Making Money With Pinterest

Virtually every social website has become overrun with people trying to make money from it; Facebook and Twitter have become havens for Internet Marketers, while social bookmarking websites such as Digg and Reddit have become flooded with people promoting their own website. Whenever a new social website becomes popular, it is generally only a matter of time before people find a way to exploit it for personal gain. A new social outlet called Pinterest has attracted a lot of interest over the last few months, and while most of that interest has been from innocent users looking to use the website, a lot of Internet Marketers have spotted a new opportunity.
As with any social website, making money from Pinterest ultimately boils down to attracting interest in what you’re posting. Regardless of how you choose to make money using Pinterest, it all comes down to attracting a following. It’s not difficult to create a following on Pinterest; the more you post high quality content, the more people will follow you. Strategies similar to Twitter have been found to work well with Pinterest, for example interacting with users who have a lot of followers; repin some of their content, and their followers will often choose to follow you.
It’s important to remember that building up trust with your followers is essential. While people can follow you with a single click, if they feel your posts are just spamming then they can unfollow you just as quickly, and most people will do this as soon as they get a hint of spam. Linking between Pinterest and your website is one way to build trust, as long it is done in a professional way. Adding content to your website which attracts your target audience, and encouraging visitors to your website to follow you on Pinterest are key ways to help you become more popular on Pinterest without spamming. As with any social website, originality is important. Even if your content is not completely unique, adding an original twist to it will help to encourage people on Pinterest to share your content.
Every so often, you can throw in a promotional pin. Ideally these should be attractive images with a link to your website. However, be aware that too many promotional pins will lead to people unfollowing you pretty quickly; it is not recommended to post promotional material more often than around once every 5 pins. Pinterest’s target audience is primarily younger users, so colourful images will work better than text to attract followers and encourage users to click your promotional links. Even if younger users are not the standard visitors who you usually target for your website, finding ways to connect with younger Pinterest users will pay off.
For now, it remains to be seen how long Pinterest will last before Internet Marketers overrun the site to the point where normal users stop visiting, as has been the case with many other social websites. Internet Marketers have already begun to create scripts to get as much out of Pinterest as quickly as possible, so if you plan to make money from Pinterest then the time to act is now.