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Pinterest is huge!  And Pinterest continues to grow like crazy.  It’s also a great tool for generating traffic to your website, shop or blog and for generating leads.  If you’re looking for some practical tips on how to set up your Pinterest and use it to market your home based business watch the 15 minute video below. This is ideal for mompreneurs, entrepreneurs and home based businesses.  I’ve also listed 25 tips for marketing your business below the video.  Happy Pinning!

1. Use your business name in your profile, or your real name, depending on which you are trying to brand.  Be consistent among the various social media platforms.
2. Be creative in the “About” section of your Pinterest profile.  Be descriptive and interesting.  You know your target market, so complete this section accordingly.
3. Be sure to connect Pinterest with your with Facebook and Twitter accounts.  It will help you gain followers from your existing social media connections and will give your Pinterest followers a link to both Twitter and Facebook.
4. Use a professional photo for your profile picture. Use the same picture for Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest for branding purpose.
5. Pin frequently and steadily.  Do not pin once a week with lots of pins.  It’s best to pin several times daily to maximize your exposure and engagement.
6. Board names are very important and can even help with SEO as you link back to your website.  Be creative, interesting and descriptive.
7. By tagging other Pinterest users in your pins you stick out.  It’s similar to Twitter and Facebook, just use “@username” to generate a mention.  Not many people are doing this so it will help you stick out and create some engagement.
8. Comment on other’s pins to engage with others.
9. “Like” other’s pins when appropriate, again to engage with others.
10. When you repin, the person you repin gets notified by email and also get mentioned on your pin, so this increases their following.  When you repin, you share the pin your repin with your following.  It’s similar to a retweet on Twitter.
11. Be yourself and pin your passions.
12. Pin from blogs and websites you visit and support.  If you are going to pin from your blog or website (and you should) be sure to also pin from other sources.  Variety and the lack of constant self promotion is key.  Have a good balance between repinning and uploading new pins.  Both are good!  Be sure to be descriptive using keywords that you feel will be searched often.  Also, go into the edit section and add the URL of the blog location if you are uploading a pin.
13. Pin graphics from your own blog post and web pages, but do not over-promote.  If you only share your own content you’ll get unfollowed.  In this regard, it’s like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus and Instagram.
14. Take advantage of seasonal and holidays and create pins for your business that are holiday oriented.  I absolutely love Christmas and naturally pin a lot of Christmas content, which get repinned frequently.  The same is true for my summer and Halloween board (which I accidentally deleted)
15. Search for new images to pin.  Also use the “Popular” link to discover trends and popular images to repin.
16. Videos stand out on Pinterest – everyone loves videos!
17. Get the Pinterest App for your phone.  It’s easy to pin and repin for a few minutes at a stop light or while waiting in line to pick up your kids from school.
18. Optimize your website to make sharing on Pinterest (and other social media sites) easy.  When you write blog posts, always use a graphic that you feel will be, what is the word? Pinnable?  You’ll get a feel for the types of images that are repinned frequently.  Always include good quality graphics that people will pin.
19. If you use WordPress like I do, you can use a Pinterest Widget to display your most recent pins on your sidebar (if appropriate).
20. You can add contributors to your boards.  You can add staff, fellow bloggers, family – anyone who has a common taste of high quality pins and images.  You get the benefit of having additional hands pinning and additional engagement.
21. http://pinterest.com/source/yoursite allows you to see who has posted pins from your site.  Knowing who frequently pins from your site and what they are pinning is valuable information.  You can also see this about your competitors site too.
    
22. You can add prices to your pins to create your own Pinterest shop. To add a price to a pin, type the $ followed by the price in the pin’s description. When you add prices to your pins, they may be featured in Pinterest’s “Gifts” section. It is a clear cut sign to let followers know that item is for sale and is ideal to link to your shop/store.
23. Create a board that displays awards, prizes, trips, promotions and other accolades you or your company has received.
24. Go to old blog posts and pin images from that post, giving new life to old posts.
25. Tweet individual pins or boards as a part of your routine promotion of your Pinterest or blog posts.