Over the past few weeks, I’ve come up with a handful of reasons I’m not really digging Pinterest — from the cheesy logo to the gender-specific demographic (I’ve not seen the numbers, but I’d be willing to bet for every one guy on Pinterest, there’s 100,000 women).

After our head social media editor Anthony launched a Pinterest, I thought I’d dive in too, and that’s when I was faced with the real reason as to why I didn’t like Pinterest: It wasn’t the platform, it was me.

This would have been a better logo

Pinterest is for ‘pinteresting’ people. And I’m not one of them. In fact, spending a week on Pinterest has made me realize that, though I network with some very interesting people, I’m quite plain and boring.

Us boring people have gotten away with finding success on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter because we’ve been able to get away with just saying interesting things. But that’s changing with new social platforms like Tumblr and Pinterest, and even Facebook is morphing into a platform where doing things affects your social success.

Imagine if Rupert Murdoch suddenly stopped selling newspapers, or Howard Stern stopped broadcasting on the radio. Or Justin Bieber stopped creating the noise some call music. Would people still pay attention to what they had to say on Facebook and Twitter? Or would they sort of half-listen? Or would they listen at all?

I don’t claim to be an expert at social media, but I think I’ve figured out the formula for social success. It’s not about engagement (because, let’s face it, most of us suck at it). It’s not about having a conversation (it would be time-consuming and next to impossible to respond to thousands of at replies). It’s not about having an amazing personality (some of the most-interesting people on social have really crappy personalities). It’s not about having a cute avatar with a rockin’ background (unless you’re Justin Bieber).

Saying smart things + Being active in life and sharing it = Social success.

I’m going to work on not being as boring a person.