Instagram, Facebook, and other profitable social media platforms are used by people to promote themselves, their brands, or their products. As Pinterest evolved into a powerful platform offering lucrative opportunities, it went from being just a virtual pinboard for inspiration. And the reason for that is very simple.
Pinterest users are often in a planning or purchasing mindset, making them more receptive to ads and promotional content. This high intent leads to higher conversion rates for advertisers, which inevitably makes Pinterest a very attractive platform for solopreneurs and businesses.
Is Pinterest Still Relevant for Making Money in 2024?
Let’s compare Instagram with Pinterest. In contrast to other social media platforms, Instagram focuses on real-time social engagement, making it the largest B2C product advertising platform with user-generated content (UGC). By showing lots of real-time content, the main strategy here is to grab scrollers’ attention.
In contrast, Pinterest is more of a discovery and planning tool. People come to it with specific ideas in mind. Combining Pinterest’s search-driven user behavior with advanced shopping features creates a highly targeted environment where users are more likely to engage with content aligned with their intentions, which makes it an ideal platform to convert interest into action and drive sales.
However, what really makes Pinterest shine are the platform’s different ad formats. There are a lot of ad formats on Pinterest, including Promoted Pins, Video Pins, and Shopping Ads that are geared toward its user behavior and more effective, making Pinterest an incredibly attractive prospect for businesses.
How Many Followers Do You Need on Pinterest to Make Money?
It’s one of the most common questions new content creators and solopreneurs ask when starting out on social media. Yes, having a considerable follower base helps with awareness and reaching more people faster, but it’s not as simple as that.
Unlike platforms like Instagram or YouTube, where follower count has a huge impact on earning potential, Pinterest offers a different dynamic where the number of followers isn’t the sole factor contributing to your business monetization.
On the Pinterest app, quality beats quantity. So, if you’re thinking about where to start – invest time in creating a clear account with a dedicated idea in mind. The more time you spend on creating high-quality content, the higher the chance that the right person will save your post.
Even with a small follower count, you can still generate significant income if your pins are well-optimized for search and consistently drive traffic to your website, blog, online store, or affiliate links. To put this into perspective, a creator with 1,000 highly engaged followers might earn more than someone with 10,000 followers who doesn’t interact with the content.
Tips for Gaining Pinterest Followers Fast
Although followers will come if you post the right and well-optimized content, you can follow different strategies and actions to accelerate your follower growth.
- Optimize your profile. Not to sound like Captain Obvious, but having a clear and visually appealing Pinterest profile is extremely important. Make sure to communicate well the niche you represent, and what your business is about. Don’t forget to support this with a consistent style. Emojis, color palettes, wording style, etc. – all of this works toward building a cohesive and memorable profile.
- Create high-quality pins. AI can be a wonderful tool for idea generation, but it shouldn’t replace the actual action. So, yes, avoid using AI to create your pins. Take time to design and plan your pins with the right high-quality images/videos, fonts, colors, and filters. Canva is everyone’s best friend, even professional designers use it.
- Research keywords. Good old search engine optimization (SEO) tools are your best bet. Look at how similar accounts are using keywords and narrow down the specific keywords you should use. No worries, there are numerous free online tools you can use for this. Plus, you can also try to type in the keywords you use into the Pinterest search bar and see what pins are shown.
- Consistency is key. If you’re just starting, plan out a preliminary pin schedule and keep posting consistently. Once you have more data to benchmark your Pinterest profile performance, you’ll be able to curate the schedule so that it reaches more people and is relatively easy to maintain. Switch to or create a Pinterest business account and you’ll have access to its analytics tools.
- Engage with your audience. Respond to people commenting on your pins, answer questions, and provide more information. By building a relationship with your followers or interested individuals, you’ll foster a community and encourage interactions on your future posts.
- Collaborate with other profiles. Partnering with established Pinterest influencers in your niche can provide access to their existing follower base, increasing your visibility and credibility. But more than that, collaborating with a bigger account will also give more credibility to your account.
Different Methods to Monetize Pinterest
While Pinterest doesn’t offer direct monetization options for creators, it’s still a powerful platform for discovering ideas and generating income via popular pins with links. Whether you’re a content creator, a small business owner, or just someone looking to make extra money online, there are several methods you can leverage to make money on Pinterest.
Method 1: Affiliate marketing
If you’re wondering how to make money on Pinterest, affiliate marketing is a great way to monetize your presence. So much so, that over 42% of affiliate marketers use Pinterest for affiliate marketing. When users click through and buy, you can earn commissions by strategically incorporating direct affiliate links into your pin descriptions or blog posts.
If you want to try your hand at affiliate marketing, here’s what you should focus on:
- Join reputable affiliate programs relevant to your niche.
- Create beautiful Pins showcasing the products or services you’re promoting.
- Optimize your pin descriptions with compelling copy and clear calls to action.
- Consistently track and analyze your affiliate link performance to refine your strategy.
- Make sure to always disclose whether your pin contains an affiliate link for transparency and trust.
Method 2: Sell your products or services
If you have a product line or offer services, Pinterest can be a great platform for showcasing and driving sales. Create pins that highlight the unique features and benefits of your products to attract potential customers and drive traffic to your online store or service pages.
To get started, consider these points:
- Invest in high-quality product photography or visuals.
- Craft clear descriptions that resonate with your target audience.
- Incorporate calls to action that encourage purchases or communication.
- Leverage Pinterest’s shopping features, like product tagging and catalogs to create a great Pinterest shopping experience.
- Research relevant keywords to maximize the chances of the right people landing on your pins.
Method 3: Brand partnerships and sponsored content/pins
As your Pinterest account grows, you may attract the attention of potential partnerships with different brands or sponsorship opportunities. Brands pay you to promote their products or services through your pins, which can range from creating sponsored Pins or blog posts to participating in larger campaigns.
If this method sounds like something you’d like to achieve, here are some pointers:
- Build a strong, engaged follower base for the niche you choose.
- Be consistent and post creative, high-quality content that’s authentic and relevant to your followers.
- Create a brief but informational media kit that includes your audience demographics, engagement metrics, and past collaborations to make the partnerships smoother.
- Network and pitch to brands that align with your content and values. While some brands may approach you, you should also be proactive in finding potential partners.
- Your pins should comply with a brand’s guidelines. Pinterest will notify them when they’re tagged, resulting in a paid partnership label. Once the brand confirms the label, the band name will appear on the pin.
Method 4: Offer Pinterest consulting or management services
This method requires a bit of know-how, so if you’ve mastered the art of Pinterest marketing and have a proven track record of success, why not offer consulting or management services to businesses seeking to leverage the platform?
As a Pinterest consultant or manager, you could:
- Partner with other Pinterest accounts and help them develop and implement consistent and tailored marketing strategies.
- Help optimize business accounts and profiles for maximum visibility and engagement.
- Give pointers and guidelines on how to create visually compelling pins that align with the brand’s objectives.
- Analyze performance metrics and provide data-driven recommendations for improvement, whether it’s about content, time of posting, or the keywords used in pin descriptions.
If you’re looking to earn passive income while managing Pinterest accounts, you could also consider using tools like Pawns.app to generate extra income by sharing your internet connection to maximize your time and internet connection!
Method 5: Utilize Pinterest ads
Once you have an established Pinterest business account, you can try to promote your pins using Pinterest ads. It’s a great and effective method to reach wider audiences, help grow your followers, and answer the tricky question of how to make money on Pinterest.
Additionally, besides the added visibility and increased engagement, this method allows you to reach a specific audience based on interests, demographics, and behaviors.
Here’s a list of things to focus on if you want to use Pinterest ads:
- Choose the right ad objective. When creating an ad, select either “Awareness” or “Engagement” as the main objective to optimize for follower growth.
- Promote best-performing content. Since these pins have a proven track record for engagement and likes, use them for your ads.
- Test and experiment with different pins. Test different creatives, CTAs, and targeting options to find the best combinations for follower growth.
- Improve your overall Pinterest strategy. If you’ve already decided on using Pinterest ads, you can use the information on ad performance to adjust your strategy and improve engagement as well.
Method 6: Apply for the Pinterest Creator Fund
The Pinterest Creator Fund program was launched in 2021 to support creators. The main purpose is to empower diverse creators by providing financial grants and resources to help them produce high-quality, engaging content and enhance their Pinterest presence.
So, if you’re just starting, why not reach out and apply? Just note that this is a different program from the Pinterest Creator Rewards program, it was discontinued in 2022.
Automation Tools for Passive Income on Pinterest
If you are going to achieve anything, you need to put in effort, and building an effective Pinterest account certainly takes time. Luckily, there are several automation tools that can streamline your entire workflow and cut down on time. You can use these tools to schedule pins, optimize content, analyze pin performance, or manage entire accounts.
Tailwind
Tailwind is one of the most popular scheduling tools for Pinterest. With it, you can plan and schedule your pins in advance, making sure there’s a consistent stream of content even when you’re not online. Also, Tailwind’s SmartSchedule feature suggests the best times to post based on when your audience is most active, helping you maximize engagement.
Buffer
Buffer is another well-known tool specifically designed for Pinterest. This tool lets you schedule pins and manage multiple social media accounts in one place, so if you’re an experienced social media manager, this might be the tool for you. It’s a great option for those who want to maintain a consistent Pinterest presence without manually posting daily.
Curalate
It’s a visual analytics and marketing platform that can help brands and businesses monetize Pinterest. You can optimize your visual content and look for collaboration opportunities with features like image recognition, visual listening, and influence identification.
Pretty Links
If you’re working a lot with affiliates to earn commissions, Pretty Links can help you manage and track your affiliate links more effectively. It’s a nice little tool that allows you to create clean, branded links that are easy to share on Pinterest. But that’s not the best part – Pretty Links provides analytics to monitor clicks and conversions.
Canva
The list has to include Canva, of course. Canva isn’t exactly an automation tool, but it’s still a great tool for all your design needs. You can use Canva’s template library to create professional-quality Pinterest pins. Oh, and if you want to keep your unique template, Canva can save it so you can use it later.
Conclusion
Pinterest is on the rise and for a good reason. Today, it’s used by many individuals for simple aesthetic purposes and ideas, which gives businesses a unique opportunity to showcase their services or products. If you want to jump on this train, make sure to utilize all the key features Pinterest has to offer, follow the best practices, and find the right method to monetize Pinterest!
