Collection of food and drink recipes that we love at gapmuse as seen on our Pinterest Food and Drink board! Click on the image to follow this board and all other gapmuse boards.

Have you ever assumed that everyone knows about something because it appears ubiquitous to you? Well, I’m guilty! This post was triggered by a question a lady posed to me at a birthday party a few weeks ago. She leaned over to me while we were having some snacks and asked “Do you know Pinterest®?”

As you can imagine, the question caught me off guard because prior to it, my assumption was that everyone knew about Pinterest since it seems that everywhere you look online, there’s a “Pin It Button” on Web sites, especially those selling things that appeal most to women (fashion, food, beauty products, e.t.c.,) and on social media sites (people share pins with their friends and followers on Facebook® and Twitter® all the time.)

Remember the quote “when you assume you make a you know what out of you and me” (this is a family friendly blog so I’ll let your imagination fill in the blank!) 🙂 Well, it applied me to this time around!

After the initial surprise wore off, I responded to the lady that I not only knew about Pinterest, but it was also one of my favorite social media platforms. I love Pinterest for a host of reasons but one stands out the most; it allows me to easily discover, organize, share and access my recipes from one convenient place.

For a foodie like me, that’s invaluable! No more old school methods of collecting recipes! Bye bye magazine and newspaper clippings compiled in folders that clutter my house or time consuming recipe downloads discovered on the Web. I just find the recipe, pin it and voila! It’s always there for me to access for recipe ideas for the next lunch, dinner, party, sporting get together with friends, or other event that I might be planning!

Pinterest is not just a great tool for personal use, but also for business (we’ll cover that topic in a different blog discussion.)

So if you’re someone that may have heard of Pinterest but have never used it and are ready to start using it to discover, organize, share, and access your recipes or maybe you don’t know about it at all but would be curious to know how it works, here is a simple walk through to get you going. It’s fast and easy!

1. Set up your account:

   Creating an account is simple. Just enter your email and a password or use your Facebook account to sign up.

   

   Sign up for a Pinterest account by email or with your Facebook account.

2. Edit your profile:

   Easily upload your photo, enter a short description about yourself, location, Web site if you have one, set up privacy settings like if you want search engines to find you or not and log in settings with Facebook and Twitter and save your profile.

   

   Update your profile by adding a description, Web site and setting up search engines, Facebook and Twitter privacy settings.

3. Create your first Board:

   After you set up your account, Pinterest will prompt you to follow at least 5 boards before you can start creating your own. There are 2 ways to quickly create a board: (1) click on “Create a Board” that comes up after you’ve followed your first 5 boards and (2) when you find a recipe that you want to pin, simply create a board and pin it to this new board. Just name your board and start pinning away.

   

   Create a Pinterest Board. Name it, choose a category for it and make it a secret or public board.

4. Add a “Pin It Button” to your browser:

   Before you start pinning your discoveries, it’s best to add a “Pin It Button” to your browser to make it easier. Adding the button is easy. Simply follow these instructions available on Pinterest. They provide video instructions for different kinds of browsers so you’re sure to find yours on the site. You can find the button on the “Goodies Page.”

   

   Add a Pin It Button to your browser to make it easier to pin your recipe discoveries.

5. Discover food and drink recipes:

   There are many ways to find and pin recipes to your food and drink board, including searching by category or by keyword and following either the board or person that’s of interest to you. When searching by keyword, Pinterest allows you to either search “All pins” or “Just my pins.” Also, Pinterest sends you suggestions via email on boards you can follow, pins you might love, holiday themed pins, and pins that you may be inspired to follow based on your activity and interests. Finally, you can discover recipes when other people like or repin your pins since it is likely that they have similar interests to you. Pinterest alerts you via email when one of your pins is liked or repinned.

   

   Search by Category

6. Organize your recipes:

   Whether you discover a recipe from a magazine, newspaper, Web site or through Pinterest, a friend, or likes and repins, Pinterest makes it easy to organize your discoveries. If you find your recipe online, simply click the “Pin It Button” that you added to your browser, add a blurb about it if you like and you’re done. If your recipe is from a magazine or newspaper print version, simply search for the recipe in the online version of the print edition (most print publications have a Web site) and pin it to your board from there. If you’re lucky, some sites will include a “Pin It” icon next to the recipe, which makes it even easier to pin without having to use the “Pin It Button” on your browser. Finally, you can upload images of food that you prepared in your kitchen from your own personal recipes from your computer and pin them to your board that way as well.

   

   Pin your first recipe to your Food and Drink Pinterest board.

7. Share your recipes:

   Sharing your recipes with family, friends, and followers on Pinterest is just as simple! Every time you repin a recipe that you find on Pinterest, it is shared with your followers and everyone else on Pinterest for others to discover. Also, you can share via Facebook, Twitter, and email or choose to embed the recipe on your blog. Want your friends to easily access your food and drink board right from Pinterest, just invite them to follow your board. It’s that simple.

   

   Share pins via Facebook, Twitter, email or embed on your blog.

8. Access your recipes:

   Pinterest makes it easy to retrieve the recipes that you’ve collected and organized in your board. Just use the search box to look for pins from “All pins” or “Just my pins” to begin your search. You can also search in other boards or pinners.

   

   Easily access your recipes.

Do you use Pinterest to discover, organize, share and access your recipes? If so, feel free to add anything that I might have missed and let’s help those foodies out there like us enjoy the ease of finding, organizing, and sharing recipes with Pinterest.

Enjoy pinning and Bon Apetit!