How to Grow Your Business with Pinterest

Lately, I’ve been talking a lot about marketing strategies...online and offline strategies.

And as business owners, we should always be looking for strategies and tools that will deepen our online skills.

That’s why I recently interviewed Melanie Fountain, a blog and Pinterest strategist, and we dug deep on how to best utilize this awesome platform.

And let me just begin by saying that I am not a Pinterest person. I may get on Pinterest five times a year.  It's just not something I do on a regular basis.

Sadly, Pinterest isn’t something we have utilized as a company, either.  I have had a Pinterest account, but it just hasn’t been a platform that we've focused on as a company.

Yet, I have always been shocked to check out my business Pinterest account and see the numbers.  I’ve often thought, “Wow, this is a super engaged platform. I should be here more.”

But I wasn’t.  

Until now.

With only one week of implementing the strategies that Melanie shared with me, the traffic to my business Pinterest account has increased by something like 1900 percent. ONE WEEK!!!

That is INSANE. And I am super excited to see just how much it grows from here.

So take notes.

You will want to try this out no matter where you are in business because while this is foundational information it’s super powerful.

Is Pinterest right for your business?

Did you know that Pinterest is one of the top 3 search engines in the world?

And Melanie clarified a common misconception: Pinterest is NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM.

It is a visual Google and a discovery engine where members go to search, learn, discover, and to be inspired whether that’s in regards to recipes, fashion, fitness, and oftentimes...business.

People are on Pinterest daily searching for business related topics much like the businesses owned by my readers.

There are 300 million active users and over 1 billion searches every month and many of those searches are business related.

So I say all this to let you know that if you are creating content, be that in the form of blogs, articles, videos, courses, podcast episodes, ANY KIND OF CONTENT...YOU SHOULD BE ON PINTEREST.

What are the first steps to start on Pinterest?

Maybe you already have a personal Pinterest account.

If you do, you can easily convert that to a business account by linking to your website and claiming social media accounts and unlocking the performance features.

But you may have lots of personal Pinterest boards that just don’t compliment your business.  

You can always make certain boards private, and then create public boards relevant to your business.

Melanie suggested that it is totally ok to start fresh with a business account and she even recommends this route and going with two separate accounts...one personal and one business.

From there, Melanie has a 10/10 rule that you can go by as a Pinterest newbie…(like myself).

Create 10 pin templates in Canva.  (Search Pinterest for design inspiration)

Using these templates, you can simply plug and play and swap out titles and images instead constantly trying to create pins from scratch for every new piece of content.

Next,  you will need to create 10 generic boards for your account.  The generic board titles will help you schedule lots of your content across several boards.

Here are some examples of generic boards that a business owner might have:

1. Best of….
2. Blog Posts
3. Freebie Content
4. I Love My Clients
5. Online Business
6. Growth Strategies
7. Female Entrepreneurs
8. Inspiration
9. Online Coaching
10. Podcast

Following Melanie’s 10/10 rule is the ground work to lay a successful Pinterest foundation.

What about scheduling?

Ok, don’t freak out, BUT..

As a business, you should be pinning at LEAST 8 times per day.

Now, this really isn’t as bad as it sounds. Trust me.

This 8 times per day rule may simply mean that you pin ONE PIN to 8 of your different boards.  Or pin one pin to 6 different boards and share 2 pins from some else. 

Melanie just warns  against letting the same pin land on the same board more than once. In other words, share the love across your boards.

And hopefully, you are understanding the importance of having very general board titles...so all of your content can be shared across multiple boards.

This stresses that it’s more important to have more boards and fewer pins.  

Now, if you have been around me for very long, you know I love systems that can automate tasks and make life easier.

When it comes to Pinterest, that tool is Tailwind. There are tons of benefits and features you get access to when you integrate your Pinterest account with Tailwind.

With Tailwind, you can schedule all your pins months in advance and never have to manually pin anything directly from Pinterest.  

So the whole 8 pins per day thing….piece of cake with Tailwind.

Now you can definitely use the free version of Tailwind to get things rolling, but just know that as you get the hang of things, you may want to upgrade to a paid version in order to take advantage of features that further help to share your content.

Once you get in a rhythm and incorporate Tailwind, it really is pretty simple.

By pinning at least 8 times per day you’re more likely to stay on top of the feeds and the greater likelihood that your content will be seen.

What type of content should you share on Pinterest?

So like I stated previously, if you produce any kind of content, you should be sharing this on Pinterest.

If you are starting right here and right now, and you have tons of content, Melanie says to just go back and create pins for the latest 5 pieces of content.  

This is a good starting point without feeling the overwhelm of having to try to go back and get ALL of your content on Pinterest.

Melanie’s rule of thumb is to create 3-4 pins for every 1 piece of content that you produce.  

Here’s an example:

1 podcast episode = 4 different pins shared on 4 different boards

Now, how much text is seen with a pin, and how important is that copy?  IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SEO.

Below each pin you want to give a keyword rich title, as well as a pin description.  

Now this description is super important when it comes to all things SEO, and it should be a keyword rich snippet of what the content provides.

Use the Pinterest search bar to beef up your copy with the terms that are being searched within Pinterest.

After your description, be sure to use 2-3 general hashtags and a call to action such as, “connect with me,” or “head over to my website for more resources…” 

Just don’t fall into the trap of providing click bait anywhere within your text.

Pinterest is also allowing video pins these days. 

These videos are automatically playing as someone scrolls through their Pinterest feed and are generally about 20 seconds in length. 

It is a super new feature that's really just developing, but it's exciting how a quick video can give a snapshot view of your biz and promote interest.

So my advice to you at this point is to get creative with video pins, and definitely try out this option. 

Run, don’t walk to create a business account on Pinterest.

When you really break it all down, a marketing strategy is about creating more visibility, and the exciting part about Pinterest is that it can be done organically!

And it doesn’t have to be hard. It really is just taking the content you already have and REPURPOSING that content for the world to see.

By implementing the steps laid out here, you will see results, just like I’ve seen on my own Pinterest account.

Just keep in mind that it might take 3-6 months to start seeing significant, steady traffic from Pinterest but by the time that happens, you will have no shortage of pins being shared and re-shared and pinned and re-pinned.

And I want to hear from you.

Are you already a Pinterest rockstar or are you jumping in with both feet as a total newbie…(like I did)?

Either way, I would love to connect with you and hear all about your Pinterest wins.

Happy pinning!