caution based on your advice.
Twitter: ZimblerMiller
February 28, 2012 at 1:43 pm
Publicity Hound Joan Stewart shared in her ezine this link to an article about copyright violations in connection with Pinterest — http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Pinterest-a-Haven-for-Copyright-Violations