Dapper Gent by Paul Stevenson

Pinterest for Men

Dapper Gent by Paul Stevenson
Dapper Gent by Paul Stevenson

One of the fastest growing social networks out there has almost entirely been taken over by women!

Pinterest is a visual-board sharing site where people can easily share images that catch their eye. They “pin” interesting items to their pinboards, where others can comment, “like” them, and “repin” the images onto their own boards. Technically the site is still in beta, but invites are easy to come by.

Less than two years old, Pinterest launched in March of 2010 and has a current estimated valuation of $200 million. They were just named TechCrunch’s Best New Startup of 2011.

This easy, visual sharing has attracted users in droves, especially females. Pinterest has about four million users, and 1.5 million visit daily. The most amazing number might be that as many as 80% of them are female.

So what’s a lonely, curious, pinterested man to do?

A Manly Guide To Pinterest

Men are visual, too. They just like looking at different things. The key to Y Chromosomal equality on Pinterest requires moving past the footwear and redecorating ideas.

If you’re a gent looking to give Pinterest a try, here are my recommendations:

  • Delete the default pinboards you get and make ones that appeal to you, whether it is Epic Beer Labels, Gadgets I Want, or All Things Mustache.
  • If you’re working on a project or planning a trip, pinboards can make excellent ways to document your progress and ideas. For example, here’s a pinboard on building a bike, and one on great travel gear.
  • You can search for pins, or full pinboards. Look for people who are cultivating whole boards on manly topics like Scott Stratten’s Tattoo pinboard, or Rebekah White’s Guns pinboard.
  • You can follow all of someone’s pinboards, or just the ones you like. Unless you are gazing upon the manliest of manly men, I suggest following individual pinboards. For example, Drew Hawkins has the mantastic Board of Man, but if you followed everything of his you will also get his pinboard on Crock Pots (not that there is anything wrong with that…)
  • Re-run your searches every so often to discover new people and pinboards. A search for beer turns up lots of interesting pins and boards, but doing it again in a week will turn up loads of new material.

If you crave still more, Kevin Spidel also has some tips and pinboards for men to check out.

That should be more than enough to get you going, but if you really can’t find a manly way to approach Pinterest, then perhaps Gentlemint is more for you. Billed as a mint of manly things, it is chock full of gadgets, gear, and of course… mustaches.

Update:

I did a TV interview this morning on Pinterest for Men and convered some of the links I mentioned here, including Gentlemint:

Organize and Share Using an Online Pinboard: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

 


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7 responses to “Pinterest for Men”

  1. Geoff Snyder Avatar

    Great post, Jeff! A lot of buzz on Pinterest and its overwhelming appeal to women; thus causing hesitation for us men. Thanks!

    1. Jeff Moriarty Avatar

      Thanks, Geoff! It’s a great visual sharing tool that works for anyone, it just has an unusual demographic mix for social sites right now which means it has a correspondingly unusual content mix compared to those other sites. I think that’s a good thing, and I’m curious to see how it will evolve.

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  3. Rex Williams Avatar
    Rex Williams

    Nice work, Jeff.  I think I’m an official Pinterest Widow, because my wife has left me for Pinterest. 

    It’s funny because she has never been as much as a web surfer as me – in fact she only joined Facebook so she could get on Pinterest – and now she’s totally addicted.  (Which is why she never joined FB because she thought she would get addicted.)

    Well, I can’t have her be more knowledgeable about the latest social network than me, so I think I’m going to have to join. Thanks for the tips.

    1. Jeff Moriarty Avatar

      Quite welcome, Rex! It has a whole different method of sharing that I’m excited to see. We need more variations than just the Status Updates of MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

      Let me know how it goes, and what you end up doing, hating, or liking about it!

  4. Chuck Reynolds Avatar

    I’ve had a little one goin for firearms.. should technically use it more but http://pinterest.com/chuckreynolds/firearms/
    Pinterest still needs more of a man feel, but there’s an open source script out there now so wouldn’t be hard to build it 🙂
    Nice list tho… 
    Also… thought of ‘goreboard’… but I try not to frequent those parts of the internet as much anymore. But it gives you a good reality check when you need it. 🙂

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