How bloggers should feature other bloggers’ content.

Let’s talk about how bloggers should feature other bloggers’ content. I will confess, this blog post roots from a pet peeve of mine. It drives me crazy when I find an image on Pinterest that looks interesting and then I click it and it takes me to a post that has shared another blogger’s image and a link to their blog. Then, I have to click that link to get to the actual article.

In my opinion, this is the impolite way to feature other people’s content. You are using someone’s hard work to get traffic to your site. It’s kinda like stealing.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a great idea to feature other bloggers’ content! Many bloggers do round up type posts or something along the lines of  “Friday Favorites” article. That’s great, but there is a polite way to do it.

Ask for Permission first

This seems obvious, but many bloggers forget. Before you post an article featuring another blogger’s content send them a quick email, tweet, or comment on the post asking to make sure it is okay for you to feature their post. Most likely, they will be flattered that you want to feature their article, but you should always check first. Asking for permission to feature another blogger has many perks: 1 you protect yourself from copyright laws and offending another blogger (Check out Taylor’s article if you want to read more about copyright laws and featuring bloggers images). 2 You are building a relationship with another blogger. 3 you now have people waiting for your article to post.

Now, let’s get on to how you can share other blogger’s articles. Below are two ways you can feature other blogger’s content

• Disable “pins” from other blogger’s content
• Use embedded pins to feature other blogger’s content

Disable “pins” from other blogger’s content

In my last blog post, I featured 5 other bloggers’ articles on things they wish they had known when they started blogging. This article is an example of how to share other bloggers’ images with out getting credit from their images via Pinterest. Go over and check it out, try to pin one of their images. You can’t (at least, you shouldn’t be able to if you are using the official Pinterest pin button). I don’t want people to pin Stephanie’s image and then later come back to read that article, I want them to be able to go directly to Stephanie’s article.

How to prevent pinning of a single image

In order to prevent readers from pinning an image on your site, you need to add some code to the image. Before we go through the steps on how to do it, I need to do a little explaining.

You already know that I love WordPress, but there is one thing about WordPress that drives me crazy. Sometimes, when you put code into the text editor and then switch back to the visual mode, WordPress will delete code it thinks is an error. It does this to help inexperienced HTML’ers out (yep, made up that word). But, it’s not always accurate. Disabling pins is an example of this. WordPress will want to delete the code we are putting in because it doesn’t recognize it. To get around this, you must publish the post without leaving the HTML editor screen. So, make this step the last thing you do before you schedule or publish your post. Okay, on to the details.

Once you have your post written, and the images located where you want them to be, switch to the text editor. Find the image you want to prevent from being pinned.

Add this code to the end of the image tag:

That’s all. Pinterest will no longer allow that image to be pinned. Repeat those steps for every image you feature other bloggers’ content within the post. Once you’re done, remember not to switch back to Visual mode. Hit Publish or schedule your post to publish later.

Use embedded pins to feature other blogger’s content

Another way to feature other blogger’s content in a post on your blog is to embed Pinterest pins in your article. This will encourage interaction on your Pinterest boards while linking directly back to the author’s article.

How to embed a Pinterest pin in your blog post

First, find the article you want to feature and then pin it to one of your boards. Open the pin and then copy the URL address.

Head to Pinterest’s Widget Builder, click on Pin Widget and then paste the URL into their box. Click Build it!

Once it is done, copy the generated code and go to your blog post.

Just like the instructions above, this works best if it is the last thing you do before publishing your blog. Switch over to the Text editor and go to the area you want the embedded pin to show up and then paste the code. Hit Publish or Schedule for later.

You need to make sure to include the pinit.js  right before the closing </BODY> tag in order for this to work. The great thing is that you only have to do this once and then you can embed Pins in any post or page!

How to add the pinit.js to closing </body> tag

If you use a Genesis theme, this is super easy!

Head to Genesis > theme settings and scroll down to the Footer Script box and paste it in there.

If you don’t have a Genesis theme, you will need to install a plugin like header/footer scripts to complete this task.

How to promote a blog post with featured content

Now that you’ve given proper credit where it is deserved, it is okay to promote your post too! You did, after all, put a lot of effort into featuring the blog content.

Create a graphic for Pinterest that explains your post: Top 5 featured blog posts this week! or 20 Mason jar ideas. That is the content you deserve the traffic from.

One last thing, when you feature content that isn’t your, Pinterest is never the source. Ever. I have read countless blogs where they feature an image and then write “Source: Pinterest.” Track down the original author/creator and list them as the source.

There you have it, my first Blog Etiquette post. How do you feel about featuring other bloggers’ content? How do you feel about bloggers featuring your article?

Sources: http://help.pinterest.com/en/articles/prevent-pinning-your-site