Make Money Online With Pinterest

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest allows users to upload and save images or videos, create theme-based pinboards to categorize and manage them.  Since it is an image-sharing website, any users can search for images with keywords, get inspired by following other users or pinboards of interests, re-pin others’ images to your own pinboards,  ”like” images, or “share” them on twitter.   Pinterest used to be a “by invitation only” website, it opened to everyone since August, 2012. Its growth rate is exponential. After two years of establishment, by the middle of 2012,  it has grown to be one of  the top ten social networks. Some source named it the third largest social media in terms of unique monthly visitors.

Use Pinterest to drive traffic to your websites

A very important feature of Pinterest is to allow users to pin images outside of Pinterest by using the “Pin it” button.  You can download the button to your browser, whenever  you see something inspiring, you can just click the button to link to Pinterest.
How to drive traffic using Pinterest? If you have your own websites, you should add “Follow me” or “Pin it’ buttons on your website to encourage readers to pin your images onto Pinterest. Since each pin carries its own original source code, if  the pined image from your website gets “re-pined” and “Tweeted” by many users, for example,  your original link will automatically pass on to more audience. Isn’t this a great free traffic source?

How to get your pin “re-pined”, “liked” or “tweeted”?

Since Pinterest is all about images and photos, a breath-taking photo will instantly get repined all over the boards and spill over to other social medias. On the other hand, an unpolished image could turn away Pinterest users from getting to know your brilliant products as photos and images hold more weight on this site.  Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Who can benefit the most from Pinterest?

First of all, who are Pinterest’s loyal fans?

Women. According to engauge, 83% of the global users of Pinterest were women in 2012.

Then, what are the most popular topics on Pinterest?

Among over 30 categories on Pinterest, the most popular ones are Food and Drink, DIY & Cratfs, Fashion, Art and Home Decor.  

Retail companies have taken advantage of Pinterest for advertising and style trending. The web design provides an ideal layout for “style conscious retailers”, where products can easily be visualized within a consumer context. Companies like The Gap, Chobani, Nordstrom and West Elm use Pinterest as a tool for online referrals that link users with similar interests to a company.
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinterest

Pinterest is definitely a great place to show off your products or services if your niche fits neatly into the categories described above.

What about other categories?

All the pinboards on Pinterest are created by users. Using keyword search, you can find how many boards and pins of similar interests are already created. If your niche is among not the most popular topics, one trick to increase your exposure is to create many different-themed boards, especially some ever-green themed boards such as: trending fashion, cute kittens, bright colors, funny photos, birthday, natural wonders, etc.

Blend your product/service posts with other pins in those popular boards. When people come to your Pinterest account from some beautiful photos, they can find your other pins that link to your products, or curiously check into your special boards created for introducing your products or articles.

Get more exposure through contributor boards

When you create a new board, you have an option to invite other people to join the board as contributors. The only requirement is to be following at least one of the user’s Boards before adding them as a contributor. If people accept your invitation, they will become your followers. Not only this,  your board will automatically appear on the contributors’s pages and could be viewed by their followers too.   If their followers choose to “follow all” of your contributors boards, you get new followers from their pages too.

This method sometimes can backfire though if you are not careful in choosing who to invite.  There might be spammers that flood your boards, or porn artists that deface your boards.  So it is very important to monitor your contributor boards closely to make sure all contributions truly represent your brand/theme.

It is also a great idea to accept others’ invitations and contribute to others’ boards. This cross-traffic technique helps to build up followers dramatically.

More tips on make money with Pinterest

• Use keywords in your pin description part and your boards names. This will make people find your pins and boards easier using search box.
• Submit pins at the right time, ideally in the early morning or after dinner time. These time slots are pinners’ most active time, submit your images during these time can render more exposure.
• To avoid being treated as spammy, don’t pin your images all at once for too long.
• Repay the favor. If people liked or commented on your pins, don’t forget to say ‘thanks!’ by doing the same favor for them.
• Don’t forget to make it easy for others to pin your content on your websites by install a “pin it” button at an easy to find place.
• You can check what content from your websites have been pined by using this URL:  www.pinterest.com/source/yoursitehere.com/. You can then choose to make some comments on the pins or follow back to the pinners.
• Curate content, don’t just pin your own images, also pin interesting articles that match your niche.
• Don’t steal pins. This refers to change a pin’s original URL and repin it with a new destination. This could be reported and banned by Pinterest.
• Use “like” button on a pin to save it in your “like” section of your account. This is handy when you don’t need to create a new board for some interesting pins, but like to save it on your wish list or view it later again.
• If your pin is a product that has a price, you can type the $ or £ symbol followed by the price  in the description box, this way your pin will show up in the “Gifts” section of Pinterest.
• When you repin or comment on a photo, use @ followed by the user’s first name in your description or comment box. This way the user can be informed of your friendly action.
• Pinterest has both fabulous apps for iOS and Android users, you can download the app and start your instant pinning wherever you go.
• Top 10 on Pinterest.