I love Pinterest. I have since the very beginning. Why? Because I’m a natural scrapbooker, and collector of stuff. As a teenager, I would cut and stick pictures all over my walls. Magazine pictures, postcards, festival tickets – anything visual that I wanted to remember.
I wanted to do the same when the internet came about. I wanted to save all those images and websites for a rainy day.
Then along came Pinterest. Hallelujah!!!!
It provided me with a simple solution to one of the main problems of using the internet – how to save websites and images you liked in one place on the web.
Pinterest is basically an online magazine or corkboard that you collect and curate images on.
But it has the added benefit of having 150 million users who can also view your Pinterest account and pin your stuff to their own accounts.
Is it hard to launch on Pinterest?
Launching your business on Pinterest is similar to launching on other social media accounts, but with a few additional steps.
- Create a business account
- Claim your website, Instagram, YouTube and Etsy accounts if you have them
- Create boards to curate your content into groups
- Start pinning
- Find people to follow
- Get into a regular pinning schedule
What do I need to get started on Pinterest?
You are going to need to have the following assets ready.
A logo or headshot – go for 1000 x 1000 px
A high-resolution header image (>10mb) or video (>2GB and under 5m). You don’t have to use an image or video as your pins can become your header.
Your profile text. This can only be 160 characters
- Pinterest board covers (optional)
How to open a business account on Pinterest?
If you have a personal Pinterest account already, then just go to your Account Settings and Business Tools and either convert it to a business account or create a linked business account.
A business account will allow you to see Analytics, create Ads and make Rich Pins.
If you don’t have an account at all, then you can just create a business account
Create a keyword rich name & profile
In your profile description and name, be sure to add in keywords that will help you rank and be found.
Use the “Claim” feature on Pinterest
Once you are set up, it’s a good idea to use the “Claim” feature. This means that when someone pins your image, it will display your account details. It will also give you analytics on Pins you publish from your site or that others publish.
You can currently claim your website, Instagram account, Etsy and YouTube accounts!
It’s a great way of ensuring that anyone who pins your content from these sites, gets a link to your Pinterest account.
To claim your site you just need to go to your account settings > Claim
You have the option to add in HTML tags, upload an HTML file to your website or add a DNS text record. Ask your web designer to help you with this if you are unsure how to add it. All this does is insert some code into your website.
Each web provider will have a different way of doing this so check Pinterest’s help guide here first.
Once you have claimed your site this is what it will look like when someone Pins from your account.
Claiming will also enable the Pinterest save – hover button on your images too. this makes it even easier for people to save your images to their Pinterest boards.
Add your employees
Pinterest now makes it super easy for your co-workers to use your business account and pin content and manage ads.
Just go to Business Access and Employees to add them in. You can also add external partners as well to manage ad accounts. Helpful if you work with agencies.
Download the Pinterest app for your phone
It’s a good idea to get the app on your phone, so you can manage your account and pin on the go.
Install a “Pin It” Pinterest Extension on your browser
To make it even easier for you to Pin relevant content from the web, or your accounts, you can add a Pin It extension.
When you are on a website, you can just click the “P” icon from your menu bar and Pinterest will search for any pinnable images, and ask which board you want to pin it to.
How to Create Pinterest Boards?
Once your account is all set up, it’s a good idea to start creating boards.
A board is just a way of organizing and collating similar pins together and keep your pins uncluttered.
You could have a board for Travel, a board for Dinner ideas or a board for Craft projects etc.
For your business, boards act as your shop window or elements of your brand identity.
So you may have a board dedicated to your blog posts, recommended reading, your products or inspirational ideas related to your service.
When you create your board, remember to go and edit it to add in a description of what your board is about and include your keywords so people can find it.
You could create secret boards, and load them with content before making them public, although you could be missing out on potential traffic early on.
Add your Pinterest handle to your business email
Once your account is set up, don’t forget to tell your followers on your other social media accounts. This could be through a simple post on Twitter or a Story on Instagram.
You could also add a link to your email signature or notify your email subscribers.
So now your account is all set up, you just need to start pinning content to your boards.
Finding people and potential customers to follow on Pinterest
Check out who your competitors are following or who clients are following.
Or you could type in keywords and filter by people to find relevant accounts to follow.
Pin regularly
Like the other social media channels, Pinterest’s algorithm likes it if you are consistently pinning and sharing new, high-quality content or images of your products.
Try not to pin over 20 images a day as you may be seen as a spammer and sent to Pinterest jail for a little while.
Tailwind, is a great online tool that can help you pin regularly.
Hopefully, this has helped you get started with your Pinterest business account. My top tip, pin great quality, often and curate your boards with care!
Check out my Pinterest Strategy board here for more tips and tricks…
Why not pin this for later!
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