By now I am sure you have heard of Pinterest and may have even received an invite to the online pin board sharing site. At first look, it is exactly that, an online site that allows you to pin images to a virtual pin board and then share the images with your friends. I am sure, on the surface, that doesn’t sound very exciting and that was my first reaction. However, once you begin to look a little harder at Pinterest, it becomes clear that there is a huge marketing potential there. Just think about it for a moment, Twitter gives you 140 characters to get your message across while Pinterest gives you a thousand words or so the saying goes.
In addition to the ‘1000’ words, each image you pin on your board also gets a link attached to them meaning that you can use Pinterest to steer traffic towards your blog or other selling platform. In addition to self-promotion, you can also steer traffic towards some of your cross marketing partner platforms. There is really no limit to what you can do and I am going to give you some interesting examples later on to illustrate this point.
I want to take a second to explain a little more about the pin boards themselves. Each pin board lets you pin a lot of items to them, However, on your profile view, your friends will only see the last nine that you pinned. When they open the board they can see the older ones. You get to name the board as you see fit which allows you to group your images into easier to navigate themes. I have a board that is named blog.candacemountain.com where I pin the best image from each post as another way to promote the articles that I post here. I also have a board where I promote books I like which includes my novel, The Daughter of Man, as well as my favorites from other authors.
Now it is time for that example I hinted at earlier. This example truly illustrates just how brilliant Pinterest can be as we theoretically set up our very own bookstore. Pinterest allows you to add a lot of pin boards which you could then set up as the various genres. You could have a genre for horror, romance, westerns, science fiction, mystery, and as many other genres you can think of. You can then pick and fill each board with the appropriate books you wish to sell. Here is where you make money; you would first set yourself up as an amazon affiliate and use your affiliate links for the books. You won’t get rich off of this, however if you promote your Pinterest enough you will certainly make some money.
Keep the above example in mind because here is where Pinterest takes it one step further. When someone likes an image on one of your boards they have the option to re-pin it onto one of theirs. The book they re-pinned will come with your affiliate link thus if any of their friends buys the book going through their pin board, you make money on that sale too. This is very cool and it illustrates the power of Pinterest. If you have awesome images, they will get re-pinned and your brand with appropriate links attached will spread.
Sometimes sharing links comes with a bit of a stigma and a lot of people don’t like to do it. Pinterest has completely bypassed this fear because people will view it as sharing pictures which has much less stigma attached. Awesome pictures will go a long way and your brand’s reach will become more than you could have hoped for. Pinterest is still the new kid on the block and it is going to grow and grow very fast as more and more people discover it. This is a perfect time to get involved with Pinterest and get your images out there for people to see, re-pin, and experience your brand message.
I hope you have found the above information useful and I urge you to consider signing up for email notifications so that you will be the first to know when a new article hits. I mentioned above that I am an author and I pay my bills when people buy my extremely awesome novel, The Daughter of Man. Please take a few minutes and visit the Amazon page and read some reviews or grab the free sample of my book as I would be greatly appreciative. In closing, thank you for coming and please feel free to leave your thoughts on Pinterest below in the comments. I would love to hear what your first pin-board will be named or is named if you are already using Pinterest.
38 comments
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Liz
January 31, 2012 at 12:30 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It’s going to be fascinating to see how this evolves. I see a lot of potential.
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Agreed, it will be one of those ones I think I will be glad I got in early on.
Anne Thomas
January 31, 2012 at 12:31 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thanks! I now have a clue what to do with Pinterest
Thanks to you
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I am very happy my article helped
Matthew Weber
January 31, 2012 at 12:31 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I signed up, but haven’t found a use for it yet. I am still trying to get Google+ to be productive for me.
Great article.
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Google+ got off to a sluggish start but I see it picking up already a little.
(e)CLAU
January 31, 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
very interesting article:)
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 1:07 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thank you kindly
Cole Ruddick
January 31, 2012 at 12:35 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Great article & a really cool idea! Being so new to Pinterest, it’s always good to see how people have found uses for it. Thanks
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 1:08 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You’re welcome Cole
Erin Patrick
January 31, 2012 at 12:37 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Candace,
The president of an ad agency just told me that record amounts of time are being spent on Pinterest. People are using the time they spent on fb, on Pinterest instead…so…the potential there is huge!
Thanks for the great post!
~Erin
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 1:08 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It is getting huge, you are so right Erin!
Nicolas Liu
January 31, 2012 at 12:46 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thanks for sharing. This is the first post about Pinterest I read slowly (others, I never read past the first paragraph though I shared them through social media channels), and like the idea to setup a board for each of my blogs. The success is in action – so I’ll review my account setting and adding all necessary links.
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 1:09 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It is a great opportunity and I am certain you will do well with it Nicolas
Jill
January 31, 2012 at 1:05 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I don’t have a board yet, probably things I want to buy at some point.
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 1:10 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
There is no time like the present to jump in with both feet.
last baby boomer
January 31, 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Part of me wants to join but the other part knows I just do not have the time.
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 2:12 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
The beauty of it is that it really doesn’t take a lot of time to get started.
mike
January 31, 2012 at 2:27 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I love your genre example… With such a great demographic that is playing in Pinterest I’m fascinated to see how this evolves.. While yes it is the new kid on the block I have A LOT more friends on FB that are in Pinterest than in twitter or G+ and every day I’m getting more people that I see are following.. Guess I better find the time to get those boards filled
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 2:28 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Agreed, it is literally exploding into popularity.
steven healey
January 31, 2012 at 5:31 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Great Blog post Candace
Pinterest is addictive
http://pinterest.com/stevenhealey/
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 7:21 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I have heard that it is beginning to drive more traffic on the web than Facebook, Twitter and Google+ combined. If true, then wow!
Bonnie Sayers (autismfamily)
January 31, 2012 at 5:53 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I like the title of this post. I have seen many pins with a link to a tumblr or blogpost but did not know that if I clicked it on that it would take me to the site, thought it took me to the pin.
I will have to try clicking on one as I am an amazon associate and some good ideas to consider.
I heard you can get a pin button to pin things, but I cannot figure out where and how, so I just use the search or repin and have yet to do my own pins.
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 7:19 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thank you Bonnie
Once you have a Pinterest account of your own there is a pin it add on that you can get on their site to simply drag to your bookmark bar. This will allow you to hit it whenever you find content on the web that you want to add to one of your boards.
Vickie Wyman
January 31, 2012 at 7:16 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Great post Candace!
I absolutley love Pinterest and am learning how to use it to promote my business. I also like to use it as a type of book mark for things I want to remember to go back to. I have the ‘pin-it’ bookmarklet in my tool bar which makes it so simple to use!
camountain
January 31, 2012 at 7:33 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
The possibilities are endless
S.E. Shurtleff
January 31, 2012 at 9:34 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Very unique take on the power of Pinterest. TONS of my friends are already addicted, I think you’re on to something.
camountain
February 1, 2012 at 2:23 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thank you S.E., I see it growing bigger than we think it will go.
Luke Brassinga
February 1, 2012 at 2:18 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Great piece on the up and coming newb Pinterest!!! Believe it or not, I’m still “In line” for my account. But am very interested in getting my hands on it and examining it. Looks like there might even be some SEO benefits??? Guess I’ll have to wait and see. Again, well done!
camountain
February 1, 2012 at 2:27 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
You were so kind to leave a comment that I just went over to Pinterest and sent you an invite.
Bill DeRosa
February 1, 2012 at 4:21 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Interesting analysis about “sharing pictures which has much less stigma attached”. I very much agree.
Pinterest is becoming a powerful marketing channel. In our business, we see an increase of people coming to our facebook page (we set our pins to go to our page) over time. If done *right*, this could definitely become a player in the social media marketing world.
We shall see
Anji
February 2, 2012 at 1:51 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Its such a cool way to keep the images you find on the web in one place instead of having to save them! And it’s even more useful now since we’re so used to consuming information visually! Text is just too much now!
Kermit
February 2, 2012 at 6:19 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Wonderful write, trendy webpage layout, carry on the good work
Chris Wood
February 3, 2012 at 1:14 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I am attempting to use Pinterest with my original poems and photos. Any suggestions would be certainly welcome! Thanks for the great article… I agree that Pinterest is only beginning to rock ‘n roll! http://pinterest.com/cwoodrock/
camountain
February 3, 2012 at 1:26 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I took a look at your Pinterest and live what you have done so far. As you add more and more, some great grouping ideas will no doubt come to mind.
Tricia
February 5, 2012 at 8:18 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Great post… lots to think about… thanks for sharing this with us…
deanna cameron
February 6, 2012 at 12:31 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I don’t know if what I’m doing with it could be considered “promoting my book” or not. I’m having so much fun, I really don’t care, though. Seriously, this site is addictive. Thanks for a great article, candace…
Go Inspire Beauty
February 8, 2012 at 10:22 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Thank you for the GREAT article. I am a Pinterest newbie and really hadn’t thought about the possibilities for affiliate marketing and blog promotion. I am now even more excited about using it!