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.

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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.

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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?