If you follow me on Instagram or TikTok, then you’ll know I love talking about Pinterest for business. It’s been the biggest traffic driver for my business out of all my marketing efforts and it’s one of the best ways to generate traffic while you’re waiting for organic SEO and other marketing to kick in.
If you don’t know me from Adam, then I’ll let you on a secret, you can use Pinterest for things other than recipes and living room inspo. Don’t get me wrong, I love saving my fave cookie recipes on Pinterest, but once you tap into the world of Pinterest for business you realise there’s so many more opportunities to be had on the platform.
First things first, Pinterest is not a social media platform. Contrary to popular belief, it’s actually a powerful search engine that allows your website content to be seen by all of the users on the platform. And better yet, with the right Pinterest Strategy behind you, you can ensure that your content is being shared with users who are searching for exactly what you offer.
I started using Pinterest for business 5 months ago and almost immediately I saw an increase in my website traffic and my e-mail list. In fact, my e-mail list doubled pretty much straight away.
Since then I’ve used it to launch and promote my first online course, grow my Facebook group and build my e-mail list. And the best part is that for 1-2 hours (absolute max!) per month, Pinterest works for me all month and continues to grow my business behind the scenes.
Seriously, I can go all week without even opening Pinterest and the platform is still sending traffic to my website and helping me grow my business!
So how do YOU use Pinterest for business? Here’s 3 tips to maximise Pinterest for business and help you on your way to automated lead generation!
1. Switch to a Pinterest business account
Most people start out on Pinterest with a personal account with boards for hairstyles, recipes and all of that good stuff.
But if you’re using Pinterest for business with a personal account then you’re missing tons of essential analytics on your account performance and audience.
When you switch to a business account you’ll get access to the business hub on Pinterest which tells you how many views, clicks and re-pins your pins are receiving. This will give you a clear idea on your future growth by tracking what’s working and what isn’t.
You’ll find that when you first switch to a business account, you’ll see additional settings that allow you to claim your website, enable rich pins and ensure you’re properly tracking the traffic from Pinterest to your website. All of these are essential for using Pinterest for business, especially rich pins which open up your pins for further optimisation on the platform.
Don’t worry, there’s no need to totally ditch your personal account on Pinterest if you actively use it. Which means you can still keep track of your favourite recipes and home decor inspo, hurrah! I recommend creating a brand new Pinterest account for your business. This will help to keep your Pinterest feeds on both account consistent with the content you’re pinning and avoid spamming your audience with the wrong sorts of pins for their interests.
2. Use Pinterest SEO
As I mentioned earlier, Pinterest is a search engine and as such you need a Pinterest SEO Strategy to see real success on the platform. This is because you want to ensure the right people are finding your content on Pinterest and you do this by optimising your pins for Pinterest search engine users.
Your SEO strategy should ensure you’re using the right keywords on your profile, boards and pins to attract your target audience to your pins and in turn, your website.
And by the way, unlike Google SEO, you’ll notice results almost instantly from implementing proper Pinterest SEO strategies to your profile and pins! Honestly, the growth is INSANE!
3. Automate your pins (and how to use Tailwind for Pinterest)
I recommend automating your pinning schedule because it’s such a time saver. Manually pinning your own content can get incredibly time consuming if you want to see real website traffic growth from Pinterest and it involves posting to Pinterest daily.
I spend the least amount of time on Pinterest out of all the social media platforms I use and it sends the most traffic to my website every month. It’s also responsible for all of my e-mail list growth to date!
I do this by using Tailwind to automate my pinning schedule and they have loads of other amazing features that I credit for my success, such as Communities and Smartloops. You can read more about how to use Tailwind for Pinterest here.
My favourite thing about Tailwind is that they know so much about posting schedules and best practices for Pinterest that they take a lot of the guess work out for you. They’ll advise you on the best times to post, how often to post and how to avoid any no-nos on the platform.
Use this link to get your first month free on Tailwind and try it out for yourself.
If you use these 3 tips to maximise Pinterest for business…
By using these tips I am confident you’ll see business growth from Pinterest in a matter of weeks, maybe even sooner! If you’re looking for some more inspiration on how to use Pinterest for business, you can find me on Pinterest, where I share all of my favourite business tips and tricks.
