Pinterest: How to grow faster, get more repins, and win

So I’ve figured out a little something with Pinterest. It’s not rocket science and it isn’t going to blow you away, but I bet  you’ve neglected it and I bet you’re going to be really happy to start doing it again.

And this concept is the same for YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and any other image based account that ties into Twitter.

The concept started to sink in a bit after seeing the “likes” that Crystal Collins of TheThriftyMama.com was getting on her Instagram account. It took a bit for it to sink in, but then it all made sense.

For instance take a look at Stabiano on Instagram. He’s got 35,353 followers of his Instagram photos. And Yaron007 has almost 6,000 followers for the same reason. That reason is right here in this picture.

The people that grow quickly are using hashtags to be found. Take a look at the first comment next to the picture. That’s the description Yaron007 puts on the photo.  When someone sees that hashtag somewhere else on some other photo and they click on it, his shows up in the stream of results.

Did you know you could put “links” in your image captions?

So I did a little research and found out that you can find hashtags relevant to your niche. If you Google Hashtag Directory, you’ll find a few. Then if you search Twitter for your niche keywords, you’ll find some of the tweets have hashtags associated.

For wine alone I found hashtags associated with winery associations, home wine makers, wine festivals, wine tastings, wine lovers, wine connosieurs, pretty wine label designs and many more. That’s a huge market of people interested in wine I could get my Instagram photos in front of. . . and Pinterest pins.

Remember in Pinterest when you pin something you have the opportunity to share that image on Facebook or Twitter. Put the hashtag in the description and it will show up on Twitter for all to find and see. And when people click on the hashtag, they’ll be taken to all the other images that carry that tag.

Don’t neglect hashtags. They’re used to organize content on the web. When people search for them, they’re looking for content that fits the hashtag purpose. but don’t be a spammer. Be a contributor and you’ll reap great rewards.