Pinterest may have started out as a place for women to share product images, but its meteoric rise as a social network makes it a great place for businesses too. Think of it as a place to share ideas in a visual way and be creative about how you can use Pinterest for profit from that perspective.
Users on Pinterest love to share and repin images from a whole range of categories. As with any social network you just need to find a balance between self-promotion, social networking, and making money.
Here are just a few ways you can use Pinterest for profit and promotion for your blog and business.
Promote Your Blog
If you have an image on your blog, it’s pinnable. For that reason alone, you should always add an image on each of your blog posts along with a “Pin it” button under each. Aside from that, readers are drawn to images and an interesting one encourages them to go on and read your article.
When you or a reader pins your image to Pinterest, it creates a direct link back to your blog. This not only adds to your link-building efforts, it can bring a whole new type of traffic to your site.
Create themed boards on Pinterest that are based on the categories on your blog, and make sure that you always pin your own blog post images to those boards. You can also create a board with the name of your blog and allow people to follow your blog via Pinterest.
If you have a free optin offer to build your email marketing list, pin images from this offer as well. When pinning your subscriber goodie to Pinterest, make sure you customize the url so it links back to your optin page. You don’t want to just pin it and have it link to your home page; you want the link to land on your optin page.
Involve Your Customers
Having group Pinterest boards is another way to engage your customers online. Not only can they pin their favorite images to your boards, but they can comment on them and share them with their friends and followers. When people enjoy interacting with your website, they’ll come back more often.
This not only builds your relationship with website visitors, but it gives you far greater opportunities to showcase your products and services.
When considering Pinterest for profit and promotion, think about building relationships with the people who already love your brand. Have a couple group boards and invite your brand ambassadors to join and pin. In this way, you have a perfect showcase of usability and credibility from third party sources for your business.
Cool Pinterest Tool:
Pin Alerts is a free online tool that allows you to quickly set up alerts allowing you track in real-time when someone pins an image from your website.
Whenever an image that links back to your website is pinned, Pin Alerts will send you a notification by email. This is extremely beneficial for any company interested in identifying which pins are popular.
It also allows you to take customer service to the extreme as you can quickly acknowledge and thank someone for his or her pin.
Use Pinterest Messaging
The Pinterest messaging feature is a great tool to start conversations with customers, share updates, and solicit feedback. Stay directly connected with your fans and take engagement a step further and focus on your fans who have already shown interest in specific products, topics, or services.
You might send them a personal message with a pin for your recent blog post, and a quick note about why they’ll find it helpful.
You could also share other pins that would be of particular interest to them, or even ask them to comment on a pin or post that is especially relevant to them.
Think of the possibilities of using Pinterest for profit and promotion for your business!
You can send updates to your customers through Pinterest messaging, with product updates, features, and special events. When you are working on a new product launch, connect with groups of key influencers and send group messages about your launch.
Inspire Your Customers
Often people only see your products in one way and for one purpose. Pinterest boards give you the chance to inspire different ways to use your products through visuals.
For example, if you sell wedding favors, you can show pictures of them at the table settings of customers’ weddings. That’s far more inspiring than a simple product image in your store.
Showing images of both the stock image of your product as well as the everyday use for your product gives your Pinterest followers the option to envision how they could use the product as well.
Show That You’re a Real Person
It’s always difficult to make a personal connection with people online vs. face-to-face. By including both business boards and personal boards in your Pinterest account, prospects and customers get to see some of your own interests. They start to see the real person behind the business persona.
Even if you are representing a large company, remember that customers are eager to know the real people behind the corporate face.
If you’re a small business or an entrepreneur, this is even more critical.
Use Pinterest as a part of your PR toolkit! Adding a board that highlights your press mentions also shows that you’re a real person. Show your customers that you’re affiliated with other brands and communities by highlighting events that you sponsor, guest appearances, guest blog articles, volunteer efforts, and other happenings that you would typically write about in a press release. All of these images ( and descriptions) will serve to demonstrate the credibility and popularity of your products and services.
Add Affiliate Links
You may not realize it, but you can also insert your own affiliate links on your pins. It’s a whole new way of doing affiliate marketing. You can create boards that are just product oriented and earn cash when people click those links and buy something. Just go into the “edit” button for a specific pin and replace the direct link to the product with your affiliate link.
Pinterest isn’t going anywhere any time soon and it is incredibly active. Make the most of Pinterest for profit and promotion, as a place to engage your customers and prospects. It presents a new opportunity to use social media for business from a completely different source.
Ciao,
Miss Kemya
How do you use Pinterest for business?
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I love this. I just discovered how Pinterest can be great for business. I will have to set up pin alerts. Thanks for the great tips! I look forward to reading more of your blogs…I’m actually going to pin this one!
YAY Stephanie! So happy you enjoyed it, and thanks for commenting. There are tons of goodies on my blog, please enjoy!
Wow – these are such amazing tips! I wasn’t aware of a good 50% of them! That explains a lot! Ha! Thank you so much for sharing these. So helpful to those of us who are not as familiar with Pinterest and its full potential.
So glad you found these tips useful DeBalino! Now go pin your heart out!
Great tips! I already use some of your suggestions, like always pinning my own images from my blog posts, but I’ll have to try out some of the other ideas. I’ve recently started creating themed boards for different holidays, promoting my content related to that time of year, along with other content my followers might like. I always think it’s a good idea to engage with trending topics.
Yes Mary, pinning on trending topics is a great way to get your pins shared by the masses. I haven’t pinned for holidays, but I think I will this year. Thanks for commenting!
Interesting post! I enjoy Pinterest – I’ll be using your tips to help promote my blog. 🙂
Great Kimberley, Pinterest is an excellent tool for bloggers! Happy Pinning:)
Thanks for all these great tips, I don’t have pinterest, but I will be signing up now. Saving this to refer to later!
Wonderful Aaron! Pinterest is really cool once you get the hang of it. Let me know how you like it!
I am a Pinterest addict and these are great tips to use Pinterest to its fullest. Thanks again. I’ll be pinning this and referencing for the future!
Great Cheryl, I’m glad you enjoyed it! And thanks for pinning:)
This is awesome. I am all over it. Pinterest is one of my favorite social media platforms and I have been looking for a way to push the business opportunities that Pinterest offers. Thanks for sharing.
You’re most welcome Dee Dee. I’ve been looking for ways to dive deeper with Pinterest for marketing as well, so I figured I’d do some research and find out!
Last I knew, Pinterest strips affiliate links from Amazon. Has that changed. Thanks for the great Pinterest tips!
I’m hearing it’s been stripping Amazon affiliate links, but many others remain. I’ve pinned affiliate links with success. I know they’re increasing their own monetization efforts as the platform evolves. Glad to provide some tips you can use!
Thank you so much for the tip about affiliate links on Pinterest! I had never thought about doing this before! I am going to start using this tip as soon as possible! 🙂
Glad to be helpful Amy Lou, thanks for stopping by!
Great tips! I love Pinterest and wish my home, meals, wardrobe etc could look as cool as the pins I re-pin. 🙂 Do they still allow affiliate links? I’ve tried with Amazon in the past and it didn’t seem to work. I’ve saved your post in Evernote because I know I’ll be coming back to it for ideas. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it Sibylla! Yes, I wish my personal life looked as glamorous as the pins on Pinterest too! Pinterest is movign away from affiliate links, but I just pinned one today. However, those shortened links were always a sore spot. Could that be why your Amazon link didn’t pin in the past?
Hi Kemya,
Great post! Very useful tips! I use Pinterest to promote each blog post that I publish. I also use it to research ideas of interest to me. I am delighted to read you suggestions for making the most of Pinterest. There are so many things that I don’t know about it. All the best, Deborah
Hi Deborah! I’m glad you enjoyed the post. I love Pinterest for research as well, it makes it a far more interesting process. Thanks for commenting:)
Awesome idea! I always share my posts on Facebook and Twitter but haven’t even thought to use Pinterest as a way to share my ideas. I’m not in it for business, just personal, but it is still such a fabulous idea! I love Pinterest too. It is one of my favorite apps on my iPad!
So many of us love Pinterest just for personal sharing, including me. I’m there for business, but I have quite a few personal boards too. Go for it!
I love Pinterest over any other social media outlet. I haven’t shared much of my blog until this post. I write about Genealogy a lot and never thought to share. Thank you. I signed up for your newsletter.
Wonderful Dawn, welcome to the community! Pinterest can work for genealogy too, give it a try:)
Miss Kemya, I love your post. Great insight and relevant content. My partners and I have been utilizing Pinterest, but we could grow our Pinterest platform.
I’m so glad you loved the post Bryant. There is always room for growth and expansion on Pinterest!
Wow, these are some great tips! I just recently set up a board for my blog posts, and have been considering creating a group board as well. I did not know about the affiliate links- I am definitely going to start using those! Thanks for the great tips!!!
You’re most welcome Miranda! I created my first group boards last year and they were great for visibility. Thanks for stopping by:)
I just created my Pinterest board for my blog. Nothing is there yet. This gives me ideas on what to post and how to link it. Thank you!!!
Yay Darlena, now you know what to pin!
Can’t wait to try this out! I haven’t even thought of using it that way before! Thanks!
I’m glad you learned something new Emma! Happy pinning!
Thank you for the useful tips. I am planning to pin my pictures from my blog!
Glad you enjoyed the post Noemi! Thanks for stopping by:)
This is so interesting. I hadn’t thought of some of these things before. I do always use pictures on my posts so I can pin them. I could do so much more though!
Yes Rena, we can dive deeper with Pinterest . beyond simply pinning images. Try a new tactic!
Wow! Some awesome smartness you have! Thanks for some good pointers and ideas!
My pleasure Jessica, glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you so much for sharing this, Miss Kemya. This is just want I needed to read. Adding your blog and this post to My To-Do list. Have a Fabulous Day!
Yay! Music to my ears Becky! Welcome and thanks for commenting:)
Thanks for sharing this post! Although I love social media, I am pretty much a Pinterest novice. These are really helpful tips.
You’re welcome Julie! Pinterest is a fascinating (and visually stunning) platform, Give it a try sometime!
Pinterest is a platform that I need to spend time on for my blog. Thank you for the tips!!!
Your’e most welcome Melissa! Pinterest can certainly supercharge your blog. Thanks for stopping by:)
As I think back, I am usually more interested in a business or a blog if I see the personality of a real person shine through. There is a fine line between business and personal life, but it is definitely worth it to give a sneak peek now and then to attract more customers and grow your authority.
I totally agree Aliaksandra! It’s much easier to build a relationship with a brand if you can see the human side of it. Thanks for commenting!
I’ve never thought about pinning my affiliate links, that was a great idea!
Neither did I Lisa, that is until I started writing this post. It’s time to get more creative with our content!
Oh wow that is an awesome post, thank you sharing it! I’ve learned a couple new tools. Right now I’m just using it to pin my posts. But will look into these tools you suggested.
You’re welcome Jennifer, glad you learned something! Happy Pinning:)
What a great list. I learned some new things here today. Thanks
Thanks Jean! Glad you found it useful!
Oh my bless you for doing this! I use Pinterest in hopes it will help my blog but now I will know how to do it accurately! Thank you, thank you, thank you – I really can’t say that enough! Any tips on twitter or Instagram?
You’re welcome Katy! I’m a Twitter-holic so I have tons of tips on that here – I haven’t blogged about Instagram yet, maybe it’s time to start!
Thank you so much for posting this. I learned several things reading this post. Pinterest is definitely an area that I need to devote more time to.
It’s such a robust platform Kali, I know I need to spend more time there as well. I know it’ll be worth it! Thanks for stopping by:)
Definitely not as well as you put forth here. I will have to check out some of your tips. I haven’t used it to interact with customers at all, but I will have to think more about that. Thanks. Pinning.
Thanks April! There are so many ways to use Pinterest, just experiment to see what works best for your biz. And thanks for pinning:)
These are great tips! I need to work this year on bettering my photography so I can make more appealing pins.
I’m with you Suzanna, I’ve gotten more image savvy and it’s solely because of Pinterest! Glad you found it useful, thanks for stopping by!
These are great ideas. I haven’t started using Pinterest yet for my business, and it feels overwhelming.
I’ll admit Gloria, it can be overwhelming. It certainly was for me. As with anything, just take baby steps to learn and get the hang of it. Totally worth it!
Thank you for sharing. I am going to check out Pin Alerts. I am just starting to get Pinterest going for my blog.
Hi Rachel! There are quite a few Pinterest tools that can help you manage your pinning activity. Have fun with it! Thanks for commenting:)
I really need to start using my Pintrest board for my blog more often! And I had no idea affiliate links could be pinned. Thanks for all the great tips!
You’re welcome Carla! As you can tell, Pinterest is a great platform for bloggers. Thanks for stopping by:)
Great tips! Thank you for sharing your insight. One board I have is Christmas Ornaments, which is one of the big things I sell around the holidays. I love the idea about boards for the different topics on my blog, though. I have more work to do on that! 🙂
Yes Holly, creating boards from your blog categories is one of the easiest ways to promote your biz.
Now you have ideas for more pins on your Ornaments board. Glad you enjoyed the post, thanks for commenting!
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This is very helpful information for a new blogger. I love Pinterest, yet up until now simply saw it as a personal place for me to keep ideas I want to try. This post has opened my eyes to the ability it has to go far beyond personal use. Thanks for the very detailed and simple steps you offered!
Yay Melissa! Dive in and promote your blog on Pinterest! The opportunities are (almost) endless. Thanks for stopping by!