Pinterest for Energy Efficiency

I've been experimenting with Pinterest for a few weeks, and am increasingly falling in love with it. While many consider it to be primarily the realm of gorgeous imagery, recipes and pretty consumer products, I'm finding the concept of "pinning"--the online version of scrapbooking--to be really valuable.

In particular, one of my passions is for Energy Information Design and Pinterest has become the perfect tool for accumulating interesting approaches in one easy place.

What's been quite amazing to me is that my board, Energy Information Design, is now #1 Google organic for that search term. (A little obscure, perhaps, but not really.)

Check it out here: Energy Circle's Pinterest Board on Energy Information Design.

PS: Many thanks to Lester Shen for showing the way. All his Boards are excellent, particularly his Useful energy iPhone/iPad apps.

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Permalink Reply by John Brooks on May 11, 2012 at 8:03am

Thanks Peter,

I had no idea how Pinterest "worked"

My Favorites Menu is out of control... this will be far more useful for organizing and sharing

Your "board" has loads of good "stuff" too

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Permalink Reply by John Poole on May 12, 2012 at 6:34am

Peter,

Just like you, I've come to appreciate Pinterest a great deal.

To me, it's not only a great way to post and disseminate images, but it's also another great SEO opportunity. For example, whenever I publish a new blog posting, I first use the usual channels to publicize it: FB, Twitter, and Google Plus. Then, over the course of the next few days, I'll periodically pin an image from my blog post (which, of course, contains a back-link to my posting), and I'll tweet the pin, at the same time. I've found that this keeps interest up without inundating folks with the same boring old tweet about my recent blog post.

Often, twitter followers who might otherwise ignore a tweet comprised of just text and a shortened link seem to show much more interest in a tweeted Pinterest image, and will retweet or even re-pin it.

The pinned images on my boards also get picked up by folks on Pinterest who otherwise would have no knowledge of my blog or twitter stream. Not that all these folks are necessarily in my target audience, but all readers are welcomed, and I think as Pinterest gains in popularity, more of my target audience will eventually get there. Bottom line is: I think Pinterest is a great resource, and we ought to put it to good use and promote it as much as possible. Your Energy Information Design board is a great example of the value Pinterest can provide to the home performance community.

~John

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Permalink Reply by Carol A. Markell on May 16, 2012 at 7:53am

We have begun to look at Pinterest also. So thanks for the ideas. John P, I especially like the idea of pinning pics w/links from blogs.

What a busy world!

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Permalink Reply by Diane Chojnowski on June 8, 2012 at 6:46am

John, We're following you! And Sean Lintow too!

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Permalink Reply by John Brooks on May 16, 2012 at 5:24pm

I gave Pinterest a try

for now I just grabbed some links from my favorites menu

I think it will be easy to add "Pins" on the fly now as I stumble on things of interest

http://pinterest.com/johnkbrooks/physics-high-performance-home-design/

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Permalink Reply by Carol A. Markell on May 17, 2012 at 7:28am

From Huff Post, Pinterest gaining interest: http://huff.to/J2nefd

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Permalink Reply by Steph S on May 17, 2012 at 7:35am

Looks great, now only if I understood how to use Pinterest! Seems like it would be pretty helpful for accumulating a wide range of other things as well. Thanks for opening my eyes!

Furnace Company Detroit

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Permalink Reply by Diane Chojnowski on May 17, 2012 at 10:22am

I think we need a Pinterest group! I'll start one and invite everyone to post links to their Energy pages.

Thanks for the inspiration Peter!

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Permalink Reply by Diane Chojnowski on June 4, 2012 at 5:58am

USGBC has some cool Pinterest boards. Check out this one: USGBC loves homes

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Permalink Reply by Diane Chojnowski on June 8, 2012 at 6:04am

There is a lot of interest on Pinterest in energy efficient homes. A keyword search on energy efficient home brings up lots of links to great articles. Some of the photos link to case studies. Check them out!

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Permalink Reply by Lester Shen on June 8, 2012 at 7:31am

Thanks, Peter, for the HT. I've been playing with Pinterest for a while and treat it like a visual bookmarking tool. Here's a blog post I wrote about Pinterest for our CEE blog, i.e.:

http://mncee.org/Innovation-Exchange/ie/April-2012/Tracking-the-Loo...

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Permalink Reply by Tracy Hudson on June 8, 2012 at 1:41pm

I am LOVING Pinterest, fairly new to it, but do have a couple boards started for Social Media and Energy Topics.

http://pinterest.com/tracylynnbrune/energy-effeciency/

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