Pinterest is great for our personal lives–you can find decor inspiration, recipes, style inspo, and so much more. But the truth is, as a small business owner, it’s even more helpful for your business!

Not only is Pinterest one of the best places to find business inspiration—brand elements, downloadable templates, etc.—Pinterest can also be a great channel to get new leads and customers. Plus, it’s also pretty fun (who doesn’t love pinning?).

If you’re ready to get started on Pinterest for your business, we’re going to share: 

• Why is Pinterest important for business owners? 
• How to set up a Pinterest business account
• Create a solid content strategy
• Organize your boards strategically
• Design pins
• Pin consistently and purposefully
• Track your performance

There’s a lot to the small but mighty platform so let’s dive in!

Why is Pinterest Important for Business Owners? 

Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest is closer to a search engine. Just like web pages on Google, your pins could show up consistently for certain searches (both on Pinterest and in that sweet Google image tab). Plus, the latest report shows that Pinterest has over 500 million users every single month.

Once they do show up for users, those pins can give you ongoing engagement as people continuously click on them or pin them to their boards. That’s definitely very different from other platforms like TikTok and Instagram where you could spend hours on a Reel or video that gets only a few views. Plus, the worst part is, after a few days, it’s completely gone from the algorithm (we’ve been there, we know how it feels). 

Pinterest is different. When people do see your Pins, it can be a great source of web traffic and conversion (regardless of when you originally pinned it!). In fact, 85% of weekly Pinterest users have made a purchase from Pinterest pins, showing that users there engage a lot. 

Plus, since Pinterest is such a visual platform, it’s especially great for businesses like designers, photographers, and those selling products. But for everyone else, educational content, inspiration, and digital products also perform well. 

1. Set Up a Pinterest Business Account

You’re convinced, right? Fortunately, it’s super easy to get started on Pinterest. To set up your Pinterest business account, head to Pinterest for Business. There, you can follow the prompts to set up a new business account or convert your personal page to a business page. 

Once you’ve created your account, you’ll want to fill out the following info in your settings: 

• Business name (we recommend including a searchable keyword, too!)
• Website URL (and make sure to claim your website so you can view analytics from your Pins)
• Business type
• Profile picture

2. Create a Solid Content Strategy

Now that you have an account, just like any other marketing channel, you’ll need a solid content strategy for Pinterest. 

One easy way to get started is to look at what similar business owners are doing (inspiration is always key when you’re starting with a blank slate!). From there, think about the different types of content you can create on Pinterest. 

Some common categories include: 

• Educational content
• Inspirational content
• Product-focused content
• Seasonal content

Next, think about the keywords you want to target within each category (like we said earlier, Pinterest operates a lot like a search engine, so SEO is how to get Pinterest traffic!). When users search for those terms on Pinterest, you’ll want your pins to show up. Make a list of keywords you want to rank for.

Lastly, because you know we care about strategy over here, decide what actions you want people to take once they see your pins. You can either drive people to make a purchase and/or you can collect leads and grow your email list. If that’s one of your marketing goals, I recommend you use a tool like BDOW! to create opt-in forms. Then, you can make sure you’re capturing and nurturing those leads in your email list with an email provider like Flodesk! 

3. Organize Your Boards Strategically

Once you have your content strategy (read: your keywords), it’s time to create and organize your boards! Your boards are where all of your Pins will be organized, so you can start by creating a board for each content category. From there, you might find that it makes sense to create more specific boards, so you’ll probably end up with more than your initial content categories. 

For example, your educational content could be divided into specific boards for “SEO tips,” “Social media tips,” and “Marketing strategy” if you’re a digital marketing consultant. 

It’s important that your boards are specific and that you’re pinning to more than one board since it increases your visibility on Pinterest. To optimize your boards, make sure the titles make sense and that they each have a description (it won’t automatically prompt you for the description, so don’t forget this step!).

4. Design Pins

Ok, now for the fun part! You get to flex a little bit of your creative muscle when it comes to designing your pins. Within each board you’ve created, think of at least three content ideas to get you started. If you have a board for “SEO tips,” for example, you could create an infographic for setting up a Google Business profile, a reel that you repurpose into a video pin about SEO, and a still graphic that leads to a blog post with your best SEO tips!

Each pin should be associated with specific keywords, which you have hopefully already brainstormed when you put together your content strategy. 

A Couple More Tips for Designing Your First Pinterest Pins

• No clickbait - Since Pinterest is so visual this pitfall can happen to a lot of people, but always keep your audience top of mind. Make sure that your pin designs and details match what you’re linking to.
• Give a little away - You can get a lot of engagement on Pins with templates and other downloads, so don’t worry about giving a little away for free! As long as you’re capturing emails, it’s all valuable. 
• No tiny text or hard-to-read script fonts - People are skimming so you need to make it crystal clear what they can expect if they choose your pin to click on.

5. Pin Consistently and Purposefully

Pinterest might seem like it’s less work than other social media platforms, but it’s easy to forget how much work you need to put in. Ultimately, you need to be pinning multiple times per day to maintain your engagement. 

But don’t sweat it! With a tool like Enji’s Social Media Scheduler, you can batch your content to pin automatically. 

It might seem hard to come up with a ton of pin ideas, but you can always repurpose content you’re using on other marketing channels. Infographics from your blog, photos for Instagram, and even TikTok videos and Reels can all make great pins. And don’t forget you can create many different graphics leading to the same post!

Think about seasonality as you’re putting together your strategy as well—following trends can be an easy way to come up with new content! Pinterest doesn’t gatekeep their trends either, you can find out what people are looking for at any time here. 

6. Track Your Performance

Whew–with all that work you just did, you’re definitely gonna want to see how you’re doing! Luckily Pinterest has robust analytics that you can use to see what’s working and tweak your strategy. 

But you have enough to worry about, so let Enji take care of all of that for you. With the KPI Dashboard, you can automatically pull in your Pins with the highest engagement, overall engagement rate, follower count, and monthly views. And it’s all in one easy-to-use, beautiful dashboard so you don’t have to go sifting through your analytics!

Get Your Small Business on Pinterest

Well, what are you waiting for? You have everything you need now, so jump in and get started. Plus, when you sign up for your free trial with Enji, we’ll give you a FREE marketing strategy that’ll show you where Pinterest falls into your overall marketing plan! Get started now.