Pinterest is one of the hottest social networks which has been gaining steam and growing in the public consciousness since it launched in 2010. The difference with Pinterest is that this is a social network in which users can share their favorite things. You can also easily integrate and share things you organize on Pinterest with your other social network profiles like Facebook and Twitter.
Admittedly, Pinterest sounds like virtually every other social network in one way or another which has come along in the last few years. The reason you should care is because its membership has grown nearly 50 times over in the last 6 months alone and it’s ranked at number 42 for the entire world in terms of websites at the time of this article; this is a massive audience which you can take advantage of. Because Pinterest places a focus on interests, you can use it very effectively to promote your niche to an audience which is ripe and ready to be marketed to without their even realizing it.
In doing a bit of Alexa research, we can see that this site is wildly popular amongst younger white women under the age of 35. Don’t believe me? Check out the comments section of virtually any pin to see the proof firsthand. If you work in a niche which has a similar demographic such as fashion, then Pinterest is a perfect fit for you.
First thing’s first, set up an account at Pinterest. It’s simple to do but there’s a short few day approval process which is used to space out new members to make sure that their servers don’t get overloaded (I said it was blowing up).
After you’ve been approved, you can start creating “pins” which are made up of text, a link pointing to your site, and most importantly the image. Pins are grouped within niches called “boards”. Pinterest is a visually focused site; the image associated with a pin is the focal point and what generally gets someone to click on it, so you’ve got to make it good.
People can find your pins through a number of methods. First they can obviously see it if it was shared to them by someone else who saw and liked it on Pinterest. No matter how many times your pin is repinned or shared in some way, it always retains its (your) link, so that’s an invaluable source of traffic for you the more you can get it shared. Note that it is a no-follow link, as if you expected anything differently.
They can also find it and you’ll receive a lot of traffic if and when your pin initially shows up on the main site. It seems somewhat random as to which pins show up there as it doesn’t matter if they have been shared, liked, repinned, or commented on a lot.
You can obviously also search for keywords on Pinterest to find pins relating to what you’re looking for, so keyword research plays a role here just like everywhere else.
Also important to mention is that just like with Twitter (see how to get more followers on Twitter) you can build up a following count specifically for Pinterest and your followers will be able to see your new pins and activity, so it’s very valuable to amass a sizable following. I’ll give more tips for getting more followers, how to make money with Pinterest, and how to use it better in general next time.