Guest Post by the sterkly CPA network

Pinterest (which is pronounced pin-terest) is a social bookmarking site which enables users to “pin” their interests, as images, to categorized boards.

This relatively new digital sharing platform has thrived in the online jungle, where content is king.

This content is gleaned through user expression; sharing interests and making recommendations via pins, repins, votes, liking, and sharing to other social media platforms. The platform is easy to use, categorized extremely well and very present-future in the space-time continuum.

I would like to take a moment to let my inner-philosopher override the internet marketer in me to make a point of just how present-future positioned this social networking tool really is…

While most social media sites carry posts ex post facto (pun intended) that end up being pushed down a wall and ultimately getting lost in time, Pinterest does just the opposite. The philosophical idea behind Pinterest is more desire oriented, “what do I want…?” Is it a honeymoon destination? Or perhaps a DIY plant arrangement?

The categorized themes of Pinterest know no bounds and include everything from architecture to hair & beauty, graphic design to crafts, food to apparel and much, much more. Even weddings tend to be more inspirationally focused as compared to most past-present oriented social networking platforms.

Okay, enough of the love-fest. This is where I let my inner-marketer freak flag fly.

What’s really cool about Pinterest is that there are several ways affiliates can utilize Pinterest for offer promotion…

Let’s start with the most monetizable of these options: good ole’ display advertising – or in Pinterest terms, vision board referrals. With each pin, you are able to post images from the web to your board in just a couple clicks. You have the ability to link to wherever you’d like, and this is why affiliates can essentially use Pinterest as their direct traffic source or publisher site.

When first posting an image to Pinterest, the default link associated with the image post will actually be generated by SkimLinks, who serves as an affiliate to Pinterest to monetize on merchant offers.

Once you create a pin, however, you may immediately go back and edit the URL of your pinned offer to include your affiliate link and avoid the SkimLinks override. Please note that it will not suffice to insert your affiliate link during your initial pinning- rather, you must go back and edit the URL after your pin has been posted to ensure the conversion path includes your affiliate link.

It really doesn’t get any easier than to have pre-determined categories for targeting, paired with über amounts of demographic data to optimize with.

Pinterest is emerging as one of today’s fundamental forms of B2C marketing. Your pins essentially go into auto-pilot with features such as repining. Your pin could even go viral, in which fellow “Pinteresters” promote your brand awareness on a massive scale.

Also, by adding a “Pin It” button to your site, you allow visitors to pin offers from your site to their own Pinterest board.

Merchants may sell their products on Pinterest much like they would on Etsy by posting in the “gifts” section. Many merchants even hold repin contests to promote their offers. At the very least, the SEO benefits of backlinking to the #22 ranked site in America and #122 in the world (according to Alexa) cannot hurt.

Although every new platform is upsold in reviews for affiliate potential, Pinterest really stands out among its crowd in that it is able to keep users engaged for long periods of time and has the data to back it up.

A recent comScore study titled “What does the Louis CK Experiment Mean for the Future of Digital Content Distribution?” found that the average Pinterest user spends about 1.5 hours per month on the site and 15+ minutes per session. comScore also found that Pinterest’s unique visitor growth has proven to be outstanding. Check it out:

…not to mention current Experian Hitwise Data ranks Pinterest as the #5 top social networking site:

Taking into account their massive-yet-steady growth, their present-future minded theme, their simple pin-and-post display platform, and their religiously followed pre-determined categories, I’d say Pinterest is definitely worth a shot!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much would those thousand words cost you in a CPC campaign?

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This article is provided by the sterkly CPA network and software bundling program which is the pioneer in bundled software & plugin offers for publishers. Join the pride to get paid for promoting free software apps such as FreeTwitTube, Overapps and ezLooker, a craigslist browsing tool.