Pinterest 101 Tips and Tricks

Okay, so some of us may be selling merchandise pertaining to cryptocurrency and you are looking for FREE places to market them. Pinterest is your best bet. It really is.

Surely your friends and family are tired of seeing your posts in FB. And Instagram doesn't allow for links in a post, only a link in your profile so you have to hope someone will click through a link on your profile page. But with Pinterest, pins show up in Google, it has a click-through link to your store, and pins last forever, continually being re-pinned by other people. It's like that old Faberge shampoo commercial from the 1970s where word spread because "she told two friends, and she told two friends," etc, etc.

You pin it, someone repins it, someone repins what they pinned, and so on and so on. It continues forever with folks re-pinning your pins that you never see. Pinterest continues to work for you year after year.

To build a following on Pinterest and have your pins organically and forever available will take time. A Pinterest pin (your post) takes, on average, about three months to get deep into the platform's algorithms and be truly searchable. So you've got to just keep pinning, just keep pinning.

This post is based on my own experience with Pinterest, having used it since it first came out in 2011/2012 and I had to get an invitation to join. I have 48,000 followers and have found Pinterest to be my No. 1 social media exposure to the products I sell. I sell primarily in Etsy. In Etsy, you can see which social media sites are driving the most traffic to your store. Pinterest is consistently at the top of the chart.

So here are my tips and tricks for finding success on Pinterest:

1. Pin regularly. Whether you're new or seasoned, you've got to continue to be active on the site for your pins to be re-pinned and gain exposure.
   Start off by creating Pinterest boards. A board is just a folder where you house your pins. Look at your Pinterest profile as a filing cabinet. Each drawer contains a Pinterest board. Inside each board is the subject matter (pins) pertaining to the title of your board.
   I suggest two boards initially - one with the name of your store/site where you sell, and one board with the subject matter of what you sell. Now start pinning directly from your store to both boards.
   

2. Add hashtags (the pound symbol #) to words of importance in your pin description. Hashtags in Pinterest are searchable. They started off as, went away for a while, but are now back. Hashtags in Pinterest are just as powerful as hashtags in Instagram and Facebook. They help folks find your things quicker.

3. Be a giver, not a taker. Repin things from other people that you like.
   Go to the search bar and look up things you like. If what you like doesn't pertain to your two boards, create more boards! There's no limit to the amount of boards, so build your Pinterest profile with boards pertaining to things you like. Folks who visit your profile want to see that you have interests besides what you're selling. This also shares more about who you are when people see your faves. So repin things from people to help them and help you. Many times, when you repin a pin, the original pinner will click through to your profile to see who you are and where you put the pin. Then they will oftentimes end up following you. You're building a following by interacting with other pinners.

4. Join group boards. This is where I have seen the most return on investment. This site has a list of group boards to join. Pingroupie has a list of successful and popular group boards. http://pingroupie.com/
   Facebook has several Pinterest networking groups too. Join one and find a collaborative board to join. Usually you will just comment on a pin from the group board owner asking if you can join. Or you can send them a message. Although Pinteresting messaging isn't very powerful. It's not used very often. You may wait weeks and months to have someone read your message. Your best bet is to join a FB group where people are actively looking to add members to their collaborative board.
   Once you've joined a group board, follow their rules to the letter. You will get removed from the board if you just keep marketing your own pins. You've got to be a team player and add a variety of pins. Remember to repin folks pins too.

5. Change your profile to a business account. There's no cost to doing this and it dedicates your profile primarily to your business. Nothing changes, it just shows the community that you are primarily focused on selling a product.

6. Make your profile aesthetically pleasing. Much like Instagram, folks want to see pleasing pictures as they scroll through your boards.

7. Create long pins. A long pin is a couple of images in a group with font-pleasing text. It's like a mini story about your pin. They are super popular on Pinterest. I don't know if you know this, but the predominant user in Pinterest is women, and baking recipes are at the top of the list of pins. If you saw a recipe pin that was long, with multiple images and beautiful text, wouldn't you be more prone to clicking on that than a one-picture, two-word text pin?
   Here's an example of how to create a long pin: https://www.spendwithpennies.com/how-to-create-long-pins-increase-pinterest-traffic-step-by-step-tutorial/

Well, that's about it, my list of tips and tricks.
Pinterest is a powerful site that works automatically in the background for you. Pins are repinned and repinned without having to lift a finger. Get pinning and watch it go to work for you!

Tari