Pinterest has become one of the biggest search engines online and it's still growing.  Now as I mentioned in last week's post on growing your Instagram following, social media is not one of my strengths.  But I've been working on it recently and I'm going to share with you what I've learned.   If you have tips, be sure to share them in the comments!

Pin It Button

Make it easy for website visitors to pin your images with a Pin It Button on your website.  Beware of copyright infringement implications.  

Vertical Images

Make your images more pin-able by pinning and creating vertical images.  Vertical images statistically do better on Pinterest than square or horizontal images.  All images on Pinterest are the same width, so a vertical image will take up more room and be larger than other shapes.  

Pinterest for Business

This is probably one of the biggest hitches with social media because I love simplicity and want to have a single account.  But when using social media as a business tool you have to commit to that purpose.  You can't grow as fast straddling both personal and business.  Just as Meg suggested for Instagram, you have to keep business separate from personal.  A Pinterest business account gives you more features - like analytics - that allow you to track and grow.

Hide Boards

This goes with the above tip, but if you have personal boards that don't fit with your brand and business make them secret.  If you're not going to have two accounts, this means hide those boards with the political memes, your travel ideas, the craft ideas you want to try.  Your public boards should be ones that your ideal client wants to see.  

Descriptions

Make sure that every board has a descriptive title and a good description.  A good description includes keywords that your clients are searching for.  Then each pin should have a good long keyword-rich description as well.  Think about what people will be searching for when you want them to find your pin. 

Alt Image Tag

When you post an image to your website make sure that you take the time to fill out the ALT tag for every image.  This is what Pinterest uses to auto populate the description when it is pinned.

Watermark 

It is smart to have an identifying mark on your images.  This could be a logo that is easily googled or just a straight up url (see mine above).  This way your designs can be identified and credited.  

Top-performers

If you have a blog where individual pins will direct toward particular content, use this to your advantage by creating a special offer on your top performing content to capture people's emails.  If your content points back to a portfolio page you can still put an offer on that main page.  You also should leverage your top performing content and create more like it.  

Multiple Boards

Your boards should be viewed as a resource for your followers.  This means that you should be pinning your content across multiple boards and pinning other's content as well.  You can use a scheduler like Tailwind to make sure that you are pinning a lot and to all the right boards.  

Use Rich Pins

Rich Pins look more professional and are available with a business account.  By enabling this feature your pins will have more bells & whistles than a standard pin and stand out more.  

If you need help getting started with Pinterest, check out this article from Amy Lynn Andrews.  

You may also like How to Grow Your Instagram to 10K+ Followers or Email Marketing for Interior Designers.  

June 2017

Share your best Pinterest tips in the comments below!

Like this article?  Share with a fellow designer.  #collaborationovercompetition