How Guys Can Use Pinterest

Pinterest is mainly popular with the ladies–79 percent of Pinterest users are female–but there’s no reason guys can’t find ways to use it, too. If you buck the trend and express your manliness via Pinterest, you’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of using it. Pinterest doesn’t only have to be about inspirational sayings and cute puppies; you can use it to connect with people who share your interests and hobbies.

Follow With Caution
Before even getting to what you can do with Pinterest, first you need to learn how to follow people on it. The technical details of following are simple; you find a user you like and click the “Follow” button. However, it’s important to put some thought into it.

Pinterest makes it easy for you to find followers by linking your account with Facebook, but this can be problematic for guys. Since more women than guys use Pinterest right now, if you choose to follow all of your Facebook friends on Pinterest, chances are you’re gonna end up with all female followers. Unless you hang out with women who break gender stereotypes on a regular basis, your Pinterest will soon be filled with cupcakes, jewelry and other things women find interesting, and as a result the site won’t keep your attention.

The best way to handle following is to follow boards that interest you rather than following specific users. For example, if you’re into car repair, follow auto repair boards. You should even follow this policy when dealing with your friends. If you follow a friend, you end up following all of his or her boards. But if you just follow the boards that are interesting to you, you can skip seeing baby pictures or wedding photos and just get to the good stuff.

Share DIY Projects
One popular, and underexplored, use for Pinterest is to help your fellow men complete DIY projects. If you have a project in mind, chances are you can find pictures of completed projects or tools you need on Pinterest. When you finish making something you’re particularly proud of, take a photo and put it on your Pinterest with some descriptive tags. Guys who are into doing the same kind of project will pick up your pin or follow your board, and pretty soon you’ll have a whole network of people to talk to when you aren’t sure how to approach a project. You should also pin ideas for projects you find on other guys’ boards so that you’ll have your own personalized to-do list when you find time to get to some new projects.

Market a Business
Don’t underestimate Pinterest’s ability to help you market your business. You can post pins that are linked to your website or blog. If you use interesting, relevant graphics, you can easily attract customers and make money through Pinterest. You can also set prices on some of your pins so that clicking on the pins automatically takes customers to your website to purchase the item depicted in the pin.

Pinterest is a versatile system that has plenty of uses. There’s enough room for guys to carve out their own spaces full of stuff that is interesting to them. Don’t let Pinterest become a women’s only space; use it your way and find out what kind of things it can do for you.

Author bio:
Ken Lyons writes for Brainloop, a company specializing in creating a highly secure workspace through secure online document sharing, information rights management, and other data protection services using a highly secure data room environment.