With consumers spending an average of fifteen minutes per visit, and 80 percent of pins being repins, Pinterest users are a highly engaged group your business cannot afford to miss.
The five Pinterest tools below are designed to ignite and inspire your pinning efforts allowing you to increase awareness, engagement and visibility!
Let’s get pinning!
5 Pinterest Tools to Ignite Your Pinning
1. Pinterest Analytics
Pinterest analytics may not offer the bells and whistles other analytic tools do, but it is still a viable option when monitoring and measuring your Pinterest metrics.
In order to take advantage of Pinterest analytics you must first verify your website.
Steps to Use Pinterest Analytics:
- Click on “settings” and then “verify website.”
- Scroll down to your website url and click on the “verify” button to the right.
- A pop-up will open with verification instructions. Once this opens, select the “download the html verification file.” (Make sure you save the file somewhere easy to retrieve. Leave the verification window open).
- Upload the file into the root directory of your website via FTP or CPanel and then return to the verification page within Pinterest. Click on the “click here to complete the process.”
- You will receive a notification that your website has been verified. You are now free to close out and return to your profile.
Once you have verified your website you will find analytics on your drop down menu.
With Pinterest analytics you can track and monitor stats such as:
- Daily Pins
- Daily Repins
- Average Number of Clicks to Your Pinterest site
- Pins From Your Website
- Referral Traffic
2. Reachli (formerly Pinnerly)
Knowing and understanding what your audience enjoys and is eager to share is a key aspect to any successful Pinterest marketing strategy.
Reachli is a free discovery and analytic tool that allows you to quickly scan trending topics and analyze the interaction on your daily pins. You also have the ability to promote through tags and ad placement.
All you need to do is determine:
- Your budget
- Audience
- How long you would like your campaign to run
As you can see, the options are very similar to Facebook advertising, albeit on a much smaller scale.
3. PicMonkey
The best way to boost visibility on Pinterest is to create and pin captivating images. Whether it is your latest blog post or a brand new product, pinning your unique content builds brand awareness while encouraging interaction and engagement.
Not proficient with Photoshop? Feel less like a designer and more like a business owner struggling to position your images in the best light? Then you need PicMonkey!
What You Can Do With PicMonkey:
PicMonkey is a slick online and desktop editor that makes image creation and editing effortless.
Want to create a collage of your fun event photos? You can do that! Or maybe you want to design a unique graphic for your giveaway. Either one can be put together with ease!
PicMonkey can pump up the WOW power of any Pinterest images. Don’t believe me?
Just take a look at the example below and see what adding an image, text, and a super-fun overlay can do to take your pinnable content from blah and boring to bold and beautiful!
4. Hello Insights
Your Pinterest audience is pinning at different times dependent on the day. Since the Pinterest feed is similar to that of Twitter and moves at a rapid pace, believing that you will miraculously capture the attention of your audience is a foolish gamble your business can’t afford to take.
That is why you need Hello Insights!
Hello Insights provides:
- A live update of what your followers are sharing
- Timely statistics
- Top brand influencers
- Detailed traffic analytics
- Comparison charts that can be customized to fit your needs
They also offer Hello Creative, a fun and easy way to create original, visually appealing content that’s optimized for Pinterest. For businesses eager to make the most of Pinterest, these two tools combined will allow you to analyze what is working, what is not and better provide creative and fun images designed with your target market in mind.
5. PinAlerts
Pin Alerts is a free online tool that allows you to quickly set up alerts allowing you track in real-time when someone pins an image from your website.
Whenever an image that links back to your website is pinned, PinAlerts will send you a notification by email. This is extremely beneficial for any company interested in identifying which pins are popular.
It also allows you to take customer service to the extreme as you can quickly acknowledge and thank someone for his or her pin.
What Pinterest tools do you use within your business? I would love to hear which ones you suggest in the comments below!
Want more Pinterest tools? Here’s a few excellent resources!
12 Most Pintastic Tools to Improve Your Pinning on Pinterest by Kelly Lieberman via 12 Most
5 Pinterest Analytics Tools That Will Help You Improve Your Social Media Marketing Strategy via Amy Porterfield
20 of the Best Pinterest Tools for Business via Lilach Bullock
Pinterest as a Power Tool for Your Business via Cynthia Sanchez
Hi Rebekah
Because I’m out of the Pinterest circle, these tools are new to me. I’ve been focusing on so many other things lately, I had to give up Pinterest and some other social sites for a while.
But when I read about “Pin Alerts” that really sparked my curiosity. Pinterest has sure grown since I’ve been there for the better. When all my stuff is cleared, I’m going back onto the Pin Boards!
The good thing is I have your blog with so much information to use when I get there.
Thanks!
-Donna
Hi Donna!I can completely understand the need to pull back on some of our online activities. If we’re not careful, running from one social network to the next can suck up our entire day instead of focusing on money making tasks.
Pinterest is a different world and a terrific traffic resource, but not the right fit for every business.
Hi Rebekah,
it is so good to have been introduced to these tools by you!
I appreciate the description/overview you are providing.
The only one I heard of so far is PicMonkey.
The Pin Alert makes me curious to see which Images do get pinned!
Thank you so much for sharing this helpful information!
Cheers,
Yorinda
Rebekah,
Thank you for sharing these 5 wonderful tools to enhance my Pinterest experiences. I have Pinterest Analytics but have never actually checked it and used it. I do get PinAlerts and follow those boards that I like. The one I am excited about trying out is PicMonkey. I am always looking for new ways to enhance my blogs and images.
Warmly,
Dr. Erica
I’m not really using any Pinterest tools right now. I’m still in the learning stage. I haven’t had a lot of time to spend there yet… one thing at a time… and I am grateful for people like you who have spent the time doing the research, and are willing to share it with us simply and clearly. Thank you!
Willena
Hi Rebekah, Pinterest is really something that I am focusing on of late. I am quite visual and this was a great fit for me. I just had to learn how to make my images a bit more pinworthy, like the one you have above. Really makes a difference. Then there is the usual long haul to getting a few followers, a bit of momentum and then it starts to come. I even got on a group board recently and that is already paying off!
I need to focus more on using some of these tools you have mentioned especially the analytics once I get a few more followers. This really helps! Pic Monkey I also love, But I often use pixlr as I can add more filters.
Nice post as always
ashley
Hi Rebekah,
Great list! I have resisted Pinterest for so long because I am busy with my blogs, tribes, twitter and FB….but I also have thousands of travel pictures to post and Pin. Perfect match.
Now I need to learn more about the network. Posts like these certainly move me in the right direction 😉
Thanks for sharing your Pinterest insight Rebekah!
Ryan
I like Alan, I had no idea about any thing with this location. I just started and did not know anything except put images on my boards. So, I was told to just do it and not to over analyze anything. You are just sharing stuff with everyone on your boards.
When I use it with little experience it gives me pleasure for a little while. Then it reminds me of vision boards and I loose Interest. I am working on this and love to get better.
Thank you for being my only resource to education myself. You mean so much to me at this point and I love it!
I lot of my colleagues use PicMonkey. Is the pro plan worth the extra $? Just curious.
I don’t actually pay for the pro plan Lisa. I’m a Photoshop user myself and only use PicMonkey’s free tools. I do have several friends that rave about the pro plan though and say they couldn’t live without it.
I would also check into ipiccy. To me they have all of the bells and whistles as PicMonkey, their interface just isn’t quite as user-friendly.
I love using Pinterest these days. My biggest problem with it is putting images in my blog that are large enough for Pinterest pins. Do you have any suggestions for that?
Are you adding the image to the body of your blog or as the featured image? Make sure to add it to the body (as you;ll see mine is) and upload and initially add at the full resolution. (suggested size is 600 x 900)
Once you’ve added it, resize to fit into the actual post. When anyone chooses to pin it, the original size will be available to pin. Does that make sense?
I’m adding the same image twice. Once in the body, but only as around a 300x250px in size and once as the featured image as well. I see what you’re saying about adding the large size and then resizing it. I just didn’t think of doing it like that. Thanks!
I had no idea there were so many ways to use Pinterest, Rebekah, or so many useful tools. The biggest problem I have found with social sites is the amount of time it takes to maintain a presence on each of the, so I have mostly stayed away from Pinterest until now and stuck with Facebook.
Do you have any ideas on how to streamline the process?
Thanks for a most informative post.
Alan
Hi Alan,
Your struggle is the same one so many people face. The best advice I can offer you is to come in with a plan. Know what you’re going to post and where. That way you don’t log into Facebook and get sucked into the deluge of posts from friends and family. Have a plan and stick with it.
I hope that helps!
Rebekah