5 Useful Tools you Can Use with Pinterest

“Dang, yet another social networking tool to get addicted too!” That was my first thought when I started hearing about Pinterest.

If you haven’t heard by now, Pinterest is a visually stunning, cool image repository where you can create boards and “pin” images to your wall. It’s fun and, dare I say, addicting! 

Well, nowadays, with a small business, we have to use all tools necessary and available to us to grow and Pinterest is one of them.

At first, I held out on joining because I thought: who has time for another tool? Aren’t Facebook and Twitter enough?

Well, it depends on your business and who your audience is. However, I’ll venture to say that even if you don’t think it’s best for you yet, go ahead and get invited (if you need an invite, let me know!) and at least get your branded URL – even if you don’t start pinning much yet.

If you are new to Pinterest, just Google “beginner’s guide to using Pinterest” and you’ll find enough resources to get you started and finding a strategy that works for your business.

The Big Why

Pinterest is here to stay! Last I heard (May 2012), it has over 13 million active users and growing quickly. In addition, according to a traffic study by Mashable, Pinterest sends more traffic to external sites than YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+ COMBINED! Wow! Now that’s enough reason for me to jump in and play

For the more advanced user, here are 5 tools, mostly free, that can help you even more in the Pinterest game brought to you by Brianne.

5 Useful Tools you Can Use with Your Pinterest

If you are a keen Internet user, you may have heard of Pinterest recently. This social website used for sharing images made its appearance two years ago and has gained immense popularity over these two years. Pinterest makes it easy to collect images online and share it on different boards on the website for others with similar interests to see. Here is a list of 5 tools that can add to your experience of using Pinterest.

1. Spinpicks

Though Spinpicks is still in its beta version, many Pinterest users find it useful to find new pin boards and new people to follow. It also gives you the option to include other sites like Instagram and Twitpic in your search. There is also a feature to repin the Pinterest images directly through this application.

2. Pinreach

Pinreach, as the name indicates is a tool to measure your influence through Pinterest. You just need to sign up on this website using your Pinterest username and you can get access to Pinterest specific analytic data. Pinreach can be compared to the popular website Klout. It gives you a score and tells you the top influencers in your group of followers. Of course, it has the basic analytic features like number of likes, repins, total number of followers etc. It also shows you other popular pins on the website.

3. Share As Image (formerly Pin A Quote)

Quotes never go out of style. We love them, we need them and we share them. Other tools like Pinstamatic also allow you to do so. What makes Share As Image special is that it helps you highlight any text from anywhere on the web and pin it. We just need to select the text that we want to pin from any website and click on the Share As Image bookmarklet to fill a short form and submit.

The free version of Share As Image will let you post without color and using only a single font. The PRO version is $2.99 and allows unlimited color options, tons of font options and LIVE previewing!

4. Pin Search

This tool is a Google chrome extension that helps you in finding relevant images from across the world on Pinterest. This extension will display a search button next to the repin, like and comment buttons on any Pinterest image. Clicking on this button will lead you to Google search results page related to this image. The Google search results may surprise you. Get ready for a whole new level of discovery.

5. Recent Activity Expander

If you are one of those people who want to keep a track of Pinterest activity, this is an excellent tool for you. This is a great tool for businesses  who want to keep an eye on Pinterest activity. You can add a column on the left displaying all the recent activity related to you. It shows all repins, likes and comments since the time of your last login. This is also a Chrome extension so you need the Google Chrome browser to use this tool.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many more free and paid Pinterest tools in the market and more are being introduced every day. Pinterest looked like just another image sharing site but it has gained immense popularity in a very small time. And using these tools adds more value to the entire experience.

Brianne is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on Samsung Galaxy R attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on Etios Liva price.

More Pinterest Goodies

Pinterest Video – Great video from Matthew Loop about using Pinterest in marketing your business.

Kesha’s on Pinterest

But of course I am! Click the button below to follow me!

eBook – Pinterest For Business

Finally, here’s an awesomely created ebook resource from Kim Castleberry entitled Pinterest For Business Made Easy (affiliate link). 

Over to you…

So now you have lots of resources to market your business using Pinterest! How are you using Pinterest? Don’t forget to connect with me