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The top 10 websites like Pinterest

If you are getting traffic from Pinterest and want to expand into other discovery shopping social networks. Here are a few of the best:

Wanelo-

With a name standing for “want, love, need” Wanelo is a social shopping website that get ”1.3 million visitors a month” according to an NYTimes article from Jan 2013. Each image takes you directly to an e-commerce site where you can by the item, no blog intermediary allowed here.

Indulgy-

Dark background, bigger images and less pins per page than Pinterest so it is easy to focus on each image. Brands using it: Nordstrom and Blue Nile

Svpply -

Has a simple, one column feed. Lots of menswear and has a design edge. You can mark items as want, collect or own.

Fancy -

The Fancy features neat and quarky products. This was one of the first discovery engines to come out but has recently made an interesting development in monetization by accepting payments rather than forwarding shoppers on to a 3rd party site.

Luvocracy -

Another attempt at monetizing discovery engine traffic. How it works? If you see something you like you can “buy” it via Luvocracy at the lowest price they have on record. They scour the internet for the product you like and give it to you at the lowest possible price. They act as the intermediary between you and the online merchant. This business model seems a little inexact I am tempted to try it to see what the shopping experience is actually like.

Lyst -

It is like Pandora for fashion. You follow content from top brands, retailers and personalities, you can also create and share your own lists. It aggregates all the fashion items you may be interested in, based on your previous selections, into once space.

Weheartit -

A cute photosharing platform founded in Brazil had over 600,000 monthly pageviews as of July 2012.

Lover.ly – Brides

A beautiful photo and inspiration sharing platform geared towards brides and the bridal industry.

FFFFOUND! – Designers

One of the first visual bookmarking tools, FFFFOUND! is mostly used by designers and artists.

Dribbble – Designers

Graphic designers showcase and share their work on this social network.

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Who is doing it right? on Pinterest

IN BEAUTY: The Beauty Department:

The beauty department is a online beauty publisher founded by Lauren Conrad and her glam squad in 2011. They girly, fresh design and celeb insider beauty tips made the site really stand out. They publish beauty how-tos with a step by step photo demonstration. These visuals made for great content on Pinterest. The images are quite long, taking up a lot of real estate on the Pinterest page, attracting more eyeballs. The Beauty Department provides professional advice on everyday beauty techniques to interest a wide variety of women such as, “Bronzing 101″ and “How to find the perfect foundation color.” They also use celebs in their demos. The contemporary design, long format images, relevant content and celeb collaborations lead to massive amounts of repins.

IN DESIGN: The Perfect Palette

The Perfect Palette’s Pinterest profile feature boards and boards and boards of inspiration in every color under the sun. The content is geared towards brides and party planners and is organized by color. This is a great resource because of the vast amount of pins and the smart way it is organized.

IN FASHION: The Glitter Guide

TheGlitterGuide.com, launched in 2011, has quickly established itself the online destination for all things girly and glamorous. With a faithful following of almost 1 million followers on Pinterest they average 100 – 200 repins per pin.

CELEBS: Lauren Santo Domingo

LSD is lucky to have a continuous supply of her own street style photos shot by top photographers to share on her Pinterest profile. But what is most interesting is her curation of other fashion, art, photography and design content. Her personal style shines through on every post, which is not an easy feat.

IN TRAVEL: Jetsetter

With 4.5 million followers, Jetsetter is arguably the top travel brand on Pinterest (by comparison Conde Nast Traveler has only 20K, Travelocity has 2K). Boards like “Daily Moment of Zen”, “5 Minute Getaways”, “Bucket List”, and “Crazy for the Caribbean” are great ways to categorize and recategorize the massive amount of getaway images they have. Remarkable beaches, views and cultural sights are very popular content on an aspirational website like Pinterest. By giving followers many places to discover new vacation spots, resort deals and breathtaking imagery they keep followers coming back.

Follow me at pinterest.com/flemingworks

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6 tips for large brands: how to get more traffic and sales from Pinterest

In my last post, I provided some tactics for businesses on how to increase their presence on Pinterest. Larger companies that have a budget for promotions would do well to spend wisely on partnerships and advertising to benefit their pages. Here are a few suggestions:

Partner with a top pinner (IMHO someone with +100K followers) on a campaign. Many tip pinners are bloggers. Check there website for contact information and send them a personalized email explain why you would like to collaborate with them on a Pinterest campaign. Do your homework. Scan their boards and blog to make sure their content is aligned with your brand. Don’t rely on them to come up with a great idea. Bring your campaign idea to them but be open to their input, they know their audience best. There is also an agency called Hello Society that specializes in connecting brands with top personalities on Pinterest. They even have packages where you can engage the support of multiple pinners on a campaign for a set fee.
Partner with a publication on a campaign that directs traffic to your boards or profile. A clever sponsored post can direct traffic to your boards and help grow your audience.
Encourage Pinterest sharing on your website. Make sure that your website has pin it buttons on all product and images.
Encourage your designers to create content that is Pinterest friendly. For example, if you are a haircare brand, do a how to shoot and combine the images into one tall image that will really stand out on Pinterest.
Use Pinterest to trend watch and for product development insight. If a particular product is blowing up on Pinterest use that insight for future designs. Pins, like great trends, tend to have a very long life. I have pins from 2 years ago that are still getting repinned daily. A wide variety of shoppers are represented on Pinterest from the trendsetters to those that hop on once a trend hits the mainstream.
Experiment! Pinterest is a forgiving platform so don’t be afraid to take risks.

If you are interested in getting specific feedback on your brand’s Pinterest profile email me at morgan at flemingworks dot com.

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How to use Pinterest to get more traffic and sales for your website

A recent Business Insider article put it bluntly, Pinterest users are “rich, female and likely to spend.” Pinterest boasts “10 million unique visitors a month… of whom many… are young, female, well-educated and have disposable income.” And these users are big spenders: “Pinterest shoppers, on average, spend nearly $170 per session, according to a study by RichRelevance, an e-commerce consultant, which tracked 700 million shopping sessions. In comparison, Facebook shoppers spend $95 per session, while Twitter shoppers spend $70.”

The challenge for retailers becomes how to make the most of this eager and affluent audience.

It is a fairly democratic space, Pinterest has no advertising platform at this time. So that means digital marketers have to get their hands dirty and spend time on Pinterest!

Here are some tricks, that require no budget, that both large and small businesses can use on Pinterest in order to generate more traffic and sales from the social network:

Pin several times a day, space the timing out and choose your timing wisely. PinGraphy is a great tool for scheduling pins. It also has a metrics tool so you can find when are the hot times of day for your audience.
Add a price in the comment to get a pin to get it into the Gifts section.
Repin popular content. Don’t restrict yourself to only pinning content directly related to your product or niche. If you see something that is getting a lot of pins share it with your followers.
Don’t forget a link and/or call to action in the comment.
Share the love. When you repin, like or comment on someone else’s pins it is a very personal and positive introduction to make for yourself. Everyone feels good when someone likes something they have found and shared. So make sure you are out there giving engagement.
Analyze your traffic. Use google analytics to see what pins are driving the most traffic and conversions to your website. You can give special attention to high preforming content and even create campaigns around it. Think about rewarding your top pinners with a coupon or shout out.

If you like what I have shared, follow me on Pinterest and leave a comment on THIS PIN and I will follow you back!

In my next article, I will outline some ways in which bigger companies that have a budget to promote their Pinterest profiles can get the most from the platform. Check back tomorrow!

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Website Design – DJAutograph.com

I designed a website for my friend DJ Autograph a hip-hop and reggae DJ and VJ from NYC. He needed a website to showcase his video and audio mixes, party photos and publications as well as keep fans up to date on his upcoming events. His most important need with this site was have a nice looking audio player interface. Take a look and listen to some of his mixes www.djautograph.com

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