USING PINTEREST TO BOOSTE YOUR CREATIVE BUSINESS
If you follow us here at Creative Founders then you know we love Pinterest. As a creative business owner, you are probably already aware of how cool Pinterest is for finding inspiration and saving all your favourite pics and posts in one spot. But when it comes to marketing, Pinterest is an absolute powerhouse for boosting your brand and bringing in new business. With 150 million active monthly Pinterest users already on board, 93% of whom shop online, the potential reach on Pinterest is absolutely phenomenal. But where to start? These are some quick, efficient and effective ways to use Pinterest to amp up your creative business.
USING PINTEREST TO BOOST YOUR CREATIVE BUSINESS
Set up a Business Account
Chances are you may already have a personal Pinterest board, but it’s a good idea to set up a separate account for your business. With a Pinterest business account, you get added benefits like access to Pinterest marketing guides, video tutorials, promoted pins, and even buyable pins where people can buy your products directly through Pinterest. Perhaps one of the most useful tools though is Pinterest Analytics, which allows you to see who your audience is, how many people are viewing your pins and which pins are the most popular.
Setting up a Pinterest business account is pretty straightforward, as you simply enter all your details much like you would a personal account. The only tricky part is confirming your website, as you will have to copy the HTML code they give you and paste it into the header.php of your website between the <head> and </head> tags. If you’re not sure how to do this, ask your web developer or a code-savvy friend.
Apply for Rich Pins
Rich pins are aptly named because they contain a wealth of information about your business like your logo or icon and business name, plus they allow people to link back directly to your website or blog. There are six different types of rich pins including articles, apps, places and products. For artists and creative business owners, the product rich pins are probably your best bet, as they will display information about the things you are selling like price, availability, and how or where to buy each product.
Setting up rich pins is relatively easy, although you will need to make sure that you have metadata added to the content on your site. If you’re using a Shopify site, then you’ll already have this in there. If you’re looking to promote articles, download the Yoast SEO plugin for your site, as this will automatically add metadata for you. Once the plugin is activated, simply go into the Social tab and turn on ‘Add open graph meta data’. Then you can go to Pinterest’s Rich Pins Validator and paste in a link to any page on your website. Click ‘Apply Now’ and you should be up and running in anywhere from an hour to a few days.
Create Branded Boards
Now that you’re all set up and ready to pin, it’s time to start thinking about how best to present your brand. Think about who your ideal audience is and then create boards that might interest that market. For example, if you’re a fashion illustrator marketing to people with an active lifestyle and love of fashion you might want to create different boards based on your unique items like ‘London Fashion Week Illustrations Autumn Winter 2017’. You can also create boards just for your blog posts or personalised boards that show the people behind your brand or your work in progress.
Another thing to think about before you start pinning is how to catch people’s attention with your images and descriptions. Make sure you use high-quality images that show your product or brand in the best light. Vertical images take up more space on the Pinterest feed and therefore pop out more at viewers. Using keywords in your description will make your pins easier to find in searches, and an engaging yet straight-to-the-point description will draw people in and let them know exactly what your pin is all about.
Develop a Following
The first step in creating a following on Pinterest is to actually pin things that other people will be attracted to or interested in, and to pin often. Great photos are a good start, but people also love ‘how-to’ tips and lists, so this is where your blog posts can come in. As a general rule of thumb, you should be putting up about 25 pins a day (Don’t worry you can automate Pinning with this amazing tool!). Try to space out your pins so they will pop up at key times when your audience will most likely be on Pinterest.
Another great way to start getting seen is to become active in the Pinterest community. This means following other people, businesses or brands and liking and commenting on their pins. Repinning also allows you to add more pins to your boards and give a shout out to others in your field or area of interest. Pretty soon you’ll find that people will return the favour, provided of course that you have great pins and your pins link back to great products or content.
Get Involved With Group Boards
Groups boards allow multiple people to pin to one board, and they are a fantastic way to get your brand out there to a much larger audience. The easiest way to find group boards on Pinterest is with PinGroupie, a website where you can search for group boards by topic and see how many collaborators, likes and followers each board has. When you find one you think would be a great platform for your pins, simply click on the link to open the board in Pinterest, follow the creator, and then get in touch to see how you can contribute.
You can also create your own group board to actively engage your followers or other people in the Pinter-verse. For example, you might create a board called ‘Fan Favourites’ and encourage people to pin their favourite products or artworks from your collection. You can also seek out collaborations with other people in your field to create a group board where you can share audiences and ideas.
Use Pinterest Analytics to Gauge Your Performance
Pinterest Analytics is an essential tool for any Pinterest marketing plan, as it allows you to see exactly who your audience is down to the gender, language and geographical area they come from, as well as valuable information about which pins and boards have the most impressions (views), how many clicks, saves and likes you have for each pin, and the pins that are ranking the highest in the Pinterest searches. This is a great way to see what is working and what isn’t so that you can make tweaks to your pinning style.
You can find the Analytics tool in the upper left corner of your profile page. Hover over the link and you can opt to see a general overview, stats for your profile, or stats on the people you reach. You will also want to make sure your website is verified with Pinterest by pasting the HTML code into your header.php. This way you can also see if people are pinning your posts directly from your website. Pinterest can also generate a Save button that you can incorporate on your site to make it easier for site visitors to pin your pics and posts.
Interested in learning more about Pinterest Marketing? Read our Complete Guide To Marketing Your Art On Pinterest.
