How to use Pinterest for business

Pinterest is one of the most underutilized secret genie of traffic for online businesses of our times

Pinterest often treated as a social media app has been misunderstood so much that some businesses do not even consider it as part of their online marketing strategy

Because of this, they miss out on the huge amounts of traffic that Pinterest delivers for free to their business

What is Pinterest you may ask? Pinterest is a search engine- yes it is not a social media app it is a search engine that is geared towards helping the users curate visual services and goods they want to use to create their own projects.

Pinterest is a search engine that is based on images and visual appeal so users always lookout for a good looking Pin with a good description

Creators on Pinterest create graphic pictures called Pins which are then linked to actual posts to direct the user to what was described in the Pin.

If you are a small business owner and you are have not learned how to use Pinterest for business, you are leaving out a good chunk of traffic and also leaving a lot of money on the table.

Before I learned how to use Pinterest for business, I was held down in the shackles of social media platforms like Facebook and the likes and I was not making any headway.

My traffic followed this trajectory, the day I posted on or interacted with others on Facebook, I got traffic, the day I did not, I did not get any traffic.

Then I was actually foolishly doing a loop where I like other people’s posts so they could like mine or click through to theirs so they could do the same for me

I got burned out because I could do no meaningful work on my blog. I was so caught up in reciprocal posting that I had no time to create new posts.

I was not ever making money from them because like me they were looking for traffic not necessarily buying anything.

When I learned how to use Pinterest for my Blog, I became free, I was now able to attract traffic that was genuine and would buy my products

That is how powerful Pinterest is, Pinterest users are there to make purchases.

You may ask why is Pinterest good for marketing?

Here are some stats about Pinterest that will wow you and make you sit up

Why Pinterest is good for marketing

According to these statistics, Pinterest users are up to 442 million and their customer base is 69% female.

Steps to Starting Pinterest Marketing for business

1.Create a business account

The first step to using Pinterest to market your small business is to create a business account.

You may have been on Pinterest on a personal basis before now, but if you want to start using Pinterest to market your business here is what to do.

There are 3 ways that you can own a Pinterest business account

• Create a fresh business account
• Add a business account to your personal Pinterest account
• Convert your personal account to a business account.

I would choose the first option because it will be nice to let your personal account be, especially if you have used it to save a lot of personal stuff that has no relationship with your business.

To create a Pinterest business account, here is what you need to do.

Go to the Pinterest platform and click sign up, then impute your email details and click create a business account.

Once that is done, you will be expected to connect your account to your website and your social media platforms.

You will usually find this option in your account settings

Pinterest will ask you to claim your website- This is done by uploading a script to the head-code of your business website.

In case you do not understand how to do it manually, there is another way, however, it will only work if you are using WordPress as a website platform

Go to plugins and add Yoast plugin to your website if you do not already have it.

Yoast plugin is an SEO plugin that enables you to write SEO-compliant posts.

Simply go to the Yoast plugin and check its settings, in the Yoast settings you will see where you can connect to Pinterest using Yoast plugin.

If you need more help, read this post

Once you have connected your small business website to your Pinterest account, you are ready to start using Pinterest for marketing your business.

2.Set up your profile

Your business profile on Pinterest usually contains your name and business name and a short description of your business.

When creating your profile on Pinterest, be sure to pick at least 3 keywords that aptly describe your business and put it in your profile.

The keywords will help your profile be discoverable on Pinterest.

Here is my profile on Pinterest. As you can see, it contains my picture, keywords in my blog business, and also a short description of what I do.

I end it with a link to a lead magnet, my profile is also connected to my website.

3 Create Pinterest Boards

A board on Pinterest is like a folder where you get to arrange your Pins in other to make it accessible to users. On Pinterest, boards are used to indicate what your business is all about.

To create boards on Pinterest, you have to think of what kind of content your small business produces.

For example, if your business serves moms, you can create boards that have to do with mom needs for example toddler recipes, postpartum mom needs, baby gear, etc.

The most important thing when creating a board is to ensure that the board name and description reflect what your business sells. Use the appropriate keywords for your board description.

Your Pinterest boards should be keyword rich and titled to attract your intended customers.

When pinners are searching for inspiration on Pinterest, they type keywords into the search bar just like in Google search.

It is only the boards and pins that reflect the searcher’s intent that will be revealed.

If you want people to pin from your board, then you need to ensure that you use the right keywords.

4.Create Pins

A pin is a graphic picture that describes a product or service that it is linked to.

On Pinterest, search is visual meaning that users are attracted by how beautiful and well-described a Pin is.

This means that the Pin creator has to be very careful to create a visually attractive Pin and also use descriptions that match the searcher’s intent.

Pinterest also has a standard for its Pin’s measurement. The standard for creating a Pinterest graphic is a 2:3 ratio for example your Pin can be 750 by 1500 pixels.

This is to ensure cohesiveness and uniformity, Pins that do not follow that standard don’t do well on Pinterest.

Pins can be created using Canva software. Canva already has templates for Pins so you do not really need to make one to use.

Sign up with Canva

Once you finish creating your Pin, you then upload it to Pinterest and add a link to the content you want the pinner to visit.

5. Pin on your boards

Once you have created your Pins, then it is time to pin. Pinterest expects that you pin your Pins on a relevant board that you have created.

For example, if you created a pin about email marketing, Pinterest does not expect that you pin such i=on a board created for toddler meals.

Pinning on a relevant board helps the algorithm to understand what your Pin is about hence serving it to those that need it.

When you pin on an irrelevant board, your pin does not stand a good chance of being discovered.

5- Join Group boards

Group boards on Pinterest are boards that the owners created for the sole purpose of allowing others to pin along with them.

For example, I can create a board for home business owners and then open it up to allow anyone who wants to also pin in my board.

Group boards are good because they contain more pins than your usual business board.

This means that they attract traffic and hence enable the pinners to have more people discover their pins.

You can start a group board yourself or you can apply to join group boards on Pinterest.

My traffic grew maximumly when I joined group boards because my Pins were now featured in boards that had up to 1million pins.

This meant that the boards were popular and hence it gave me the opportunity to showcase my Pins to new users.

I have two group boards on Pinterest, you can ask to join me

Printables Group Board

Everything Mom group board.

Please remember to follow the board rules while applying to join

6- Be consistent

Pinterest like most social media platforms and search engines rewards consistency.

No, Pinterest is not a platform you use once and walk away, you have to consistently feed it with fresh pins.

Fresh pins are pins you create anew, one of the best ways to use Pinterest without having to pin manually on it daily is to use a scheduler.

You can use a scheduler to schedule your pins well ahead of time.

A good scheduler that was built for Pinterest is Tailwind.

Tailwind is a scheduler that allows you to schedule pins for up to a month.

Tailwind takes the bulk work out of pining manually every day on Pinterest

With Tailwind you can create bulk pins and schedule them for a month and then focus on other aspects of your business.

Sign up for Tailwind and get 100 free Pins.

7- Create a Strategy

When you want to make real headway in your Pinterest marketing, you need to create a Pinterest strategy that you can follow in other to get consistent results

New creators on Pinterest make the mistake of just pinning anything they feel like, without a pinning strategy, your Pinterest account will not grow

This also means that you will not get the needed traffic to your business

This is why I created a Master Pinning Strategic Planner to help you start on a good footing by creating a pinning strategy that will grow your business.

The Pinterest strategic planner is built to help you first create your account ad optimize it before you start creating Pins.

Your Pinterest strategic planner will also help you to create a pinning calendar that you can follow daily to grow your Pinterest traffic.

To get this planner, simply click on the buy button below.

How do you make money for your business with Pinterest

1- Create visually appealing Pins and link them to a blog post that contains your product.

2- Pin consistently and daily and drive your traffic to your website

3- Create a sales funnel that takes your website visitor to your email list

4- Use email marketing to convert the visitor to a buyer

5- Repeat this cycle by increasing your Pinterest views

Advantages of Using Pinterest for business

1-It is a visual search engine

Pinterest is a search engine with an active user base of 416 million users per month. 

This means it uses Algorithm just like Google but its search engine actions are visual-based.

It is one of the most underrated search engines but has tremendous potential because of its ability to drive referral traffic for small businesses. 

There are more than 240 billion Pins on Pinterest, this has attracted a lot of search traffic and has created loyal users who use it to find inspiration for things they want to purchase.

Pinterest has continued to grow and support small businesses as users understand how to use its enormous advantage to build their businesses.

2 Pins have a longer shelf life 

What is the shelf life of a Tweet, perhaps a few seconds, Instagram posts, Facebook, etc but when you talk about the shelf life of a Pin, you can see why a lot of small businesses use it

 A Pin created today can continue to bring referral traffic and generate sales years after it was created.

This is because the Pinterest algorithm treasures the best visual piece about a subject and continually helps users to find it.

Pinterest has a greater return when compared to other social networks or search engines.

One of my best-performing pins on Pinterest was created in 2018, it is still my highest traffic driver

See below

3 Brand discovery

77% of pinners on Pinterest attest to using it to discover new brands on Pinterest. This means that if you are a small business that is trying to build your brand. 

Pinterest users will give you a chance to showcase your brand. When you tie this in with the fact that 83 percent of active users of Pinterest say they have bought products that they discovered on Pinterest, you sure have a winner.

Another of my Pins doing well on Pinterest.

4. Female dominated platform

If your small business has a very large female audience, then Pinterest is where you should be. Why? because 77% percent of Pinterest users are female.

Although about 14 percent are male, the Pinterest platform has a large population of females who use it for shopping and curating ideas. Women connect with brands that they like and are willing to try new things.

5 Access to Foreign markets

If you are looking for a platform that gives you access to marketing outside the US, look no further, Pinterest boast of 50% of its active users are located outside the US.

This means that your new business can easily be gain access to the international market at a faster rate than it would not if you didn’t use Pinterest.

Pinterest users also tend to rank faster on Google’s first page because Google often lists Pinterest content on its first page too, something it hardly does with Facebook and Twitter.

Conclusion

Pinterest marketing is the best and most rewarding marketing endeavor you can use to grow your small business

Pinterest like Google however requires patience and consistency to see results.

A Pin takes an average of 3 months to begin to do well on Pinterest. This means that when you are trying to do Pinterest marketing, you must start by planning 3 months ahead of time.

Pinterest is also subject to Algorithm changes just like Google, this may affect your traffic.

However, if you understand the basic principles as I laid out above overall your business will benefit from it.

Want to start your Pinterest marketing for your small business- Start with the strategic plan, grab my planner below.

Do you want to join a group of women creating a lifestyle of working from home and supporting themselves? Join here