If you’re a creative person online, no doubt you have at least heard of Pinterest, if not used it personally. When I started hearing more and more about how people are using Pinterest for business, I did some of my own investigating and found that it was the second largest search engine (with Google being the first).  Say what?!  I thought Pinterest was for collecting pretty pictures of DIY projects and recipes!  Whoa, Nelly was I wrong.

To say that Pinterest has the potential to be a business powerhouse is an understatement. Here are a few basic statistics:

• Pinterest has 100 million active users, of which 85% are women.
• 55% of US online shoppers pick Pinterest as their favorite platform.
• 87% of pinners have purchased something because of Pinterest.
• Top reason why Internet Millenials follow a brand or company on Pinterest: to share their interests/lifestyles with others. (Which makes it easy to appeal to a specific market)

So basically, a LOT of people are using Pinterest to shop and to connect with brands that resonate with them.  For this reason, Pinterest is a perfect way to promote your business because you can connect with viewers in a creative, visual way.

Ever since buckling down and getting serious about my own Pinterest strategy, my site visits have skyrocketed and my email list has grown steadily.  With just a few simple moves, you can get great results, too!  Here’s how to get started:

1. Sign up for a business profile if you haven’t already.

This will allow you to promote pins as well as create Rich Pins (which add extra details to Pins from your website that ‘normal’ pins don’t.) Right now, there are five types of Rich Pins: movie, recipe, article, product and place.  That product you’re trying to sell on Etsy?  You can easily promote it with a Rich Pin on Pinterest.

2. Create boards that are in line with your brand.

Include a mix of boards specifically geared to promoting your work as well as boards that compliment your work.  (You should make it a practice to pin a variety of others pins, not just your own.)

For example:  I have a board for my blog + a board for my art, both specifically promoting my work.  But, I also have a board called Inspirational Quotes  and another called Art That Inspires Me–these both promote content that someone who is following me would probably enjoy seeing.

People are looking to connect with you: Make sure you use keywords in your board descriptions that readers will use while searching for your items/posts.  Keywords are how they will find you, so give it some thought. You can see all of my boards here for keywords I use.

3. Make sure your blog or website is pin-able.

You want to make sure anyone who is visiting your home on the web can pin your content to their heart’s content.  That is how you will get seen–the more pins that are out there of your work, the more chance you have of someone clicking through to your store/site.  The best result (and hope) of this work?  A pin of yours could go viral (that means it is pinned by a lot of people, sometimes quite quickly. Yay!)

Most website themes include a unique set of social sharing buttons but if you need to add a save it button, here is how to do it.  There are also plenty of free ways outside of Pinterest to add them, Sumome is a popular one.

4. Join Group Boards.

Group boards are made up of a collection of people who pin common interest content to one board (for example: art techniques board or mixed media art board).  The power of the group board is that if a pin gets repinned, it will be seen by each pinner’s individual audience–one you might not have been exposed to if you hadn’t pinned it to the group.  It expands the amount of eyeballs on your work exponentially.

The catch to group boards is that you want to make sure the boards are popular enough, but not too popular.  What this means is, you want to join boards that people are pinning to consistently, and the pins have about 5+ repins each.  Otherwise, if you’re a part of a board where people only repin once in a while, it defeats the purpose.

Once you get the hang of Pinterest and have a good amount of pins, I would highly suggest using a pin promoter like Tailwind so that your pins don’t disappear into the feed.

5. Create good looking graphics.

Sometimes getting noticed is as simple as creating something people want to look at. #truestory Pinterest is loaded with beautiful images, so you want to be sure to stand out in the crowd.  The way to do that?  Catch the viewer’s eye with a great looking pin.

What you create will depend on your brand, style and the overall vibe you want to put out there, but creating a unique look will help others remember you.  It comes down to making a graphic that contains a mix of what you like, with the message you want to convey.

The goal is to design something that people will want to click through and explore further–whether it’s to a product in your shop, a creative technique to learn from your blog or to promote a new course.  The best practice I’ve found with graphics?  Keep it simple.

Need a little help getting started when it comes to creating graphics?  Download my free worksheet below: 5 Elements of a Good Graphic.

Alright friend, I hope these tips help you get started using Pinterest for business!  Don’t worry about getting everything perfect from the beginning, just get moving and you can adjust as you go.