Money making mums: how to make money on Pinterest
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Today's guest post is from Boost My Budget - a blog all about different ways of making extra money online.
How to Make Money on Pinterest
I love Pinterest! Like most people, it's my go-to website for recipe ideas, outfit inspiration and dreamy DIY projects.
So as you can imagine, I was pretty excited to find out I could get paid to pin!
Yes, over the past few weeks I've been turning my Pinterest habit into a money-maker. I've been doing this by sharing things I love on Pinterest using affiliate links. Every time somebody clicks on an image I've shared, I make money.
Here's how you can do it too:
Understanding affiliate marketing
The way I make money on Pinterest is called 'affiliate marketing'. This is when you promote products and get a cut of any sales.
On Pinterest, this simply means pinning a picture of an item you love, and using your own special tracking link back to the website where people can buy it. This special link is called an affiliate link.
When somebody clicks on your link and buys a product, the seller can see that you sent them. And you get a small commission!
You get these affiliate links by signing up to an affiliate program with your preferred retailer. More on this later.
You can share affiliate links anywhere you want: on a blog, on social media, or directly with your friends. But Pinterest is perfect for affiliate marketing because it’s all about shopping!
93% of Pinterest users say they use Pinterest to plan their purchases, and 87% of users have actually bought something they found on Pinterest. This means it’s easy to promote products without being spammy – people are actually looking for things to buy! Unlike multi-level marketing and other forms of sales, you don’t have to push products on reluctant customers. Just make sure you pin gorgeous images, write great descriptions, and people will click on your pins.
The perfect side hustle for mums
Sharing affiliate links on Pinterest is a great way for busy mums to make extra money. It’s the ultimate flexible side hustle. You can do as much or as little as you like. It really doesn’t matter what time of day or night you can work on it. You can even do it on your phone!
Also, if you’re a mum, you’re probably already in Pinterest’s key audience:
Pinterest users are 81% female. Users come from all age groups, although the majority of active pinners are in their 20s and 30s. The most popular categories on Pinterest include food & drink, home & garden, clothing, hobbies and gifts.
If this sounds like you, you’re probably a Pinterest natural!
You don’t need to be a blogger or have your own website to start affiliate marketing on Pinterest. You don’t even need a lot of followers! Pinterest works like a search engine, so if you pin great images with good descriptions, people will find you.
How much can you make?
Pinterest marketing is a great way to make a little extra money, but it’s unlikely to replace a full time income.
Seasoned pinners report that they are making around $10 to $30 per day.
Note that it may take a while to see results – especially if you start without many followers. You should look at this as a long term game. Remember that once you pin something, it’s floating around Pinterest forever. The more affiliate pins you have, the more you will make in the long run.
The best thing is that this is almost passive income. It only takes a few minutes each day to pin a few affiliate links, and people can still discover your pins weeks or months later.
How to get started
Here are the basic steps to get started with affiliate marketing on Pinterest:
1. Make a Pinterest account. If you already have a personal account, just use that! You don’t need to make a new one.
2. Sign up with an affiliate program. Almost all major retailers have an affiliate program, but for beginners, I recommend Shopstyle Collective. This program lets you promote clothing and home products from dozens of different shops, including Pinterest favourites like Anthropologie and Forever 21.
Also, unlike most affiliate programs that only pay out when you make a sale, Shopstyle Collective pays per click! You earn 4 cents each time someone clicks on an image you pinned. While that might not sound like a lot, imagine over time you have hundreds of these images floating around Pinterest, getting pinned over and over. You can see how it all adds up!
When you sign up for an affiliate program it will probably ask for your website. Just enter your Pinterest profile here.
3. Start pinning images with your affiliate link. If you use Shopstyle Collective, simply click on the Pinterest icon on each product page. This lets you pin the product image with your affiliate link automatically embedded. When you pin from other sites, you may have to edit the pin to make sure your affiliate link is there.
4. Write a good description for each pin. Remember, Pinterest is a search engine. Use the kinds of words that people would search for. This will help people find your pin, even if they don’t follow you.
5. Don’t forget to re-pin other people’s images, too! Pinterest likes people who pin popular content. Repinning lots of popular pins stops your profile looking spammy, and it also means that Pinterest will show your pins more often in other people’s feeds.
6. Be consistent! This is probably the most important point. The more you pin, the more other people will see your pins, and the more clicks you’ll get! And don’t expect to make money with every single affiliate link you pin. Many pins sink without trace, while others unexpectedly go viral. You can’t always predict which pins will do well, so keeping pinning consistently – at least 3 to 5 affiliate pins every day, plus re-pinning other popular content.
Taking it further
As you get more comfortable with affiliate marketing on Pinterest, there are lots of ways you can develop it. You can use a free image editor like Canva to add text or backgrounds to your images. You could also try a pin scheduler like Tailwind or BoardBooster to automate your pinning.
I’ve only just scraped the surface of Pinterest marketing here, but I hope it got your interest up!
Want to make some extra cash?
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