13 Essential Tools to Help Pin, Share & Track Better on Pinterest

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By cypressnorth
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Oh, Pinterest. The site that you hate to love and love to hate.

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, it's hard to ignore the massive growth that Pinterest has experienced over the past year. A recent report reveals Pinterest is now the third largest social media site based on number of site visits (104 million) behind Facebook (7 billion) and Twitter (182 million).

I've noticed that the frequency at which I hear, "I got the idea from Pinterest," or "I found that recipe on Pinterest," has steadily increased in recent months. From DIY home projects to step-by-step cooking tutorials, even those with no talent in the kitchen or a crafty bone in their body are still pinning pictures and links to their food porn and dream home boards. I know I do.

Because of the site's popularity, all kinds of tools, widgets, and extensions are popping up online to help companies not only promote their business, but measure and analyze user activity to better understand the role Pinterest plays in their overall marketing strategy.

Here's a round-up of tools we found that will allow you to pin easier, share faster, and track better on Pinterest. Of course, not every tool will be applicable to you or your business, but hopefully you'll be able to find the right combination that will provide the data needed to make informed, strategic decisions.

1. PinReach

PinReach, formerly known as PinClout, is an analytics platform aimed at giving businesses a way to see their true reach and influence on Pinterest. This is essentially the Klout equivalent for Pinterest. PinReach assigns a score based on a "combination of various social activities you complete while using Pinterest." Some of these social activities might include getting re-pinned or gaining new followers. Ultimately, says PinReach, the goal is to produce and share great content.

You can view your basic stats on Pinterest such as number of pins, repins, likes, etc.

2. Pinpuff

Pinpuff is another way to calculate your "pinfluence", or, how popular you are on Pinterest and the value of each pin posted. To calculate your score, visit the home page, enter your email and Pinterest username and wait for Pinpuff to work its magic.

Once it's done, you'll be presented with your pinfluence report card.

This screen breaks down your Pinterest stats and provides scores based on Reach, Activity, and Virality of your account. It also provides suggestions based on your score. For example, my reach score is "below average", so in order to improve my pinfluence score, Pinpuff suggests that I spread the word by pinning more on social sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Just like Klout, Pinpuff has a PinPerks Program where you can get access to exclusive gifts, invites, and subscriptions to freebies and other goodies based on your pinfluence.

As for calculating the value of each of your pin... this message is currently posted on the scorecard page:

Pin values will remain unavailable for some time as we are further improving our algorithm.

So there's that.

3. Repinly

Use Repinly to get a pulse on what's currently trending in different categories on Pinterest at any given time. Repinly's directory gives users insight on what the most popular content is on Pinterest by displaying the most popular pinners, boards, and pins. This is a great tool to use if you need to conduct research for a client or pull together a list of influential pinners.

4. Share As Image (Formely Pin A Quote)

Share As Image makes it extremely easy to turn quotes -- or any text you find on the web -- into a visual image and then allows you to share the image on Pinterest, Facebook or Twitter. The free version limits your ability to customize the message to just black and white and a single font. However, if you post quotes often or want to dress your text up to make it more interesting, you might want to consider spending the $2.99 to get the PRO version which gives you unlimited color options, tons of font options, and the ability to preview your image. 

5. PinWords

If you want to add text to a photo fast without having to open up Photoshop, check out PinWords. This is a tool similar to Share As Image that allows you to quickly add a caption or description to an image before pinning it to Pinterest.

You can upload an image from your computer or enter an image URL from the web.

Then, select a text format that you want to use, the color of the text, and see the changes made live. When you're all done, Pin it! You can also share it on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter or via email.

6. Pin Search (Chrome Extension)

Pin Search is a fantastic Chrome extension that allows you to do a little investigative work on any picture found on Pinterest. Wonder which websites a picture appears on? Use Pin Search. Need to know who the designer/author/chef/photographer/illustrator who created the picture/graphic is? Use Pin Search. Want to find similar pictures? Use Pin Search.

Simply add the extension to your browser and you'll see a "Search" button appear only when you hover over images on Pinterest.

Once you click on the Search button, it will take you to the Google image search that will return similar image results, plus a list of sites that the image appears on. This is a quick and easy way to see who is linking to your content. In addition, if you're compiling a list of people/sites that you want to do content marketing outreach to, this tool can help you find other sources that have published similar content to the content you wish to promote and share.

7. PinWidget

PinWidget is a simple feed that displays a list of comments/pins about your website. It's super simple to add this to your page. Simply enter your website address and click the button "Get Comments." From there, you'll receive an email to grab the code you'll need to add to your site.

This widget would work well for sites that are active on Pinterest and have an established audience because it will always show visitors what people are saying about the brand or company on Pinterest. If people aren't buzzing about your brand or your company and pinning, then this widget's content will be stale.

8. Pinstamatic

While Pinterest started out as a visual pin board, it's uses have now evolved. Pinstamatic now allows users to add much more than just photos to Pinterest, enhancing the overall pinning experience by including things like music, quotes, calendar dates, locations, sticky notes, and websites.

For example, I really love the song "Take A Walk" by Passion Pit, so why not pin this song to a board on Pinterest so people who follow me can learn more about my favorite jams? You can search for songs directly from Pinstamatic.

Once you find the song, you can select the board you want to pin it to, per usual, add your comments in, and Pin!

You can also add locations with a title and description. I can see this coming in handy in planning vacations with friends and family members, or coordinating events and activities that multiple people can contribute to.

9. PinAlerts

Similar to Google Alerts, you can set up PinAlerts on websites of your choice so you will be notified when content from your site is pinned to Pinterest. PinAlerts are emailed to you and you can set the frequency at which you receive notifications.

10. Pinterest Right Click (Add-On)

This is another add on that will speed up the pinning process for users. While there may be a "Pin It" button or bookmarklet that you use, adding this extension to Firefox or Chrome will make it easier than ever to pin content to Pinterest. All you have to do is right click.

Get Pinterest Right Click for Firefox and Chrome.

11. Pinterest Pro (Chrome Extension)

Another Chrome browser extension, Pinterest Pro will have you pinning any image in just two clicks. Really -- after adding this extension, you can right click on any image and select the "Pin to Pinterest" option. Yes, this is pretty much identical to Pinterest Right Click, but Pinterest Pro is a Chrome extension only, so if you use Firefox, you'll have to go with Pinterest Right Click.

In addition to instant pinning, Pinterest Pro also makes cruising the site faster. Instead of clicking through individual pins, you can just hover over the pin like a magnifying glass to see an enlarged version. Ooooh, pretty.

For the true Pinterest addict, Pinterest Pro also allows you to quickly see what a user is pinning on Pinterest without having to load the actual site. Simply click on the Pinterest icon in your browser toolbar, type in the name of the Pinterest user, and voila, see their latest pins.

12. Pinerly

Pinerly is another suite of analytics tools aimed at helping content creators and businesses that sell products be able to quickly and easily add their content to Pinterest and measure its relevance on the social network. Pinerly wants to show you what works and what doesn't work on Pinterest, and help you devise the best strategy for your content to increase sales and drive traffic back to your site.

At the time of writing this post, I attempted to create a new campaign on Pinerly multiple times, but with no success. I filled out all the proper fields and pinned my link and image to Pinterest, but when it came to the last step, I received an error each time. I'm in the process of reaching out to Pinerly's customer service, but until I receive a response and use the tool, I can't really provide much insight. I will update this post when I have better information! Maybe you'll have better luck.

Pinerly is currently invite only, but jump on the waiting list and it shouldn't be too long before you get invited. I think my invite came within 24 hours or less without sharing the link on Facebook or Twitter.

13. One last tip

Want to know what's being pinned from your website? An easy way to do this is to type in www.pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com to a browser, which will populate content that other users have added to Pinterest from your site.

For example, to see what is being pinned on J. Crew's website, you would enter: http://pinterest.com/source/jcrew.com/ into your web browser. If you're curious to see what users are pinning about your competitors, check that too by typing in your competitor's site address.

Good luck!

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By cypressnorth
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3 Comments

  1. Author's Headshot
    Using Pinterest To Rock Out Your Brand - PushFire July 25, 2012
    Reply

    [...] tools? About an hour before we set this to publish, Cypress North posted a list of Pinterest tools that includes some great additions to the ones [...]

  2. Author's Headshot
    Tom Klein August 13, 2012
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    Rately is another helpful tool if you would like to create multi-image collection pins- see an overview at rately.com/about or see pinterest.com/rately for examples.

  3. Author's Headshot
    katerina February 1, 2013
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    Please I'd like to know if, apart from this tools there's any other one to analyse stats from users who see our pins or just click on them.
    Thanks for your post!

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