Pining For Pinning? Board-Up With These 17 Pinterest Alternates

You read it everywhere – pinning on Pinterest is great for business.  From increasing brand awareness and customer engagement to making more sales, Pinterest is a proven powerhouse.

Pinning” as it is called, refers to the posting of files to a sharing website – Pinterest being the market leader.  These files are usually images, but could be documents, pdf files, or video.  For this article – I will focus on images, as they are most common.

Think of pinning as an electronic corkboard for your pictures, video, and letters – but with messaging & sharing capabilities – get the picture now?

Referred to as “pins”, images could be downloaded from your computer or easily taken from websites through a simple clipping/pinning tool called a bookmarkeletmy toolbar is full of them.  These pinned images are displayed on themed pages (Cars, Art, Rhode Island, Home…whatever) commonly referred to as boards.

Everything posted is free for others to see – and if they like what they see, viewers can share your pinned images with their followers.  Essentially, one can build a team of business ambassadors who are just pining for your next board post to help spread your message to the world.

That’s how you’re business is using Pinterest right now – isn’t it?

Pins usually guide the viewer to a website destination either by linking the image to your website or by listing your website URL within the description box.  So pinning as it turns out, could actually be a search engine marketing tool for your businesses.  Judging by the popularity of Pinterest, your efforts could pay huge dividends!

Whether an auto repair shop, insurance agent, boutique store, remodeling contractor, restaurant, or tourist attraction – pinning is a great way to share your brand & stories.  In addition, by including these links pointing back to your website (aka: linkbuilding) pinning could even elevate your ranking on search engines, thus drawing more organic online-visibility to your business.

Admittedly, most businesses I speak with see the enormous potential of pinning, but struggle with finding things to pin – here are some suggestions I give them:

  • Exterior & interior shots of your building
    • TIP: Think of that one spot at your business (inside or out) where you stand and think to yourself “Man, this place is awesome!” That’s your anchor image!
  • Detail pictures of the things around your business
  • The things you do, make, service, serve, fix, buy, or sell
    • Your happy customers enjoying these things
    • Your happy staff doing these thing
    • Your company celebrating these things
  • Your money shot
    • Logo, signage, mailers & postcards, business card, website screenshots
  • If the pressure of taking your own pictures freaks you out – consider hiring a photographer for the day

Do not forget to share & like the pins from your followers that match your business values & mission – that’s the social side of marketing.

Now unless you’ve been living on the space station the past couple years, I don’t think I have said anything yet that you haven’t already read or heard – these points are headline material every day.

But what you might not know is that Pinterest is not the only game in town.

Yep – it’s true, while Pinterest has the most market-share (for now), there are many more pinning sites worthy of consideration for both universal pinning (like Pinterest) as well as for niche market pinning too – like wedding, photography, travel, food, and even pinning just for guys.

No doubt about it – pinning is powerful!

A look into the backend of pinning reveals why this is so – here is a short list at what search engines could pick up on in your pins:

  • File Title (If the image is from your computer, it’s that file name)
  • Pin Title (This is the name you give it online)
  • Description (think: keywords, location, #, $, URL)
  • Shares (these are triggers to search engines too)
  • Likes (or some type of “NICE-ONE!” acknowledgement – again, an SEO trigger)

While some pinning platforms harvest even more SEO data:

  • Tags
  • Categories
  • Region (Country / State)
  • # hashtags {look for us #sidewalkbrandingco}
  • Online Destination (website)
  • Online Image Destination (the specific image URL)
  • DoFollow Links

With so much SEO juice in pins, it’s worth repeating – Pinning Is A Powerhouse For Business!

So if you are just pining to do more pinning for your business – or to get started, consider these 17 Pinterest alternates – Happy Pinning!

 

Universal Pinning(Most Like Pinterest) Site Authority

Country

Pinterest

7*

USA
Pearltrees

6

France
Springpad

6

USA
Clipix

5

USA
Image Spark

5

USA
Bolt

4

USA
Piccsy

4

Canada
Pinspire

4

UK
Educational Learnist

5

USA
Graphic Arts Dropula

5

USA
Men Gentlement

5

USA
Travel Trippy

5

USA
Web Designers Dribble

7

USA
Wedding Loverly

8

USA

 

Notable Risers on the Pinning Scene

Niche

Site Authority Country
Eco Eco Grazer 0 USA
Fashion The Button 1 USA
Food I Wanna Nom 4 USA
Men Dart It Up 3 USA ( not work-safe)

Each pinning site was reviewed for the following criterion:

  • Grid Display
    • Grids display more images than column formats for more viewing nirvana
  • Family/Work Safe Viewing
    • Some pinning sites have safe viewing filters
    • No surprises – the men’s sites draw the most concern
  • Gender Focus
    • Women – Men – Everyone
  • Visible Text Box
    • Displays description information
  • Comments
    • Permits comments to pins
  • Bookmarklet
    • A button to add to your browser toolbar that makes pinning super-easy
  • Download
    • Permits downloading files from your computer to the pinning site
  • Search Indexation
    • The ability for an optimized pin to populate into organic search results
  • Authority
    • Refers to Google’s ranking of a website as calculated as Page Rank (PR) – the higher the PR number – the more authority that site has with Google.
    • Generally speaking  PR of 1-3 low | 4-6 good | 7+ exceptional
  • Country of Origin
    • Helps in targeting different audience

Not every site listed is the right choice for every business – nonetheless, pinning options are aplenty – so get out there, share your images, tell the stories of your business, and get DISCOVERED in the process!

TIP: Do not forget to use keyword mapping & search engine optimization (SEO) with your pins to take full advantage of their marketing potential

About this study:

Over 80 pinning websites where analyzed, 28 rose to the top in Universal pinning – the remaining relegated under niche marketing categories

Two Universal pinning sites are represented for each Authority ranking greater than 3

* There is only one website for this Authority rank

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