Social Media Monday : Pinterest

What is it?

Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. ~Pinterest

When you click on a pin it will bring you through to the original place on the web that it was found.

How

There are different ways to use Pinterest

1) Follow lots of people on Pinterest and then see what they are pining. Repin what you find interesting to your own boards for future reference and to share with your friends.

2) Pin things you see online that you like to your pin boards with an easy to use button you can add to your browser's tool bar, to go back to for future reference and to share with your friends.

3) Browse through the most recent and most popular pins without following strangers, but to see the neat and fun things they pin. Repin as above.

Why

Pinterest is mostly fun, but there are actually a lot of great reasons to use it to help with life as a parent.

Imagine if you will that this is a way more organized way of tearing interesting and good ideas out of a magazine and not losing them.  Then imagine that you can go through all of your friends' clipping folders too.

Here are a few of the innumerable good ideas that I've found on pinterest

Organizational

Source: pbjstories.blogspot.com via Lara on Pinterest

Source: pennycarnival.typepad.com via Lara on Pinterest

Source: unplggd.com via Lara on Pinterest

Food

Source: thelarsonlingo.blogspot.com via Lara on Pinterest

Source: family.go.com via Lara on Pinterest

Source: aturtleslifeforme.blogspot.com via Lara on Pinterest

Crafts

Source: 4.bp.blogspot.com via Lara on Pinterest

Source: totallytots.blogspot.com via Spoiled Sugar on Pinterest

Source: according-to-kelly.com via Spoiled Sugar on Pinterest

Pinterest is by invitation only but there are lots of invitations to be had. Let me know if you want an invitation and I'll send you one! But beware... looking at all those beautiful things is kind of addictive! :)

Lara Wellman is mom to 4 year old Kiernan and 2 year old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can read her personal blog at Gliding Through Motherhood, about her weight loss journey at Losing it in Ottawa, and her social media blog at Larawellman.com

Blogging out loud

by Lynn

Ottawa has one of the most vibrant, active, and friendly social media scenes that I know. The online version of this city is a place where everyone is welcomed, where so many people have amazing things to say. There's twitter, there's facebook, and of course, there's an amazing community of bloggers. Kids in the Capital itself is a great example of how a blog can be a gathering place for people with similar interests, all of whom live in this great town of ours.

Blog Out Loud is an annual event for Ottawa-area bloggers - and, just as importantly, their readers - to gather and share. It's a chance to meet those people whose voices you've only heard online, to finally put sound behind the words. It's a fun evening and a great way to really feel a part of something. And as an added bonus, 21 Ottawa-area bloggers will be reading out loud their favourite post from the past year, a personal retelling of funny, moving, powerful stories; meanwhile, a dozen Ottawa-area photographers will be displaying their beautiful artwork.

I am amazed at how many people are coming forward this year to say that last year's event sparked their desire to start their own blog. That hearing the bloggers speak, and meeting so many great people, inspired them to add their own voices to the mix. And a few bloggers who started their own blogs after attending BOLO are even taking a turn at the microphone this year, reading their own story.

You could be one of those people, too.

This year's event is this coming Thursday, July 7, 2011. It starts at 7 p.m. and runs until around 10. It's free, although we will be asking for donations at the door to help cover costs (suggested donation of $2). It's at The Prescott (379 Preston Street), and we'll be down in the basement reception room, with our own private bar.

So expect things to get LOUD.

You're all invited, so hope to see you all there!

Lynn is the planning mastermind behind BOLO and she also has a personal blog over at Turtlehead.

Social Media Monday : Tumblr.

by Lara

We've talked quite extensively about starting a blog on Kids in the Capital, but for some, a blog is just not the right fit for them.

If you are looking for a way to share small snippets of your life with people - maybe a photo, a quote, or a funny video, tumblr. may be a better fit.

I see tumblr. as sort of a cross between a blog and Twitter.  You can post really small amounts of information in a blog-like format. Because it's not actually a blog, the expectations for content aren't as high.

You can even integrate it with other tools you use making it even easier.  I can automatically get an instagram photo to appear on my tumblr. page from my phone without ever having to go to tumblr. for example.

You can also have tumblr. post to Facebook and Twitter by toggling those options on or off on a post by post basis. You can also download apps for your smartphones to manage your site right from there (something that is definitely harder to do with a regular blog).

Here's my Tumblr site - I'm only just starting to really use it (since I DO have four blogs my need for tumblr is probably slightly lower than for some others ;)) but I'm finding it to be a good spot to stick the things that aren't worth a whole blog post but that are more than just a tweet.

I've seen quite a few people use it as a place to document their 365 photo projects which I think is a great idea. I can also see it as a perfect place for sharing photos and videos with friends and family when you have a baby.

Check it out and try it out, and if you do, leave us the link - we'd love to go and check it out!

Lara is mom to 4 year old Kiernan and two year old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can read her blog at Gliding Through Motherhood.

Social Media Monday : Instagram

by Lara I have a big digital camera but it's not convenient to bring with me everywhere I go. For a while I considered carrying around a small point and shoot for the unexpected fun moments but having an iPhone in my pocket meant I essentially did have that. Sweet!

In the world of social media, the fun comes from sharing. I have hundreds of photos on my phone. Sometimes I chose to email them to services that could automatically put them on twitter for me, but most of the time I didn't.

Enter Instagram.

It is a fun and easy to use iPhone app (unfortunately only iPhone at the moment with no plans to launch android or blackberry options any time soon) that:

- takes photos - allows you to apply fun filters to them - with a simple click share to twitter, facebook or flickr - have a friends feed right within the application

Instagram Filters

What instagram has done is offer 16 filters you can apply to your photos. They can take a photo that might not have been that interesting and make it a lot more fun.

You can also zoom in and crop your photo.

Then play with the filters!

Share

You can hook your account up to your Facebook, Twitter and and Flickr and have them automatically update to those sites (you select where each individual photo is sent, it isn't automatic). You can also choose to make your photos private and just keep them for yourself - they don't have to have a social media component.

You can also follow friends right on Instagram and like and comment on friend's photos right there.

You can also see generally popular photos on the whole of Instagram.

And there's a news feed

It's a really fun app and I now take all of my photos with my phone using it. If you use it too - look for me and add me, I'm glidinglara.

Happy snapping!

Lara Wellman is mom to 4 year old Kiernan and 2 year old twins Quinn and Juliette. You can read her personal blog at Gliding Through Motherhood, about her weight loss journey at Losing it in Ottawa, and her social media blog at Larawellman.com

Social Media Monday : Blog syndication

by Karen I just wrote a blog post. Now what?

When I first started blogging in February 2009, I used to publish posts with zero promotion. I wasn't expecting followers nor did I particularly want any at the time - my content wasn't that interesting. I was blogging as an experiment initially, but when a couple of people found out, the encouragement I received actually made me want to continue. Eventually, I took the plunge and posted a link to one of my blog posts on twitter. Even though I had only about 100 followers at the time, I felt very exposed. It was nerve-wracking. Because I was on Blogger (which has no built-in stats) and hadn't set up Google Analytics, I have no idea if anyone even paid attention to my posts.

After committing to blog more regularly and moving to a more sophisticated blogging platform (Squarespace), I started to wonder how to promote my blog better and make it easier for people to follow me. So, how do people "follow" blogs?

RSS

The easiest way for people to follow a blog is through the RSS feed. RSS stands for really simple syndication. Every blogging platform allows RSS, via email or through the feed that goes to various readers. I use Google Reader. There are many readers out there. To follow a blog with a reader, you can copy and paste the home page of the blog into the reader to subscribe. This is pretty easy, but whenever I see a blog I want to follow that has a Feedburner link to the RSS, I mentally bless the blogger.

I. Love. Feedburner.

What's so great about Feedburner? It's just so darn easy - for the blog owner and their readers.

1. When I click on a Feedburner RSS link, I get to pick which reader I want to use out of about a dozen common readers and it adds it to my feed automatically. No copying and pasting.
2. As a blog owner with a Feedburner feed:

• I can see feed stats: how many subscribers I have and if my subscribers are actually clicking on my content (as opposed to marking all as read).
• I can change my domain, which changes my RSS feed link and my subscribers do NOT have to resubscribe. Why? Because I just go change the link in Feedburner. I recently did this and didn't lose a single subscriber. Feedburner, FTW!
• I can also subscribe to a bulletin for my feed that will tell me if there were any problems pulling the feed. Then it tells me when it's working again.

Networked Blogs Oh, how I love this tool.

It's actually a Facebook app, but you can use it to syndicate your blog posts to your twitter account. Networked Blogs is very easy to set up and it uses your blog's RSS feed to automatically share your latest post on your Facebook page, personal FB profile and/or twitter. This tool saves me time by helping me promote my blog when I'm busy doing other things. Other Networked Blogs users can also follow your blog through the app as well as like (or dislike) your posts.

Other Promotion Tools

Where and how many places you choose to promote your content is up to you, but there are lots of ways to get the word out about what you've got to say. Most of your promotion can be done automatically through various automated tools. For example, my Digg account is linked to my RSS feed, so it automatically "Diggs" new posts. Ping.fm also has the ability to broadcast to dozens of networks simultaneously. Just link up your account and Ping.fm does the work for you.

Is all of this required for blogging? Not at all. You get to choose for yourself just how much you want to do. That's the beauty of social media - it's completely customizable for everyone.

Karen is married to Matt and has an almost-3-year-old little boy named Brandon. You can read more about their lives at Karen's Chronicles.