You’re posting every day on Instagram or Facebook. You’re getting some traction. But there’s a massive search engine sitting right next to you that most network marketers and direct sellers are completely ignoring.
And it’s not dying down. It’s exploding.
Pinterest now has 619 million monthly active users, more than double what it had just a few years ago. The biggest growth spike happened in Q4 of 2025 alone.
Yet only about 20-25% of social sellers are active on the platform.
That gap is your opportunity.
Ray recently sat down with Pinterest expert Kim Ward, a rock star on the reality show Play to Win and the go-to Pinterest strategist for the Higdon Group, to break down exactly how beginners are using Pinterest to generate leads, grow their following, and make their first sales in 2026.
Step 1: Understand What Pinterest Actually Is
Most people treat Pinterest like a social media platform. That’s the first mistake.
Posture Check: Pinterest is a search engine. People don’t scroll Pinterest to see what their friends are doing. They log in to search for solutions to problems they already have.
This distinction changes everything about how you show up there.
On Facebook or Instagram, the algorithm decides who sees your content based on engagement. On Pinterest, people only see content they actively searched for. That means if your pin matches what someone is already looking for, you get in front of a warm, intentional audience.
Kim put the contrast plainly: nobody goes to Facebook and searches “doTERRA lavender oil.” But on Pinterest? That keyword gets over 5 million monthly searches.
The platform rewards relevance, not reach.
Step 2: Set Up a Free Business Account and Integrate Your Existing Content
Here’s the beauty of this for beginners: you don’t have to create a ton of new content.
Start at business.pinterest.com and set up a free business account. The business account (not personal) gives you access to analytics so you can see which pins are performing and why.
Once your account is live, integrate whatever platform you’re already active on:
If you’re on Instagram: Connect your Instagram profile to your Pinterest business account. Every reel or post you create will automatically pull over and post to Pinterest. You’re now reaching a second audience with zero extra work.
If you’re on YouTube: Hit the share button on any public video and look for the Pinterest logo. That YouTube video is now housed on Pinterest, where people searching your keywords can watch it without leaving the platform. And yes, it still counts toward your YouTube analytics.
If you’re on Facebook: Create pins that speak to the pain points your product solves, and link those pins directly to your Facebook profile or your Facebook group. Pinterest can serve as a funnel that routes warm leads straight into your messenger or community.
Posture Check: You don’t need a blog. You don’t need new equipment. You need a free account and the content you’re already creating.
Kim worked with a student of Ray’s who was already posting consistently on Instagram. They integrated her account with Pinterest, made sure her content used the right keywords, and within one week a single reel crossed a million views, earned her 7,000 new followers, and generated her first four sales ever in her business.
The only thing that changed was plugging her existing content into the right search engine.
Step 3: Use Keywords Like a Search Engine Marketer, Not a Social Poster
This is where most beginners leave money on the table.
Keywords are the language your audience uses when they’re searching for what you offer. On social media, you can get away with casual captions. On a search engine, keywords are everything.
Kim’s approach: put yourself in your customer’s shoes. How would they search for their problem if they had to type it quickly? They’re not using the polished language you might use in a pitch. They’re typing raw, real phrases like “essential oils for sleep” or “how to make extra money from home.”
Your job is to match that language in your pins: in the title, in the description, in the spoken copy if it’s a video.
When you do this correctly, your content becomes discoverable by people who are already looking for exactly what you offer.
There’s another edge here for network marketers specifically: Pinterest allows you to lean into your company name as a keyword. Ray mentioned that when he was the number one income earner of his direct sales company, over 1,300 people a month were searching his company name on search engines. Pinterest is where you can capture that traffic strategically.
A stay-at-home mom with seven kids, using this keyword strategy on Pinterest, hit all of her 90-day goals on day 25. She ranked up three times and earned a cruise.
The Posture Check: Patience Is the Strategy
Pinterest is not Instagram. You will not post today and see explosive results tomorrow.
Posture Check: The average lifespan of a well-optimized pin is close to 24 months. A pin peaks in the algorithm around day 90. This is not a sprint. It is compound interest on your content.
Ray shared the marshmallow test analogy: kids who were willing to wait for two marshmallows later instead of grabbing one now consistently outperformed their peers across every measure of life success. Pinterest rewards the same mindset.
Kim put it directly: two to three quality pins per week, done consistently, will outperform a daily pin strategy with weak keywords and no strategic direction.
The sellers seeing results are the ones who committed to the 90-day foundation and then let the algorithm do its work.
Ray’s own Pinterest account, managed by Kim, now generates tens of thousands of clicks every month whether they post that day or not. That is residual traffic. And just like residual income, it only works if you build the foundation first.
Your Call to Action
If you’re already creating content on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube, you are leaving traffic on the table by not having a Pinterest business account.
Set one up today at business.pinterest.com. It’s free. Integrate your existing content. Start using the keywords your audience is already searching.
If you want the full step-by-step playbook, Kim Ward’s Pinterest Marketing Academy walks you through everything from account setup to advanced keyword strategy. It includes bite-sized modules, a private community, and monthly live office hours with Kim directly.
Ray’s audience gets a special discount. The course is normally $197 and is available for $97 at higdongroup.com/academy.
The 90 days are going to pass anyway. The question is whether your content is working for you while they do.
