by Tori Bowman of That Pair of Crutches. Tori contributes weekly with tips about how to improve your blog. See her others posts here.
We all use Pinterest. Whether it's to help us decide what to cook for dinner or create our dream home, there's a good chance that we check it at least once a day. And while planning meals and wardrobes isn't a waste of time, there are ways that we can use Pinterest as a tool to improve our blog and maybe even make us a bit of money.
1. Stay In Character: Create boards that help you to create better content and expand on the content you're already offering your readers. Do you have a food blog? Pin recipe ideas and inspiration for future posts. Also try to pin things that will help your readers improve their cooking skills. They are reading your blog because that's what they are interested in and likely assume that your Pinterest page will be an extension of the type of content they find on your blog. Give them what they're looking for.
2. Keep Some Things Quiet: Pinterest recently introduced private boards. This is an amazing tool you can use to better your blog. Create a private board with inspiration and images for upcoming posts. Create a board with items or shops you like to feature on your blog or partner with in the future. Use private boards to get a head start on a coming theme you'd like to cover and make it private until you're ready to announce the theme to your readers. You can even use them to collect inspiration for an upcoming redesign.
3. Join An Affiliate Network: Are you always pinning clothes? Have a site that you are constantly getting lost on and come out on the other side only to find that you've pinned half of their products? Why not get paid for it? Rewardstyle is my favorite site for this because there are so many great companies on there and it's rare that I can't find what I'm looking for. It's simple to join and you will be making money doing something you do anyway. It's really an easy decision.
4. Collaborate: Use group boards to your advantage. Pin inspiration for a series with your contributors. Create a board for you and clients to pin to and use them to create a mood board for the project. Every month, invite one of your favorite bloggers to help you curate a board. Pinterest can be a little unsocial, but group boards are one way that you can use them to connect and build relationships with others, which is the reason you started blogging, right?
How do you use Pinterest as a tool instead of just another time suck? I'd love to hear!
