On Monday evening, SPJ Generation J committee members spoke on Twitter about their use of Pinterest. Pinterest is, as committee member Jennifer Sullivan said, the hottest new social network and delivers great brand techniques for individual journalists and news orgs, although Mike Brannen noted, organizations are late to the game.

If you feel as though you too are “late to the game,” review the chat and check out these five “how-to Pinterest” tips to peak your interest in creating a resume on the site, or even just using it as a way to show a more personal side of your brand.

A pin is something that you like (which is represented by a heart) on a particular board. A pin board is a collection of pins that can be grouped by a user to show exactly what category they believe the items fit into. Some common pin boards are titled: Home, Wedding, Decor, Cooking, Books to Read, etc.

To add a new pin board, upload a pin or add a pin, you simply click the Add+ button on the top right hand corner of the homepage.

To view different sections of Pinterest, you click the “Everything” button under the Pinterest logo and select the category you’d like to view.

When you click a pin, you are taken to that user’s board and then if you click the pin again, you’re taken to the website where it was found.

You should download the Pin It button (which is a bookmarklet for your bookmark bar on any browser) so that you can easily pin photos and videos from your favorite websites. These can also be Tweeted and added to Facebook.

Facebook’s Pinterest app is now a social application, which means that unless you select “no” in the settings, all your Pinterest activity will be shared to your Timeline. Timeline shared activity can be changed in Facebook privacy settings — whatever the default is (which you can customize) is how your Pinterest activity will be shared. For example, if you share everything with all your friends, that’s who will see it. If you share with a select (or custom) group of people, that’s who will see it. It can be altered at any time.

Once you’ve setup the site, you have to start “pinning.” You can repin things from other boards, like individual pins or upload your own pins from photos/videos on your computer.

The pins you like can be viewed on your interest homepage (pictured below).

Victoria Reitano is the Assistant Editor at SDTimes, an enterprise technology trade magazine for enterprise developers and their managers. She is also the publisher of The Giornalista Files, her personal blog and portfolio site where she shares her ideas about being an early career lady journo with anyone who will listen. Reitano feels Bikram Yoga is the perfect compliment to her obsessive need to consume information on a constant basis. Connect with her on Twitter @giornalista515.

View the complete #GenJ Pinterest Twitter chat below:

Tags: advice, broadcast news, career, journalism, journalist, journalists, new media, news, pinterest, Society of Professional Journalists, spj, training, twitter, young reporters

This entry was posted by Victoria Reitano on Wednesday, May 9th, 2012 at 11:43 am and is filed under Current Events, Gen J, Gen Jers, Generation J, Journalism, new media, news, newsroom, SPJ, Tips, Training, young journalists. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.