It’s not just for Etsy Sellers
The other day, I was talking to a few small business owners about my new 10 Day Pinterest Challenge for small business owners and bloggers.
They all looked excited to join in the pinning fun until one of them said, “I use Pinterest all the time to find new recipes but I’ve never thought about using it for my business. I don’t have an Etsy store online and sell crafty things. I’m a weight loss coach, how is this site going to help me grow my business?”
I immediately responded back, “I don’t have an Esty shop either. And I’m a coach too, a small business productivity coach … and I get more traffic from Pinterest than Facebook, Twitter and organic Google search combined.”
And then I added, “I use to think that Pinterest was for mommy bloggers and people who like to make creative stuff but I can personally tell you that most of the people who sign up for my email list and register for my online courses come from Pinterest. It’s not just because I can see the traffic numbers in my Google Analytics, they’re telling me that they found me on Pinterest!”
When I share with you what I’ve learned in my 10 Day Pinterest Challenge, that’s how it’s going to grow your website traffic and your business.
Seriously, how does this work?
I’m not here to sell you on why you should be on Pinterest. If you’ve been following the growth of this visual-based social platform, you already know about the 100 million users who actively log into Pinterest and spend about 90 minutes a day on the site.
And enough reports have come out to show us that Pinterest works really well for businesses who sell products geared towards Pinterest’s female dominated target. Just spend a few minutes running a search on Pinterest success stories and you’ll read first hand how this site can help small businesses.
Pinterest is more than just ‘one-more-social-site’ that you need to figure out. This program uses its visual images to show users something they can look at, something they can see in action and imagine themselves using.
A study from econsultancy.com found that 69% of Pinterest users have purchased an item or found something that they want to purchase while scrolling through Pinterest. And with the new Buyable Pins feature that Pinterest is rolling out, there will be even more ways for potential customers to connect with you to learn more about your services.
We get it
By now, we all get the appeal of Pinterest and how it works.
We’ve read the posts about how bloggers have seen their site traffic double, sometimes triple from a single pin. We’ve seen the Google analytic screenshots of an online coach who promoted her email opt-in and later sold out the spaces in her coaching program.
If we’re no longer questioning Pinterest’s strong force in the social world then the next question to ask is: How did these Pinterest success stories find a way to take their collection of boards to grow their business and add to their bottom line?
How do you connect with these actively engaged users if you don’t have a tangible product and sell a service like coaching sessions or an online course?
You learn the steps to grow Pinterest into a place to connect and share your company’s story.
These success stories turned their boards into the characters of their company’s narrative. Their boards became individual destinations giving Pinterest users an image-filled story about the person behind the business.
And these online insights gave their followers { and potential clients } not just a a reason to follow them but to actually encourage them to download free stuff, register for programs and pay for their services.
How to Share Your Story on Pinterest
The best place to start sharing your story on Pinterest is through your boards.
Pinterest has several default board titles but chances are, most of these won’t help you if you’re not selling something that falls under “Products I Love” or “For the Home.” Take a look at these Pinterest board ideas and see how you can create boards that will connect you to new customers on Pinterest.
1. Before and After
Everyone loves a good “before it looked like this and look at us now” story. Take some pictures and show us your client’s success stories.
Do you have a program that not only helps your clients lose weight but changes they way they look at life? Tell us their story with a blog post and pin an image of your client doing something she hasn’t done in years. Show us the before shots and then give us the big reveal of how working with you can change our lives.
Be creative with your board names. Instead of just saying Before and After, try one of these board titles:
- Make a Change
- Life Success Stories
- Making an Impact
2. Introduce Us to Your World
People like to do business with people that they know and trust. What better way for people to get to know and trust you than to set up a few boards of the things you love to do.
Use the board description area to introduce yourself, why you started your business and a few things that you like to do in your time away from your laptop.
Show off your personality by posting things that mean something to you with board titles like these:
- My Corner of the World
- What I Love
- A Few of My Favorite Things
3. Your Service in Action
Think about how your business helps your customers. How does your programs make life easier? What problems do you solve?
Now take those answers and create Pinterest boards pinning your solutions. Don’t take this too literal with your answers and have some fun with this with boards like these:
- Favorite Movie Scenes – What movies used your type of work as part of one of the scenes? Post up a scene from that movie and describe how your services was used in the pin description.
- Your Dream Home/Car/Trip/Whatever – While you’re pinning your dream stuff, add in a few pins to show how your programs can give someone that dream home or trip.
- We Go Together – Think about famous pairings and add in pins of complimentary products that work well with what you do.
4. How I Got Here
Pinterest users love their history so much that Pinterest has a History category where you can search for historical pins. How far back can you trace your company’s history? How long have people been doing the same type of work that you offer?
Take us on a historical tour by adding these types of boards:
- Through the Years
- Vintage {your service} – Post images of people doing your type of work; Go online and run a google search for sites showcasing vintage images and post them directly from the sites you find. Pinterest users love new images!
- Words of Wisdom – Is there a father { or mother } who was the first person to start doing your type of work? See if you can find images with quotes from that person and add in other quotes that define the programs you offer.
5. Help Me Find This
As more people start to use Pinterest to find things, Pinterest is starting to give Google a run for their money as a search engine. And due to the key-word rich board descriptions, Pinterest boards are showing up in an organic Google search.
Think about the questions your customers ask all the time. What’s the one thing they always ask you and you always seem to know the answer?
What do you know about that you can teach us by creating boards like these:
- Now You Know About {service or the answer}
- Learn from the Pros
- All Things Your {programs like weight loss, mindset shifting or business coaching}
Let me know if you use any of these ideas for your Pinterest boards. Post up your link in the comment section because you never know …. one of your boards may end up being just the thing we were looking for on Pinterest.
Want to grow your website traffic from Pinterest? Join the 10 Day Pinterest Challenge!
With so many people pinning to Pinterest, it’s easy for your content to get lost in the thousands of images that get uploaded everyday. And if you’re pinning without a plan, your pins may not be reaching new people or even worse, showing up in the Pinterest feed of the people who have already followed you.
In the 10 Day Pinterest Challenge, we’ re going to walk through the steps to grow your followers and get more traffic to your website. We’ll do more than just give you a list to help you create more engaging Pinterest images. We’ll get into the details of my process to get your content noticed in that overcrowded Pinterest feed AND get more of your pins shared!
Here’s what we’ll do together during the 10 Day Pinterest Challenge:
- Learn how to use your boards and pins to grow your followers.
- Understand how Pinterest’s SEO (search engine optimization) works to get your account, boards and pins get found.
- Identify which Group Boards work for your business or blog to get more Pinners to share your content.
- Develop your own Pinterest strategy that works for you and your schedule!
Click here to join us for the 10 Day Pinterest Challenge starting on March 7th!
We want to say thnx to you 4 creating this blog and keep going the great job!
You have such great information about using Pinterest. Thank you for all your ideas. I will give them a try and see what happens! Rebbecca @ H T and L on Pinterest