Top 10 Niches on Pinterest & How to Tap Into Them

Pinterest Niches

I’m going to get right to the meat of this report and assume you already know the basics of what Pinterest is and how to get on it. If you’re not on it yet, I have instructions on how you can get a free Pinterest invite, since you can’t just simply “sign up” on a whim.

If you need the basic introductory course with videos and a foundation of the marketing opportunities involved, then you can grab a $1 Pinterest report here. You’ll need that if you don’t know what a pin, repin or board is or how to use the basics of the site.

Now let’s get started with our Pinterest niche analysis and talk about specific ways you can use ethical marketing on the site to promote products and earn money.

This report isn’t going to cover non money making niches. Those would be the cute little posters with sayings on them like this:

Yes it’s precious and funny and we repin it because it’s cute – but there’s no money in it. But there are some types of posters and sayings that can lead to an income, and we’ll go over those later in this report.

We’re primarily going to stick to affiliate and info product income in this tutorial.

Pinterest Isn’t Just a Woman’s Site

While it’s true that the demographic is tilted to women, studies shoe that more men are getting onboard. But as one article pointed out, and this is true in my house, women do most of the buying. So even if you’re targeting items for men, you will often sell to the woman of the house.

They’ve also included categories more apt to interest a male audience, including cars and motorcycles, sports, technology, men’s apparel, science and outdoors.

I was interested when I read the latest stats about Pinterest from Hitwise that mentioned how overall, social networks have a strong use in the Northeast. But Pinterest is strong with Northwest and Southern users, with Texas and California giving them the most traffic of all states.

So the typical demographic you’re used to on Facebook and twitter and so on may not be the same! As a Southern woman myself, I can tell you that it’s taken my family and friends a long time to get on Facebook but they’re drooling over Pinterest – not sure what it is making the difference!

Traffic Is Exploding to Retailers from Pinterest

Every time I check, there’s a new notice about how Pinterest is exploding with traffic flowing to retailers’ websites. It’s only a matter of time before Google buys them out (I am only half kidding) because headlines are saying that Pinterest drives more traffic to retailers than Google Plus users.

PC Magazine recently had a great story about this phenomenon. It’s still not as much as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook – but it’s considered the next “game changer” according to the article.

The Wall Street Journal says that Pinterest is almost tied with Twitter and Google in referral traffic. It’s being buzzed about as the next social media darling and people are amazed that it’s doing this all while continuing its “invite only” rules.

I’ve already noticed that my site is getting traffic to my blog as people Pin me on a board for “ethical Marketers” or “people I admire.” Then another person sees it and repins it and I’m off on a viral journey!

So retailers are benefiting even more from this than info products, meaning this is going to be a boon for product sellers or affiliates. Let’s begin covering the actual niches I’ve found to be prevalent on Pinterest.

I haven’t found any hard data to show me their search volume or repin stats, but I have been monitoring the popular pins and looking for trends among users that are easy to spot.

Top 10 Niches I’ve Been Analyzing

Because there’s no hard and fast data on this yet, I want to make sure you know this is in no particular order of #1 niche to #10 niche. It’s just my blunt observations of the site (garnered from my addiction there).

1. House Décor and Remodeling

There are two sectors in Pinterest for this category. There’s the do it yourself people who want to recover an old lazy boy, for example – and the shoppers looking for new items to be purchased for a home remodeling.

I myself have a friend whose home burned down in the Texas wildfires this past summer and she’s rebuilding right now. As her frames are going up, she’s spending hours on Pinterest pinning everything from backsplashes to chandeliers she likes and has found online.

So you could find many affiliate opportunities for this category. I love Amazon personally, but there is a whole host of options for you, including places like Share-a-Sale and Commission Junction.

What I’ve noticed is that people like to Pin color schemes for rooms. I myself love (and pinned) a blue, white and yellow living room color scheme I found online which you see here.

Why would I pin this? You want to look at your prospective customers’ thinking process before you start pinning any and everything.

I pinned it because I SUCK at decorating. I would NEED a picture like this to help me know to find a white couch with blue and yellow pillows and the yellow accents around the room, like the lamp. Not overdone, but touches here and there.

If you had a blog for home décor, you might have done your keyword research and found that “blue and yellow room” gets 2,400 monthly searches. “blue living rooms” gets 8,100 monthly searches.

So you might have a snapshot of a picture like this, with links on where to find each of those items online. Like this (all of these items on Amazon):

When I go to my friends’ account who is rebuilding after a fire, I see she has boards like this:

Now her other boards are for sinks, granite, her daughter’s bedroom, the wet bar, bathrooms, etc.

As a marketer, I would start hunting around in this niche to see how people are separating their home décor boards.

I have a board called “Home Décor” but you could do boards for every room of a home, like:

• A bathroom board
• A library board
• A kitchen board
• A girl’s room board
• A boy’s room board…and so on.

As I’m writing this report, I’m searching around Pinterest and I see that lighting is a neat category within home décor.

I know my own Amazon account has sold some nice lighting that costs around $800. So that can be a sweet commission if your rate is high enough.

You could do boards for rooms, like I mentioned above, but you could also do specific color schemes. I found people with boards like “black and white bedroom” so what I would do is go to my free Google AdWords keyword tool and type in the following:

and white bedroom

That exact phrase is what I would type into the keyword tool and I would then choose the option to “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms.”

Now look what it returns for me:

It shows that 27,000 people a month are searching for “black and white bedroom.” So a nice board with that phrase might be a profitable one to have on Pinterest.

I like to go into a category on Pinterest like Home Décor. Then I might see a picture of lighting like this:

So what I would do is go to my keyword tool and type in kitchen lighting. I discover that the phrase “kitchen pendant lighting” gets over 27,000 searches per month.

Hmm – a board for kitchen pendant lighting might be nice! I do a search on Amazon.com and lo and behold, it says there are almost 22,000 items fitting that description.

When I conduct a search on Amazon, I like to search by two things – popularity and average customer review. I also search by price and I find a beautiful artichoke pendant light fixture. But it’s almost $700. So when I scroll down, I see more affordable options.

The first one sells for almost $700, but the second one is under $150.

If I had a blog on home décor, maybe I would do an entry on saving money with similar designs and I would use this as an example, with “artichoke pendant lamp” in the title because it gets almost 300 searches per month – and to me, those are people looking to BUY.

Now what about those do it yourselfers on Pinterest? Well even do it yourselfers need to buy supplies, right? So go through and search for DIY or do it yourself on Pinterest and see what projects people post about.

Let’s take lighting again. This one is a popular pin I see floating around and I know why – it was on some design show where they take an expensive room and make it over for less.

It’s a twine lamp and there are almost 600 people searching for this each month.  Its alternate name, “string pendant lamp” gets almost 500 searches per month.

What would your reader need for this? Well, a ball for starters. So you would go to Amazon and look for play balls or plastic balls. I found them for around $10 or less.

Then you’ll need to look for the tacky glue – which sells for under $10. Of course they would need the twine – which is also under $10. And lastly, the lamp cord – again, under $10 on Amazon.com.

So for a total of about $40 or less, with free shipping on Amazon, they could make the lamp that sells for over $300 on Amazon if it’s already made, as seen here:

This is the kind of do it yourself home décor project that you can blog about and make sales off of via Pinterest, where people are looking for projects to save money and make their home better!

And don’t forget the outside when you think of home décor, too. People are looking for planters, items to create beautiful pathways, outdoor kitchen gear, outdoor fireplaces, and more – and all of them are looking for readymade AND do it yourself options.

2. Crafts

Crafts are HUGE here on Pinterest and again, you have the ability to drive traffic to your blog or sell directly from sites like Amazon, where you need supplies. Whenever I write reports like this where I AM the target audience, I like to share my specific experiences.

I’ve done several craft ideas from Pinterest. Some I don’t really consider crafts, but just neat fun ideas – and yes, I purchased items for them. For example, this is a cool one here:

I bought a bunch of different colored glow sticks, snapped them, and tossed them into the bathtub. Then I ran my daughter Scarlett’s bath, without her in there, and turned off the lights and called her in.

When she opened the door to the bathroom, she was gasping because it was so beautiful and she created a little mermaid cove in there and pretended she was Arial.

What I would suggest is that people only buy the green glow sticks. And guess what? They happen to sell these on Amazon – a pack of 24 for under $10 when I spent $2 PER glow stick at Party City – rip off – I wish someone on Pinterest had notified me of this and I would have gladly bought from their link.

Now that I know it’s something she loves, I’ll buy more from the site. And when I have it pinned, whenever she runs out of glow sticks, I’ll go back to my pin and click the link again so whoever posted it could have recurring commission.

I just realized I have two other craft ideas pinned on my own boards (shown below) with glow sticks so yeah, I might be a good commission for someone on these.

Okay back to crafts. When you go to the Pinterest site, you can go to the DIY and Crafts category. Look around and see what all crafts are there that might allow you to sell some items as an affiliate. I see the following popular craft topics:

• Wreaths
• Storage
• Sewing
• Artwork
• Picture Frames
• Invitations…to name a few.

What I like for the craft category is that you can do different boards for it. You can organize it by holidays – like Easter crafts or Birthday crafts, by events like birthdays or baby showers, by rooms like living room artwork, or by the person doing the craft like “kids crafts” versus one you’ll be doing yourself – and so on.

Here’s one for fabric-covered corkboards. This is a cute craft idea with selling potential! I love corkboards and they’re so ugly when they’re not covered.

So you could have a blog post on your blog with instructions on how to do this.

Corkboards sell for anywhere from $12 to $25 and up on Amazon. And fabric is around $8 per yard on Amazon (and on up depending on the type).

When I search for fabric covered corkboards on Amazon, I see the cheap dorm room ones sell for $40 and up for one board and the office type with doors on them go for $200 to $800 or more!

That’s quite a savings you could share with someone. So let’s take that to our Google keyword tool. I find the following:

Not too shabby for a simple blog post about making fabric covered corkboards. And then you could pin your blog post and have it go viral within the site – the site that happens to be referring almost as much traffic as Twitter or Google, remember?

3. Travel

Travel on Pinterest is usually based on daydreaming. But it’s still a huge niche – and not everyone’s daydreaming, either. Some are planning real vacations based on the recommendations of others on the site.

To find this category go to Pinterest and then the Travel & Places category.

How can you monetize this category?

• Travel books (think Fodors)
• Travel accessories (luggage, adapters, passport holders, etc.)
• Language Tutorials (Rosetta Stone software or book lessons)
• Send traffic to your blog that has travel AdSense or CPA offers in the travel niche
• Travel games (for kids and adults)

You cold have info products you yourself created like a Disney vacation guide or destination wedding guide.

People generally split up their travel boards between “places I’ve been” and “places I’d love to go.” Why not help them make their dream come true and plan the perfect vacation?

This woman on the right has a board for Puerto Rico and she’s pinning a bunch of water shoes she wants to consider buying. She also has hats, sunglasses, and luggage.

Pinterest is the perfect place to organize a trip and plan what you want to take with you.

I saw one neat board that was specific for 2012 events around the world. Another had a “second homes” board – so maybe that person will be in the market for a whole new home décor. Perhaps a guide on buying a home in another country?

4. Food

Food can be broken down into a few things. There are decadent desserts (my personal fave), kid’s food ideas (like how to get them to eat more fruit), main meal ideas or side items, and some with a specific flare for being gluten free or healthier (which we’ll talk about next).

Now food is one of the more popular ones. I have pinned several recipes and I discovered that my Mom and I both pin stuff and then make it and trade part of it. For example, I pinned and baked the Lemonade Cake and she pinned and baked the blueberry lemon cake. We cut it and traded half of them.

I also love the kids’ snack ideas! I made a rainbow plate of food for my ids as an after school snack with strawberries, blueberries, oranges, pineapple, kiwi fruit, and purple grapes. I put a dollop of cool whip on each end (for clouds) and they loved it! Found it on Pinterest.

Another idea we had a blast doing that also fell into the craft category was when I gave Scarlett two turkey hot dogs cut into bite sized pieces (pre-cooked) and a pack of spaghetti (pre-cooked).

She gently threaded the uncooked spaghetti through the hot dog pieces and then we boiled it all together. She had a blast! My kids are loving my Pinterest addiction.

So let’s talk monetization of this niche. For kids’ food, most of them are things you can buy right at home at your local grocery store. But you might promote baby food jars and a food processor for the health conscience parents looking to create their own baby food.

You can promote recipes guides for specific foods. Look what I found here. I went to my keyword tool and did a search for recipes. I found that 60,500 people search for “spaghetti squash recipes” each month.

I look on Pinterest for the same and see tons of pins for this stuff! Then I go on Amazon and enter “spaghetti squash” and see what else comes up with it. Look what I see:

I can promote seeds, kitchen accessories like vegetable slicers, and noodles/pasta. There are spaghetti squash recipe books I can promote, too.

Go backwards if you want. Start at Amazon and go to the kitchen appliance category. I see that crockpots are popular on Amazon. So let me then do a keyword search for crockpot.

I see that crockpot has 27,000 searches for crockpot lasagna! And Pinterest has tons of lasagna recipes pinned but none using a crockpot – pair those two ideas together and it might be very viral within Pinterest.

If you had a food blog, you could write up a crockpot lasagna recipe for it and pin it to your boards on Pinterest. On your blog, you could promote a crockpot of your choice, and maybe some cookbooks – like the Jessica Seinfeld recipe book that includes crockpot lasagna. (Also note that you can separate crockpot into crock pot and get more ideas).

Other ideas for promoting in this niche are specific kitchen appliances, dish sets, and specialty food items. Take sushi for example. I’ve never had it, but I had a sushi site that converted quite well once upon a time.

You could create a sushi board and pin these types of things:

• Sushi recipe books
• Sushi dish sets
• Sushi chopsticks
• Sushi gift sets
• Sushi knives
• Sushi paddles and mats
• Sushi rice makers…and more

Now one thing I want to caution you on. Don’t just make a board called “rice cookers” and go through Amazon pinning a bunch of rice cookers. You then LOOK like a spammer!

Instead, have a theme for your board. Like the sushi theme – with ONE or maybe two rice cookers. It needs to be something you truly recommend. If you’re just going through pinning them all, then there’s nothing genuine about your pins and people won’t want to follow you.

Why? Because people can search Amazon on their own. They’re using Pinterest for recommendations and referrals of what’s best. If you have 210 rice cookers on there, then you obviously aren’t helping much with them finding what’s best.

5. Dieting and Fitness

This is the one thing I hate about Pinterest but as a niche marketer, you’ll love if you’re in the diet and fitness niche. I finally got rid of the diet mentality (and started losing weight) but now it’s everywhere I look on Pinterest.

This site plays up a variety of diet interests. You can target specific diets like Weight Watchers, focus on motivating people with tips, or promote items to help them reach their weight loss goals.

Here’s one on the left for a Weight Watchers’ friendly recipe. You could have a blog dedicated to this and make revenue with AdSense or through your own info products or as an affiliate for the diet and its books online.

You could also do themes like “low carb” foods. This pin is on a friend’s “yummy low carb recipes” board. And when I go to the board, it has a link under the pin directly to the blog post, so visitors can bypass her pin completely and go straight from board to blog.

Or, if they do click on the pin, they can then click on the picture and go to the blog to see how the recipe is created.

When it comes to fitness, of course there are many physical items you can promote from Amazon. You could have them on specific types of training, like the Zumba craze, for example. Or you could have themes built around “losing 10 pounds.”

This category is one of those where motivation posters can help drive traffic to your site. Make sure that if you make a poster, make sure you stick your URL on it so that if someone just repins your poster, the URL is shown and might help get you more type in traffic and branding.

Here’s a good example of a fitness motivational poster:

At the bottom, the URL is shown on the image itself. So even if the reader doesn’t click through, they’re still looking at the URL and might get interested enough to go to the site and see what else it has that will speak to them.

6. Fashion

Boy this is a biggie on Pinterest. In my $1 report (link is on page two of this report), I showed you the information about the clothing sets that come from polyvore.com – it works similar to how the living room idea works in the first niche example I shared with you.

You see an entire outfit put together somewhere – a magazine, or whatever – and then post recommendations for similar outfits at a fraction of the cost. Let’s look at this example of a real Pin on Pinterest:

What I would then do (if I had a blog of my own in the fashion world) is make a similar set. I would choose blue flare jeans, a gray tee shirt, yellow necklace, etc from Amazon and blog about it with my own recommendations – maybe something like “get the look for less” like this:

This is an example of promoting complete outfits. So you might tally up what the magazine or other site prices it at and then how much your own creation would cost comparatively.

With fashion, you can also have boards of certain clothing items or accessories. Here are some of the more popular ones I’ve seen:

• Shoes
• Purses
• Jeans
• Shirts
• Hats
• Dresses
• Sunglasses
• Jewelry – Bracelets, Rings, Necklaces
• Swimsuits

Now let’s take shoes as an example. You could have one “shoes” board or specific boards that drill down in a niche, like a “boots” board. One woman I saw had designer brand boards like this:

Some people (like me) might appreciate themes of fashion for dummies. I have not a fashionable bone in my body. And to top it off, I’m plus sized (okay that’s an understatement) – and prefer not to wear a tent everywhere I go, so maybe you could do a board for cute plus sized fashions or petite ones or one for tweens or whatever.

Just as an FYI I did a search on Pinterest for “plus size” and I found ONE pin – one measly pin that had been Repinned 265 times. LOL! I’ll let you do your own keyword research but let me just show you a sampler for this niche:

The reason I’m showing you this is that there are a LOT of searches for this and only ONE freaking Pin so far on Pinterest – it’s a niche that’s wide open for marketers who want to tackle that topic.  Okay I just pinned a couple too!

7. Beauty

Beauty is a niche that encompasses many things, but a few I see repeatedly in the Pinterest boards. The top three that I see are hair, nails, and eyes. Of course there are others!

Nails are a big one and just an FYI – I did some keyword research and you can have low competition with specific brand names of nail polish, for example. Many of the beauty products are sold on Amazon, too.

Here’s a cute nail polish pin with the site owner’s URL on the image (smart marketing):

Here’s a good board to give you an idea of the possibilities with nail polish pins. Of course with nail polish, there are also other things you can promote on Amazon – nail clippers, nail art kits, nail polish remover, nail dryers and so on.

Hair ideas are abundant. One woman had the cutest braids and ponytails being pinned all over the place and I went to her blog and she’s promoting the topsy tail like a mad woman!

Now these sell cheap on Amazon, but I have several niche sites with cheap priced items that make a nice little sum – because people convert like crazy on Amazon with cheap things, and they often stick other things in their basket to get it to $25 so they can get free shipping, too.

Let’s talk eyes. I am always looking for good eye shadow tutorials. I went to modeling school growing up and modeled runway for our local Dillards and Barbizon (during my thin days LOL) and then worked for Princess Borghese during college so I love heavier makeup than many people.

But I’m not alone. Look at this smoky eye shadow pin. It has over a thousand repins so far! Look at the keyword searches. Over 450,000 people a MONTH search for “hot to smoky eye.”

Maybe a good niche for you to dabble in? When I go onto here’s an entire smoky eye product listing on there, including:

• The makeup
• The makeup brushes
• Entire kits…and more.

Just remember – like the other categories I’m talking about here, you can separate your boards. You could have one “beauty” board or have an eyes, lips, nails, and hair board. You can even drill down more into “long hair” or “braid” boards.

Think of accessories that go with all of these beauty categories. Think of things like nail stamp kits, hair clips, eye shadow glitter, etc. Also don’t forget the appliances for beauty – nail dryers were mentioned. You could also do hair appliances like curlers, straighteners, and more.

8. Weddings and Events

The planning for two of life’s major events – getting married and raising kids – are all over Pinterest. Many are making future boards because they don’t even have a boyfriend yet!

Now Pinterest specifically has a “Weddings and Events” category. What opportunities can you think of to promote items in these areas:

• Wedding photography (frames, how to guides on pictures)
• Wedding favors
• Wedding invitations
• Wedding dresses
• Wedding bridesmaids dresses
• Wedding shoes
• Wedding table items (dishes, napkins, place cards, etc.)
• Wedding rings
• Wedding candles
• Wedding cakes (toppers too!)
• Wedding destination vacations and honeymoons

Of course Amazon has a ton of items you could promote in all of these areas. Do the same thing I’ve done in the other categories. Start doing a search, drill down and see what’s already on Pinterest and what’s missing!

What other events are there that you could promote on Pinterest? Kids’ birthday ideas are big, and so are baby showers.  There are lots of baby shower games and decorations on Amazon for baby showers and birthdays.

You can make boards for themes like “girl’s birthday party” or “Barbie birthday party.” What other kinds of parties are there that might work on Pinterest?

• Retirement parties
• Engagement parties
• Bachelor/Bachelorette parties
• Slumber parties
• Tea parties
• Halloween party
• SuperBowl party

9. Books, Music, Movies and TV

I remember hearing how books were the top sellers on Squidoo.com and I think it kind of shocked me. Not sure why, considering I order a ton of books myself online – directly from Amazon.

But it could possibly be the same with Pinterest – I’m not sure. I DO know that books, movies and TV shows are popular pins on the site. I like to personally split mine into “have read and love” and “not yet read, but want to” boards.  Same with movies, music and TV.

Amazon of course has downloads for their TV shows (I spent a small fortune buying Breaking Bad and Sons of Anarchy there). Now one thing I see many people doing wrong is letting their pins go on and on (and on). The text shouldn’t be enormous and complete. You want the click through.

So don’t highlight and share an entire synopsis of a book – tell them a small 1-2 sentence spiel about why you liked it and let them click through and read more (and see the star reviews and put it in their cart right then).

So before you tap into the niche, look at this category on Pinterest. Some women post a broad “books” board while others have boards that are more specific like, “vampire books.”

Some have broad boards like “movies I like” while others have “movies with hot men in them.”

You might have a board with themes like “Old Hollywood movies” or “Disney movies.”

Wow here’s something neat! I type into Amazon “movies about” and it brings up “movies about addiction.” I Google keyword tool the phrase and it shows over 40,000 searches per month!

There are 168 movies about addiction on Amazon it says – and while someone may not have a board that’s that narrow, you could certainly write that phrase in the description because chances are good these Pins are going to be powerful in Google.

10. Gardening

Gardening is a niche I tried my hand at last summer. I failed miserably because I was trying to blog my own progress – and I spent a couple hundred dollars on containers to garden in and we had an extreme drought here in Texas with scorching heat so everything wilted even with watering.

Still, I love the niche and so do a lot of others (especially when fruits and veggies are so pricey during a bleak economy). Amazon again has a ton of gardening items you could sell – tools, pots, you name it!

Personally, I know if I ever try my hand at it again, I WILL order online and have everything sent to my doorstep rather than have my lazy butt trek to the store and haul it all to my house myself. That was tiring.

Here are some board ideas for you:

• Boards for native plants in certain areas
• Container gardening
• To attract birds or butterflies
• Gnome gardens
• Bonsai
• Composting
• Landscaping
• Indoor gardening

You could promote lots of gardening info products (like beginners’ guides to container gardening) and also promote tangible items on Amazon, including functional items and decorative ones, too.

When you start scrolling through the site you’ll notice things that stick out. For instance, I see several pins for composting bins. So I go to my keyword tool and Amazon to see what people are looking for.

I find that many people are seeking do it yourself compost bin plans – so promote an info product for that. But for those who want to buy a pre-made one, you start looking for tangibles to promote on Amazon.

I find in the keyword research that there are kitchen compost bins – I didn’t know that! Here’s one on Amazon selling for a little over $30:

And there are over 5,000 people each month searching for that type of product. Over 8,000 people a month are looking for wood compost bins – and they sell for around $70-$130 on Amazon. Worm compost bins are another hot one – and they’re around $100 or less on Amazon, too.

11. Bonus Niche – Photography

I wanted to throw this niche in because it’s something I see a lot of – and it’s no wonder, since Pinterest is based on images! But photography can be a lucrative little niche for you.

One time, I noticed one of my Christmas lenses on Squidoo was getting a lot of traffic for a couple of keyword phrases having to do with photography. So I whipped up two short reports with tips for taking pictures and they sell really nice at Christmastime!

There’s a photography category on Pinterest, so you can go see what people are pinning on their boards.

Here are some specific niche ideas for photography boards:

• Pregnant women (photographs of their tummies)
• Save the date pictures
• Newborn baby poses (like the one on the right)
• Wedding photography
• Nature and outdoor (travel) pictures
• Graduation or senior pictures

In this category, there are also people pinning specific blogs that teach you which lens to buy, or how to take certain types of pictures. You could promote camera equipment from Amazon.com – including accessories that go with it, like storage bags.

There are also lots of other things you can drill down and find. Let’s take the newborn photos as an example. You could write up a report with several ideas and sell that (or give it away as a viral freebie with links to these things inside):

Take your idea and go search around Pinterest to see what people are posting. For example, I do a search on the site for “newborn hospital picture” and I see this pin:Newborn photography props (like angel wings)

• Books that teach you how to photograph baby’s first year
• Digital backgrounds
• Newborn hats (big in photography)

That might spur me to whip up a little report on newborn photography tips and include things like this! Then I see this Pin:

Look how many times it’s been repinned! There’s an idea for a report – newborn twin pictures/photography. The phrases get about 1,900 searches a month – and they’re obviously popular on Pinterest, so why not?

Now let’s move into three places you can pin from and then dig into a few more marketing tips.

Pin From Your Site or Blog

You want to have tools in place to have other people Pin your content for you, like the WordPress plugins (just search “Pinterest” and you’ll find them. But you can also pin your own site or blog posts – just make sure that’s not all you pin, please.

Here are the simple steps on how to Pin from your site. (Make sure you’ve gone to the Help and Goodies page on Pinterest first to drag your Pin It bookmarklet to your browser so you can pin easily):

1. Go to your web page that you want to Pin. I’ll be using this as my example: http://infantbabyhalloweencostumes.com/baby-lobster-costume.php
2. Click the Pin It bookmark tool when you’re on the page.
3. Choose which image you want to use on your pin. Try using the least salesy image you have. If you have no images on your blog post, then you’ll need to add one – because Pinterest is image-based.
4. As shown above, the Pin will open up with the image you chose, and you’ll pick the board you want to put it on and write a bit of text. Most people prefer short text instead of long, drawn out paragraphs that take up their Pin page.
5. Click the Pin It red button and hope that it goes viral on Pinterest!

Pin From Squidoo

I’m still a Squidoo.com advocate. I use it for tangibles primarily, and it converts well. So you can make a Squidoo lens on an Amazon item and then go Pin It from your bookmark tool or from the built in Pin option within Squidoo.

I’m not surprised that Squidoo has this built in. They’re very good about merging social sharing options into the site. So here’s how you pin something from your Squidoo lens:

1. Go to the lens that you want to pin. I’m using this one as an example: http://www.squidoo.com/pedegg-does-it-work
2. Use the built in Pin It button to pin your lens (far right below the title).
3. Pick your board and write your text. Always make sure you add the name of the product so that it’s “findable” on Pinterest and in search engines.
4. Click the red Pin It button and wait for it to go viral!

Pin From YouTube

You can Pin videos on Pinterest. Now don’t go spamming up the place with “make money online” videos but there are cool ways to share videos on Pinterest that can help drive traffic to your sites or lenses!

1. Post your video on YouTube with your hyperlink in the description area.
2. Go to the video and click your Pin It bookmark. You may get this message:
3. If you get that message, then go straight to Pinterest.com and click the Add+ button in the top right corner. This image will pop up and you’ll choose the option on the left (Add a Pin):
4. A new box will pop up, allowing you to enter the URL of the YouTube video. Paste the URL in and click Find Images.
5. Sometimes, when you do this, it will show a blank image in the box where the picture is supposed to be. If this happens, just click Next until it find a still image from the video.
6. Pick the board you want it on, enter some relevant text, and click the red Pin It button!

Tweet and Facebook Your Pins (G+ Too!)

All of this social bookmarking is a two way street. You want to first create content on your sites or blogs. Then pin them on Pinterest.

But then you want to Tweet, FaceBook and Google Plus your pins, too. You’ll see a list to the right side of your pins that allow you to do several things:

• Like it on FaceBook
• Tweet it
• Embed it
• Email it
• Report it

Obviously, you’re not going to report it – but you can use the other options. I wouldn’t go spamming people via email with your pins, but it’s okay to embed, tweet or Like your pins and help spread the word.

On Google Plus, you’ll just have to grab the URL of the actual Pin on Pinterest. So for my PedEgg pin, for example, I’ll go to Google Plus and post the URL here: http://pinterest.com/pin/102527328986725437/

It will look like this:

Now why wouldn’t I just link directly to Amazon or to my Squidoo lens? Because I’d like people to click through on the Pin and repin it and help it go viral – more exposure that way than taking them out of the loop and sending them straight to the product.

Reminder About Ethical Marketing Practices (so you don’t screw it up for the rest of us)

Like a Mom, I’m going to nag you here at the end. I’m seeing marketers already going about it all wrong on Pinterest. Somehow they think volume converts into riches.

I promise you, it doesn’t.

People are becoming more immune to sterile recommendations. They want the real stuff. So here’s the WRONG way to do a pin:

Go to one of your niche specific sites and pin every item on it. Do it with a price on it, and instead of writing a little blurb about why you like that item, just highlight the text and let it paste it all into the description for you.

Spammy!

I’ve already unfollowed several marketers who are doing this. I can find sites like that on my own. I want real person recommendations on Pinterest! At least have the respect to tell me what you like about something you Pin.

Okay end of lecture. I want you to go have fun and Pin things you really like – and tap into niches that rally make Pinning fun for you. This is still the ground floor on Pinterest – it’s still fairly new to the mainstream public and still closed to the public, being an invite-only site.

Enjoy!