No Longer a Pinterest Addict

How do I start this post? Do I just come out and say I don’t go on Pinterest anymore? Or at least very much? Or do I explain that all the joy has gone out of trying new pins because Pinterest is not the same as it was? I guess I could do both – and some of the other reasons I haven’t been on here much.

I started this blog, Pinterest Addict, in 2011, after I was invited to join Pinterest and it opened my eyes to all its many wonders – all the links, all the ideas, all the information! It was like opening my eyes and finding I was no longer in the world as I knew it. It was suddenly full of kindred spirits, and so many things to try out and do that I had never even imagined. I guess you could say I wasn’t much of a blog person before Pinterest. To be honest, I wasn’t even aware that they existed. But wow, I was suddenly following dozens of them – all the original DIY bloggers like Kate at Centsational Girl (now called Centsational Style), John and Sherry at Young House Love, Charlotte at Charlotte’s House (although it was called something else before). The list was long and they were all so much fun to follow. I started doing new things, trying new hobbies, making crafts, buying stuff I didn’t need, and of course, figuring out which pins were amazing and which were B.S. The ones that didn’t work out were usually the most fun, actually.

I loved Pinterest for what it was… a virtual pinboard of ideas from all over the world delivered straight to my computer.

And then… Pinterest messed with all the things, and it’s no longer what it was in the beginning. They changed everything that made it great. People started stealing images from my blog and redirecting the traffic to other websites – and Pinterest either did nothing, or deleted ALL the images/links, including the legitimate ones from my blog, and crushed any traffic I was getting from them.

I think I’ve gone on Pinterest three times in the last year, and I’m probably overstating that number. And those times, I went to find recipes that we had tried before and loved (and therefore already had pinned). There are no more days where I scroll through the ideas and pretty pictures, or see what my blogger friends have posted. It’s all about ads and professional photos… It’s just not fun anymore. Not to mention that as a blogger who relied on the clicks to my website, they changed everything about their algorithms and what/who they showed, and suddenly, the traffic from Pinterest to my blog was almost nothing. When bloggers tried to address these issues, Pinterest ignored us. They tried to say we needed to create new posts, pin more times a day, etc, etc… but it was bologna. We were creating free content for their website, but they didn’t want to send the readers our way.

Yes, I realize that Pinterest is a business, and of course Pinterest would want to keep people on their site, but if we were creating the content for them, wouldn’t it have made sense for them to give back to us? It became a game of trying to figure out what they wanted us to do to get views and clicks each time they changed things.

I can’t blame it all on Pinterest. As time went on, life got in the way of me keeping up with blogging. We moved a few times, adopted our girls, and moved again. Life was insanely busy, and it was overwhelming and a little bit scary to share what was really going on behind the scenes. It was a kind of a mess to be perfectly frank. I couldn’t share that, and be judged or condemned for my failures as a mother. Nope, wasn’t going to happen. I even went back and deleted the adoption posts. I was already so sensitive about not being the perfect adoptive parent, I could not imagine having anyone else pile on the criticism.

By then, DIY blogging became the business it is today, I quickly learned I couldn’t keep up with the professionalism some of the bloggers brought to the table. There are so many people out there slaying this profession. And then there was me, I was just doing this mostly for fun. I figured since I couldn’t compete with them and “win”, I stopped trying. Somewhere along the way, I just stopped posting all together.

Now, as I realize how much I miss blogging and the friendships it created, I struggle to figure out what to do about this blog. Do I rename it? Start over? Go back to Pinterest and see if I can find enough new ideas to try and report back on? (I’m not really hot on that idea, if I’m honest) I think Pinterest Addict had outgrown its original intent a long time ago. What would you do? Do you have any clever names I could change it to? I don’t want to walk away from this blog all together, but it seems silly to try to stay on the same track as before. I’m open to suggestions – lay them on me!

Before I close this post, I wanted to say thank you for all the years you’ve stuck by me. The friendships that I’ve found over the years from writing this blog have been such a joy to me. I appreciate your loyalty and hope you’ll continue to stick by me in the future as I make a few changes to the blog and the direction it is headed.

Thanks for stopping by,

Eliesa