During the last few months a number of our Memolane fans have requested that we support Pinterest. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this service, it is basically a virtual pinboard where you can organize craft ideas, recipes, and your favorite inspirational pictures found on the web.
One of our fans, Carrie McGann, has in fact found a way to elegantly display her curated Pinterest boards using Memolane. I was lucky enough to speak with her about how she was able to create stunning lanes. Think your Pinterest board is good enough to be featured on Memolane? Find out how and get all the pointers from Carrie in our interview below:
Thanks Carrie for taking the time to share your Pinterest knowledge with us. I’m sure that it will inspire a large number of Memolane fans. Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?
I am currently a licenced real estate agent in California and also a freelance photographer and graphic designer. My background is in sales and marketing, I was with Coca-Cola for much of my career. The excellent insights from those experiences are something I’ll always have. Now my focus is creating effective visuals and strategies for those I serve. The ways we connect with people is always evolving, especially with social media. My creativity is inspired by seeing new trends, meeting new people and helping those who want to learn.
Carrie, you have a lot of followers on Flickr and you mentioned that how we connect with people is always evolving. How and when did you become interested in using community networks to connect with other people?
Flickr was my first social network. I first heard of Flickr back in 2004 as I was visiting a site called Daypop. Daypop was a current events index that would crawl sites for news bursts and trends. On Daypop, I saw a night shot of the neon at Tower Theater in Sacramento [by Tom Spaulding] and I just had to click to find out more! It brought me to Flickr and I thought it was the greatest thing. Once I joined Flickr, it opened up a whole new aspect of photography. Through its community, I’ve met so many wonderful people. I was looking for Coke pictures one day and discovered a photographer who lived right behind me when I was in college, another guy whose kids went to the same elementary school as I did, and a lady who went to college with my mother in the 50′s.
It seems like Flickr really created a great community of photographers. Did you meet anyone inspiring?
One of the friends I met on Flickr was Takahiro Yamamoto. I met him while I was doing a fundraiser on Flickr for Japan Quake and Tsunami Relief in March 2011. I admired his work and his comments were always delightful. He had started using G+ and I signed up not long after. At the end of 2011, he announced he was going to curate the Creative366Project and I was all in! It was Takahiro that brought Memolane to my attention as he created a lane for the Creative366Project. It is wonderful to see everyone’s photos for the Creative366Project automatically refreshed every day in its special lane!
For those of you that don’t know, the Creative366 Project is a group that promises to post something “creative” each day of the year. Carrie, have you created any of your own groups on Flickr?
One of the first people to ever comment on one of my photos sent me an invite to a group about beaches around the world. I thought if I started some groups myself and selected some photos, it would be a way to organize pictures I liked, share them with others and meet new people. A little over a year ago, while searching for photos that would be a good fit for the groups on Flickr, I was noticing that more of the ones I liked were taken with an iPhone. So I converted one of my slower groups and called it “Amazing iPhoneography“. It’s gone from 3 members to 10,000 and growing!
The iPhoneography album seems to have gained a lot of traction within the Flickr community. It also seems like your inspiration to collect Flickr photos and put them in a group is exactly what Pinterest now allows you to do. Was this the initial appeal of Pinterest?
I was an early adopter of Pinterest as I thought it would be a good extension of what I was already doing on Flickr with the groups. On Flickr, there are “Favorites” groups for the best photos in my Color Escape and DazzlePix groups. Every week, whenever possible, the favorites are selected and invited into the groups. Being shareable is not a requirement for a photo being chosen for the groups, the shareable ones are the ones that will also be seen on Pinterest. With Pinterest, the best of the best are organized by color or theme.
What inspired you to add Pinterest to your Memolane?
It was the ability to add RSS feeds on Memolane. On Pinterest, I have a board called Daily Eye Candy. I like starting out my day with something positive! With Pinterest, it’s easy to make any board an RSS feed just by adding the letters “rss” after the backslash at the end of the URL for that board. One of the best things about Memolane is that you can create a unique lane for something specific. Then choose [content] from any of the various social networks and/or an RSS feed to be displayed in that lane. It’s so nice to be able to see RSS feeds visually rather than as a list. And speaking of starting out my day with something uplifting, I really enjoy the Memomail each morning with my memories from one or two years ago!
In your opinion, what aspects of Memolane are the most vital for showing off your pins from Pinterest?
Anything that can be shown off needs a community for it to be successful! Being able to interact and to share is vital. On Memolane, if I like a ‘memo’, I can fave it and/or comment on it. Maybe I haven’t seen it before or maybe I have if they are on a network I’m also on. If I’ve come across something that I like, it’s good to let the person who posted it know and that helps build community.
Memolane gives us a whole new way to look at things all in one place.
It’s easy to share a lane to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, by email or you can even embed a lane into a WordPress blog.
What do you think it is about Pinterest that makes it intriguing?
When you look at people’s Pinterest boards, it tells a lot about them. Maybe even more than a written profile. If you have a brand, it can give a glimpse of what your brand stands for. I wanted to make sure that my Pinterest boards would have quality photography and be something that people would enjoy visiting.
Do you have any advice for Pinterest fanatics that want to use Memolane?
Pinterest is an unstoppable force and there are a lot of fanatics! People are really having fun with it in their own ways. The beauty of Memolane is that you can create a lane with customized input from the social networks you are a part of and combine it with RSS feed from sites you are interested in. Once a lane is set up, the rest is automatic. Everything appears without it being a time consuming process. My advice would be to take a chance, be creative and enjoy it!
Where can the Memolane community find out more about your Pinterest boards and curated lanes?
You can find me on Pinterest here.
My curated lanes on Memolane are here: All My Memories and Daily Candy
If you think your Pinterest lane is just as good as Carrie’s then email katie@memolane.com and share your link. Who knows, you might be the next Pinterest superstar featured on Memolane!
.
