Are you trying to understand how to make money with Pinterest?

I expect you have heard about this relatively new, social media phenomenon that is taking the internet by storm? And were you wondering how it can help you to get leads? And how you can therefore make money with Pinterest?

Well you are in the right place to discover my top tips on how to make money with Pinterest.

First of all, why should you be interested in Pinterest as a social media tool to build your business?

• Well, Pinterest has experienced exponential growth since bursting onto the scene in 2010. Although that growth is now levelling out Pinterest has the largest year over year increase in audience and time spent of any social network across PC, mobile web and apps.
• Pinterest iphone app is downloaded over 200,000 times per day
• 14 mins is the average time spent on Pinterest
• Over 4 million daily unique visitors
• Around 70% of users are women - but men are starting to use it more
• According to one statistic (see TAMBA infographic) the %age of all social media driven revenue from Pinterest is growing. In the near future Pinterest is projected to account for 40% of all social media driven purchases. Facebook will have fallen to 60% and Twitter will be nowhere!

Those stats should convince you that you need to be using Pinterest to help grow your business but how can you actually make money with Pinterest?

In a nutshell, you create great Boards that attract followers. Ultimately, you make money by getting those followers to click on your pins that take them to your website or blog where they can join your business, sign up to your newsletter, or buy your products or services - (either your own or affiliate products or services).

To make money with Pinterest, it's all about making connections and building relationships - pretty much the same as in any social media marketing - but Pinterest is more visual!

OK - let's look at the nitty gritty of how you can ultimately make money with Pinterest:

1. Create Killer Boards

You need around 8-10 boards on a business site.

Full boards attract more viewers than sparse ones. (There is now a Secret Board option - so you can keep a board private while you are building it if you want to).

Arrange them with your most powerful images and boards on the top row. It is easy to move the order of your boards around to keep your Pinterest site fresh and you can easily update the cover image of each board.

Think of your boards like catalogues - they need to be visual, changing, simple and have a call to action! You will have most success to make money with Pinterest if you can niche your board Nina Garcia organises her boards around Trends e.g. for Fall 2013 - trends for Leather, Disco Glam, Plaid, etc).

Come up with creative titles to engage the viewer. Not 'Travel Tips' but 'Paris on a Budget'. Not 'Recipes I like' but 'Wow Meals for under $5'. Get the idea? Wholefoods (one of the top boards on Pinterest) do this really well.

Aim to have one product board for every 3 or 4 general boards or make sure that at least half your board is general - depending on how many boards you have on your site! To make money with Pinterest inject your personality - don't just sell, sell, sell.

2. Create Eye-Catching Original Pins

Don't just re-pin all the time - you need to create some original pins as well! Aim for at least 1 original pin for every 10 repins.

Creating your own pins enables you to effectively market your products by linking to your own sites. (Note - don't link directly to an affiliate site (e.g. Amazon) but rather to your own website or blog where customers can then click on your affiliate product. This is important as Pinterest have started removing Amazon links from pins, so to be safe I would recommend always link to your own site first).

You can create pins from your blog article or video post by using Slideshare.net or just pinning an image in your article. (Make sure you set the link on your Pin to take viewers straight to the article page see point 6 below).

Use your own photos, images from your website or from free photo sites on the Internet. You can easily add words to an image by using pinwords.com or create quotation pins by using quozio.com. Gimp.org is a good tool to use to add a watermark or your web address to your pin. This can help prevent people claiming your pin as their own! (All of these tools are free to use).

• Infographics are always very popular and can impart a lot of information - graphic design sites such as Lemon.ly can make these up for you.
• If you put a $ sign in the description Pinterest will automatically put a price tag on your pin and add it to the products section.
• If you need inspiration try: Tip of the Day, Thought of the Day, Product of the Day etc. which will also work well as Tweets.
• Look for viral YouTube videos and turn these into pins. Video tutorials work well too.
• Look for what's trending on Pinterest for inspiration too - go to the Popular tab for this info.

Get people to connect emotionally with your Pin - that way they are more likely to share it. Popular subjects include hobbies (especially crafting and cooking), health and fitness, children, interior design, fashion and SEO/Marketing. Beautiful locations, romantic images, animals, quotes, humorous images are all popular and connect well.

3. Good use of Keywords

Think about keywords when creating your pins or writing descriptions (and even in your profile). Based on the popular subjects listed above, think about what search terms pinners will be using.

Last year a Shareaholic Study revealed that Pinterest beat YouTube, Reddit, Google Plus, Linked In and My Space for the percentage of REFERRAL Traffic. People use the Pinterest Search function to find things related to their interests - so this is a great way to make money with Pinterest.

Good, well-thought out captions increase the share-ability of your pin - and if you throw in a good keyword people are more likely to find it in the first place.

If using several key words you can use the #tag to separate them to help with searches.

4. Write a good profile

And DEFINITELY add a photo! There is nothing worse than a blank avatar - that is not the way to build relationships or make money with Pinterest! Think about your profile description as this is where you can connect with other pinners. Try to give some personal information about yourself and make it interesting. You can use keywords here too. Link your website, facebook and twitter accounts to Pinterest and they will show up under your profile so pinners can click to visit your other sites.

5. Get Followers

The magic number seems to be 1000 followers. Once you hit this people will be looking at your boards more readily. So how do you get to that magic number and start to potentially make money with pinterest?

To find pinners with similar interests look for the users behind the pins you like (or that are in your niche) and then look at the users that they follow.

Like, comment, re-pin and follow - a percentage of these pinners will follow you back.

(I do not recommend using a bot to do this for you as this is very spammy and Pinterest can shut you down if they realise what you are doing - check the Pinterest Blog Site for up to date comment on this - but Pinterest are working to reduce the use of spam and bots).

The better your boards, pins and keywords the better chance you have of being followed.

And of course, you can easily share your pins on Facebook and Twitter to get more people to follow you or like a pin!

Competitions can be a good way to increase your following. For example get people to add a caption to an image or finish the quote or guess 'where in the world'. Or run a contest to design a pin or create a survey competition.

Also, rather obviously, invite people to follow you on Pinterest from your Website, Blog and Facebook page.

The more followers you have the more likely you are to make money with Pinterest.

6. Good Links

Make sure you link your original pins to your website - and ensure your link takes them to the right page. There is nothing worse than clicking on a pin entitled '10 Great Ways to get Leads Online' and then being taken to the home page of someone's site so you have to try to find the article you were interested in. (Once you have created your pin, view it, and click on edit pin - then you can insert or check your link).

You can put your own link on a re-pinned pin BUT if you do, always credit the originator and provide their information.

Ensuring your pins are properly linked will help you to make money with Pinterest.

7. Set Goals and Spend Focussed Time

Pinterest is such a great, visual site that it is easy to get side-tracked and spend hours just looking at other people's pins! Set yourself a time limit to work on Pinterest and most importantly, set yourself goals for your 'make money with Pinterest' strategy.

An example goal might be to get:

• 400 new followers in 4 months by adding 25 new followers a week,
• by repinning and liking 50 pins per week and following 30 boards.
• and adding 5 original pins to your boards each week.

If you follow all these steps you will soon be generating leads and able to make money with Pinterest.