Let’s Talk Pinterest | Get Started with a Pinterest Business Account
As a creative (like me) you’ve probably used Pinterest for recipes and home decor inpso for years – but if you sell your products online, you should also be making sure your products can be FOUND on Pinterest too. I’m talking about getting all of your awesome shop listings and beautiful product photos UP THERE so people all over the world can googly eye over your beautiful things. In fact, 75% of content on Pinterest comes from businesses, therefore, anyone who thinks that Pinterest is just for personal things is missing out on a ton of free website traffic, getting clients, email subscribers, exposure and more.
Another thing you should know? Just because you might never actually purchase any of the things you’ve pinned over the past 5 years, doesn’t mean that’s what everyone else is doing. In fact, it is now increasingly more common that pins and likes are converting into sales for even the smallest businesses on Pinterest. You don’t even have to have a ton of followers to get exposure. How awesome is that!
As someone who has been fighting the Facebook and Instagram war (I mean, algorithms) for what seems like forever, when I first started on Pinterest, I was super skeptical. BUT, if I can start with 0 followers, and grow to (only) 300 followers in a year and still get 50% of my site traffic/sales from Pinterest, I’d say I’m doing pretty darn good.
There is SO MUCH to share about Pinterest, but in order to get started on using this great tool for your shop or online biz, you have to create a Pinterest Business Account. In this post, I’m sharing why you need a Pinterest Business Account, how to create one and the number one tool I’ve used to establish my account.
WHY DO YOU NEED A PINTEREST BUSINESS ACCOUNT
1. Technically, You Need One
If you are using Pinterest for business or commercial use in any way, Pinterest’s Terms & Conditions requires that you use their business account platform. It’s boring legalese, but with so much getting invested into other people’s platforms, it’s on us to understand their rules before building up our businesses on them.
2. Secures Your Business Name & Brand
Once you switch over to a business account, you will have the ability to fully brand your landing page, including your logo, business name, primary keywords and bio. You’ll also get to choose which boards rotate at the top of your Pinterest page, so make sure you create a few boards dedicated to your products, and get them up there at the top. It’s also worth noting that you’ll want to create boards that focus around your products, your branding and your style. I focus heavily on Home Decor and Design because it provides more opportunities for me to pin my own products within my boards.
3. Access Awesome Analytics
Normally, I’m not overly concerned with analytics. I try not to get too wrapped up in them, to try and prevent getting too obsessed with checking them. At the end of the day, popularity doesn’t pay my bills, so I prefer to put my time towards things that do. However, I am in love with my Pinterest analytics. Want to know why?
They teach you about your audience. Not even your target market. Your actual market. You get to see the people who are interacting with your pins, see what else is on their boards, what else they are loving AND what their other general interests are. It’s an incredible resource when it comes to developing new products or designing new collections. There is nowhere else you would get this type of amazing information, especially not for free!
You’ll also be able to see which of your other generic boards are most popular as well. Pinterest doesn’t like it when you only pin your own content, so you need to split it at least 50% your product, 50% other people’s products. This is why I have boards for Travel, Pantry Organization, and Minimalist Closet Essentials. They match my branding and who I am, but that is not all I use them for. I was pleasantly surprised to discover the pins I shared about pantry signage were among my most popular.
Apparently people like cute signs for for their pantry goods. I would never have known that! So the sooner you get pinning, the sooner you can get discovering more about your business.
Rich Pins are essentially verified pins, that tell Pinterest (and pinterest browsers) that your pin is legit and not spam. They add extra details to your pins from your website, which means the pin will show your branding, the title of your blog post and description. It will also bring over information about you (as the pinner) and possibly call to action buttons (like purchase now).
Having Rich Pins increases your click-through rate of up to 70% to your website or blog, so it’s definitely worth looking into! There are a few different ways to do this depending on what kind of website you have. Here are some places to start for Shopify, WordPress and Squarespace websites.
HOW TO CREATE A PINTEREST BUSINESS ACCOUNT
You Can Choose to Create a Brand New Pinterest Business Account or Convert Your Personal One
Whichever option you choose is totally up to you. Some of you may already have a really great personal account established, and you don’t want to have to start all over again. Pinterest makes it easy to convert your existing account into a business account, and it will keep all of your boards (public and secret) exactly the same. I personally opted for a brand new business account, because my Pinterest was older than pretty much absolutely everything I currently own, and there were some scary pins hidden in there from 184759 years ago. More seriously though, I wanted a fresh start with a cohesive overall vision.
- Log into your Pinterest Account
- Go to Pinterest for Business
- Click Convert Now
- Fill Out Your Information and Click Convert
THAT’S IT!
BONUS BEGINNER TIPS
Tailwind
From the very beginning, I have used a program called Tailwind, which I highly recommend. I have trouble getting distracted when doing anything with social media, so I need it to be efficient and relatively straightforward. Tailwind has a plug-in similar to the Pinterest plug-in, which means you go to the page that has images you want to pin, you click the button and it pulls up all of the images available to pin. Select the ones you want, select the boards you want to pin to (you can select multiples for each), and voila. You can pin 10, 20, 30 pins all in one shot.
Tailwind’s main function though, is pin scheduling. In order to increase your exposure, you need to be pinning multiple times per day, many expects recommend 20 – 30 pins per day. I usually average around 20, and while this may seem like a lot, it only takes me a few hours once a month. I log in, do all the month’s pins at once, and Tailwind schedules them all out for me according to my most engaging times. Unlike Instagram, it is less about creating a beautiful feed, and more about adding items to the searchable database that millions of people are using. Essentially, the more pins you have in the search pool, the more you are going to come up in the searches.
Lastly, Tailwind allows you to join Tribes, which are kind of like Instagram Pods on steroids. Except a) they work and b) they’re allowed (and encouraged by Pinterest). They are large groups that encourage bloggers to share each other’s pins to round out their Pinterest boards. If you don’t have Tailwind, you can still do a similar method by joining Pinterest Groups. The cost for Tailwind is $15/month (or $9/mth if paid annually), but for me and the time it saves me it’s totally worth it. They do have a free trail for a whole month, so anyone can log in and test it out to see if it’s for them.
Do Some Reading
- Jenna Kutcher has a great free resource to start from over at www.jkpinterest.com. It’s a prelim to her paid course, but the free resource is still good!
- Jenni from Fuzzy & Birch has the most amazing (and straightforward) Pinterest & Etsy blog posts and free 7 Day Challenges. This is where I learned almost everything I know, and am so thankful that she shares her knowledge.
- If you decide to give Tailwind a shot, they have an amazing training resource library and often hold webinars + additional training.
- Check back on here to see new posts as I publish them about Pinterest + social media.
Where to Start
- Don’t have a website? Start right from Etsy. In fact, Etsy pins are automatically rich pins, and look great when pinned directly from your shop. They should import your full description or title (depending on which one you choose). Make sure you are using either the Tailwind or the Pinterest explorer/safari/chrome plug-in so you can pin directly from your web browser.
- If you do have a website, pin both products and blog posts. Take those great images that were used for Instagram, and either add them to your product listings or create a photo-heavy blog post. Pin to Pinterest.
- Make Pinterest-Worthy Graphics on Canva. It’s what I use to make graphics similar to the one below, and they are much popular than just regular photos.
- Keep pins vertical! It’s how things work in the land of Pinterest
