“My name is Tracy and I’m a Pinterest addict.”

“Hi, Tracy.”

I can almost envision this conversation with some women I know from church. A couple of months ago, as we waited for our children to leave choir practice a conversation started about Pinterest. I had no idea what they were talking about. Imagine my embarrassment when I found out it was the hottest new website around. (I try to stay in the loop on these things, but failed miserably this particular day.)

Well, just a couple of weeks after taking the Pinterest plunge, I find myself a full-scale Pinterest addict, just like many of those women in church. Depending on how you look at it, it’s either a great way to organize valuable content or a complete time suck. What’s Pinterest all about?

I won’t go into great detail here. Suffice it to say Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. If you’re like me, you occasionally rip out magazine articles and pictures when you find something you’d like to save: decorating ideas or haircuts or recipes. My kitchen is full of these scraps of magazine copy. Honestly, I usually end up throwing the crumpled up pages out before ever trying the recipes, haircuts or decorating ideas. So be it. Pinterest helps with all of this by allowing you to virtually pin images and articles by category onto your personalized boards. So I can create a board with my favorite recipe ideas. (My food board is called “YUM!” as that is an expression I use almost always when trying a great new recipe.) When I surf the web and find a recipe that looks great I simply click “Pin it” and I can put it onto my board.

For information about the popularity of Pinterest and how it works here’s a good article.

I mention this now to you Areavoices bloggers because Pinterest can actually  help you get more traffic on your blog.

For example, Areavoices blogger Erin writes a blog called Fairly Crafty. Recently, she wrote a blog post about making her own glittery formal shoes. What a great idea for all those girls and women trying to pull off proms and weddings on a budget. Erin can create a board called “Weddings” or “Style” or “Crafts” and simply pin her link to those boards. Soon enough, her pin will not only be on her board, but the general Pinterest boards and those specialty category boards. So that means anybody surfing Pinterest for Wedding ideas will see Erin’s shoes pop up. Not bad.

Here’s another success story. Sherri Richards writes the Top Mom blog. Most days, her blog will receive a couple hundred views. But back in October Sherri wrote about her efforts to make a homemade Halloween costume, Jesse from Toy Story. She included pictures and instructions and decided to pin it to her board. What followed was about 2,500 new views to her blog!

Now, you have to be careful. Pintrest is a pinboard not a billboard. They discourage an overuse of self-promotion. Don’t pin every blog post you make, be selective. But if you think something is worth sharing, do it.

Pintrest is another opportunity to get your ideas in front of new eyeballs. Give it a shot!