How to Increase Your Pinterest Engagement by 275%

Must-Have Social Meta Tags for Twitter, Google+, Facebook and More

we strive to include social media metadata in all new pieces of content that we publish. This allows us to optimize for sharing Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Pinerest by defining exactly how titles, descriptions, images and more appear in social streams. Think of it as conversion rate optimization for social exposure.

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When Does Blocking Become Anti-social on Pinterest and Twitter?

I’m often asked about the privacy of using social media. The question usually goes something like this: “If I have a friend or acquaintance who I’d prefer didn’t see my posts, should I just block them?” I always respond with the statement, “Most social media is public.” I say most, because Facebook is definitely more of a private network,

12 Awesome Pinterest Tools To Power Up Your Marketing

It’s taken just three years but the image-sharing site Pinterest now boasts 70 million global users. According to Global Web Index, Pinterest has also dethroned Twitter to become the fastest growing social platform in the world by active users in Q2 of 2013. This explosive growth may be due to the unique demographics of Pinterest users

How to Make Money on Pinterest: 24 Tips

If you think Pinterest is just a place to post pictures of wedding dresses and baby photo ideas, think again. Pinterest is a great network to tap into to sell to people who prefer the more visual side of things. We know you’ve read plenty about how to set up your Pinterest profile, create boards, and build followers. So we’re going to skip all of that and dive right into ways you can monetize your Pinterest account by using it to grow your mailing list, sell products, offer services, increase book sales, and promote affiliate products.

(Interested in learning how to monetize your other social media accounts? Check out our recent guides on how to make money on YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn. And for even more Web monetization tips, become a MonetizePros member, or sign up for the MonetizePros free email newsletter.)

Grow Your Mailing List

Want to build your mailing list through Pinterest? While you can’t put an opt-in form directly on your Pinterest boards, you can encourage people to subscribe. Here are some tips to transition Pinterest users to your mailing list.

1. Pin an image of where people can go to subscribe. If you have a well-designed opt-in page, take a screenshot of it, upload it to Pinterest, edit the link to point back to your opt-in page, and tell people why they should describe in the description. This way, people who only follow you on Pinterest will know where to go for more information.


2. Focus on making the giveaway. If you have an incentive for signups, make sure you have some great images to represent it. This could include quotes from inside an e-book, stats from a whitepaper, or a sample of a free video training course.


3. Go with eye-catching stock photography. If you don’t have a giveaway or fancy opt-in page, find an image that gets people’s attention. Then make the description for the image count and, of course, link it to your opt-in page.


4. See what other businesses are doing to encourage signups from Pinterest by searching for call-to-action words like “sign up” and “join our mailing list.” You’ll get a lot of great ideas by checking out what others are doing.

Sell Digital Products

Whether you are selling an information course, app, or software, you have several options to promote it on Pinterest.

5. Share some statistics in an image. If there’s a great stat that would encourage people to buy your product, put it in a visually-appealing image, and pin it. For example, if you sell a mobile app that helps people get fit, share some statistics about fitness.


6. Turn your sales page into an infographic. Infographics are popular on Pinterest. Create a stunning infographic that takes people through a specific problem and how your product will help them. Then link the infographic to your real sales page.


7. Create an explainer video. This is a video that walks potential customers through identifying a specific problem and showing how your product will help them solve it. Remember that people’s attention spans are short; so you’ll need to make your points clearly, but also quickly. Include a link to your sales page in both the video and in the pin itself. That way, even if someone repins the video, your link will be with it regardless.


8. Offer a preview on Pinterest. If you have a video course, share one of the videos from the course on Pinterest, and link the video and your pin back to your sales page so people can learn more.

Sell Physical Products

Physical products are the best sellers on Pinterest. Here’s how to photograph yours to increase the likelihood of click-throughs and sales.

9. Show your product in use. In addition to traditional product images, show your product in use. If it’s home decor, photograph it in an appropriately decorated room. If it’s a makeup product, show someone applying it. If it’s clothing, show someone wearing it in a real-life situation, like a business suit in a meeting. Show people what it would be like to own the product.


10. Repin your customer’s photos of how they use your products. Get additional content for your Pinterest boards that work like testimonials. Offer customers an incentive if they share a pin they have posted of them using your product. This will show potential customers visiting your profile even more real-life applications of your product.


11. Take advantage of Pinterest’s rich pins functionality. This will help your product — and your business — stand out on Pinterest.


12. Offer a discount with a product photo. This way, people will not just see the product, but will also get excited about the discount, potentially generating more sales.

Offer Services

Do you have a service-based business? If the answer is yes, you can promote it on Pinterest in the following ways.

13. Create a portfolio board with examples of your work. Edit each pin and link it back to your portfolio page or your sales page for that particular service.


14. Turn customer testimonials into fancy quote images and pin them to a testimonial board. Edit each pin and link it back to your testimonials page or your sales page for that particular service.


15. Pin video testimonials from your customers to that same testimonials board.


16. Share small tips. For example, if you’re a Web designer, maybe you could have a board with a “tip of the week” for small business website design such as adding a beautiful footer design to your website. If businesses who follow you can’t implement your design tip, they might call upon you to do it for them.

Increase Book Sales

Do you have a book or e-book for sale? Want to spread the word (pun intended!) on Pinterest? Try these tricks!

17. Create a board on your Pinterest profile for your books or e-books. This way, people visiting your profile can get to know you as an author and easily find your work.


18. Create those fancy images with a great quote in them. Upload them directly to Pinterest, then edit the pin to add a link to your book or e-book.


19. Better yet, create a landing page on your website for the book. On that page, include a section of pinnacle quotes, and encourage visitors to share them on Pinterest using the Pin It button and a call to action. Think of it like the movie websites where they offer desktop wallpapers, but pinnacle images for your book instead.


20. Run a contest where people have to pin a book they want to win and explain what they hope to learn from it. Not only do you get entrants excited about the book and ready to buy if they don’t win it, but it creates mini-Pinterest testimonials across the network. Be sure that your contest doesn’t overstep thePinterest contest guidelines.

Promote Affiliate Products

Affiliate marketing on Pinterest can be tricky. There was a time when you could pin an image from an affiliate link or edit the link associated with the image to an affiliate link. But while there are no official rules in the Pinterest Terms of Service about whether or not you can use affiliate links, they do fight them. For example, if you have an Amazon affiliate link to a product you’ve pinned, Pinterest will strip the “tag=youraffiliate-20″ from the link when it forwards Pinterest users to Amazon.

An alternative to this was to post a bit.ly (or other) shortened link to the item instead, but now Pinterest either warns users about the link before they get redirected to the site or blocks it all together. This also goes for redirect links that you create on your own website.

So how do you promote affiliate products on Pinterest? Here are some tips.

21. Test the affiliate link first. Pinterest strips tags from known affiliate networks like Amazon, but smaller networks and websites may make it through. Until someone reports them at least.


22. Pin images from your review post about a product. This way, people can click the affiliate link from your review post instead.


23. Pin images from list-style posts like “My 50 most recommended favorite marketing books of 2013.” People love lists, and if each of your items has an affiliate link, then you’re likely to get sales.


24. Pin a YouTube video review of an affiliate product with an affiliate link. While Pinterest strips tags and causes problems for links on Pinterest, this link will come from YouTube and can’t be monitored by Pinterest.

How Users Can Get Access To Pinterest Analytics For A Website

Today, Pinterest launched Web Analytics, a slick new tool that allows marketers to see information about how their information is being pinned/shared. So, just how can you get your hands on this new Pinterest data? It’s actually quite easy.

Social Media Checklist For New Websites & Businesses

As a startup company or small business, it is no longer an option to ignore social media as a means of communication, promotion and possibly even recruitment or revenue. That’s true for any business new to the internet, as well. However, diving head-first into an ever-expanding realm of social media networks can feel overwhelming at best.

Why Social Networks Like Pinterest Will Never Be Marketing-Free

Since the recent explosion in popularity of Pinterest,  many marketers have been experimenting with how they can take advantage of it for business. And as evidenced by the success of HubSpot's new ebook on how to use Pinterest for business, which has been downloaded by over 37,000 people, it looks like a lot of you are interested in figuring

Pin to Win: The Ultimate Short Guide to Pinterest for Business

Ready to ramp up your efforts on Pinterest? Here are the no-fail guidelines to become a real “pinner.” You can generate a lot of traffic from Pinterest in a short amount of time. You can make your path even quicker if you let these 9 rules guide you to success.

17 Pinterest Metrics Every Brand Should Track

Are you measuring your Pinterest marketing initiatives?

Pinterest has established itself as the dominant online source of visual inspiration. The social bookmarking site enables users collect and share photos of their favorite events, interests, and hobbies. 

How Pinterest Could Boost Your Business

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Why Online Brand Marketers Better Get an Interest in Pinterest, Fast

If you’re a marketer or advertiser specializing in online sales and are reliant on e-commerce to sustain your business and you’re not on Pinterest, to quote Kool & the Gang “Get Down On It.” A few months ago I wrote of the need for brand managers to get “pinterested” due to the fact that women,

25 Amazing Pinterest Facts for Your Small Business

Undoubtedly the social star of 2013, Pinterest has quickly risen from a invite only, niche-centric platform to an industry leader your small business can’t afford to ignore. If you’ve had your reservations about investing in yet another social network, or perhaps simply need some Pinspiration, here are 25 amazing Pinterest facts that are sure to motivate you to optimize and engage this social network!