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I'm not sure why, but there seem to be a lot of new faces on Pinterest who are having a hard time figuring out how it works.

In particular I've seen the following a LOT recently:

• Comments on food pins asking "Where can I get the recipe for this?" when the pin goes to the recipe.
• Comments on product pins asking "Where can I get this?" when the pin goes to the store.
• People putting recipes into their descriptions or commenting on their own pins with recipes.

None of this is actually necessary. If we're following the good Pin Etiquette we're already pinning the original source (e.g.: the product page for a store rather than a magazine article talking about the product) on a permalink (e.g.: a specific blog post with the recipe rather than the front page of a blog).

So if you see something interesting on Pinterest and you want to know the who, what, where, whens of it there's just one thing to do:

Clicking on a pin you like will take you to the source of the pin. 99 times out of 100 that means you're immediately at the recipe, shop, tutorial, etc that you're looking for. If it takes you to a main page of a blog or store, you've found a not-so-great pin. Most likely the pinner doesn't know the correct link so there's no real use in asking. When I come across a mediocre pin I'm interested in I scroll through the blog (or whatever) and find the post that has the information. Then I use my "pin it" button to pin the post itself rather than repinning. This means not only will I be able to find what I'm looking for quickly, but anyone following me will have a solid pin to repin from then on.

I hope this is helpful. I think Pinterest is an amazing source of inspiration and when we're all using it to it's fullest we'll be a much happier community!

Happy pinning!