Pinterest can be overwhelming to say the least! There is a plethora of inspiration for literally EVERYTHING! So you’ve probably used Pinterest for your own personal use–must try recipes, home decor inspiration, fashion motivation, kids crafts-the list goes on, but have you ever used it for your business?

Here are some of our favourite tips we’ve accumulated so far!

1. Get a business profile! First and foremost get a business profile – it helps people recognize you as a business and offers analytics about your viewers! Add your website address to your bio, and since the characters are strictly limited use key words that describe your business that you would search for if you were looking for your product or service, also define your location or area of reach.

2. Create your boards- Encourage others to follow your boards – start them with pins from other business’ and accounts that are relevant to your industry.

3. Create pins – When creating pins, remember the character limit for the description and use key words again. Use a graphic creator or app to make Pinterest graphics for your blogs – products or pages. If your experience level is not Photoshop we suggest an online editor such a Canva that already has templates. There are plenty other similar graphic creating apps out there you just need to find which one you like to use best! Use your best images and definitely consider investing in professional photography or images for your graphics. You want to visually draw the person in first and then encourage them to click through.
You want to create WOW – unique pins that make the viewer feel like they just MUST HAVE that item.

4. Pinterst-ify your website! Add a social share button to send website visitors to your Pinterest business page. Add share links or options to your blog posts and images so visitors can share (and so can you!) ALSO when blogging or posting you can link to specific Pinterest boards you’ve created!

5. Follow Boards and Business’ – You’ll want to follow local business’ and accounts as well as accounts relevant to your industry. Collaboration boards are also a great way to increase your viewers – you can research relevant ones to join or ask to join other smaller local boards.

6.Keywords were mentioned earlier- since Pinterest limits characters in descriptions it’s important to use the best description of the product/service that you can. These are the words that are going to get your pins found when people are searching. Think about how you search. Using analytics will give you an idea of what does well and what does it and who is engaging and viewing which gives us some ideas for some other tips….

Engagement! Like any social media platform leaving comments and feedback and genuine engagement with others helps build your audience. Think about your target market when engaging and engage with local business and persons.

Encourage your audience from other platforms to share your posts to Pinterest! (IE. pin your favourite picture from this page!)

Pin consistently – you can pin to the same blog post or page multiple times (over time and to different boards) just create different types of graphics! Again like all social media platforms the more active you are the more you will be seen – you can pin daily and you can pins LOTS! 10 pins on Pinterest are a lot less overwhelming than 10 Instagram posts at once!

Think Viral or Trending- think about the most popular posts you’ve seen – what do you like about them? What stands out? How are they different from yours? Think about the wording they use. This isn’t to say to copy them but for example- “Lay Flat” images are really popular right now – good idea to create your own for your pins!

Okay–Phew! That is all we have for now! (Except we know that there is also the feature to pay for ads on Pinterest! We have yet to use this feature but if we do we will be sure to update the blog! We’ve also create an Infographic with the highlights of this post, although it doesn’t include these juicy bonus tips 😉

Do you use Pinterest? For personal or business use? Leave a comment with your link and we will come check you out!