Cool Pinterest Photo App Lets You Splice Images

Pinterest’s new user interface shows a larger image, then four smaller images. It’s an attractive way of highlighting your latest pins. And, just as people did when  Facebook used the photostrip on personal profiles and fan pages, users have found interesting ways to display images with the new layout. Eugene Chen developed a tool to help you splice a photo to create a pretty Pinterest board.

I mentioned the new app on the Blogging Basics 101 Facebook page and a fan commented with a great point: “It’s a cool hack but you can’t add any more pins to that board without screwing up the collage so I’m not sure how I’d really use it.” And she’s right. If you create a board like this, then every time you add a new pin, the display is messed up. So I asked my network of savvy social media peeps for some ideas for using this hack and they didn’t disappoint. Below are their suggestions.

• Marly Beelman of Namely Marly suggests using your company or product’s logo to create a branded board you place at the top of your Pinterest page. You could change it up as new campaigns or products roll out. That way when people visit your Pinterest profile, they immediately have an idea of what you’re all about. The board would have to be static (i.e., you wouldn’t add any new pins to it so as not to disturb the design), but the purpose is for branding only. Think of it like your Twitter wallpaper: It tells your new fans and followers a little about you, but it doesn’t change often.
• Emily Vanek of Colorado Moms suggests taking advantage of Pinterest addiction to food and creating an image that shows a yummy food dish. I think you could take that idea even further and show a large  picture of a table with a meal set out, then use images of the individual  food items in the small pictures. The small pictures would also link to the recipes for those dishes. advantage of Pinterest’s other addiction: decorating. Use the large picture to show the table, and the smaller pictures to show (and link) to the decorative items on the table.
• Tina Kelley of Hats Off Creative Media agrees and suggests that you can showcase several products this way. “If you frame the shot right each of the mosaics would be highlighting a particular product, but when viewed as a whole you see the many of the products.”
• Fadra Nally of Social Dialect sees an opportunity for marketers to use this new app to their advantage. She suggests creating a giveaway centered around guessing a scrambled picture. You can ask participants to unscramble the picture and pin the items in the correct order on their own boards to win.

TIP: If you want to create a board, but are worried you will change the display with new pins, I suggest mapping your board first. Think about what you want the board to be and what it will include. Then create the board and add your pins. Leave the spliced cover image until the end. That way, the cover image is the last thing you pin and it shows up as the cover image for the board.

So what do you think? Would you use this Pinterest hack to create a pretty Pinterest board? If you do, leave your link in comments here and over on the Blogging Basics FB Fan Page so we can all check it out!