What’s the first thought you have when someone mentions Pinterest to you as a creative business owner? For a long time, Pinterest’s reputation was as a place where folks saved outfit inspo and decor ideas. While this may have been the primary user demographic when Pinterest first rose to fame, the diversity of Pinterest users has grown exponentially over the last ten years. 

Now, Pinterest is a place where high-converting traffic happens. It’s a visually-charged platform that you don’t want to miss out on – especially as a designer with services and products to sell. 

How does Pinterest help me attract clients?

The biggest concept to grasp in order to understand Pinterest’s power is this one: Pinterest is not actually a social media platform. Instead, think of Pinterest as a search engine, just like Google. 

Think about what this means for you as a business owner. For the most part, Pinterest users don’t log in to aimlessly scroll through posts without taking any action. Pinterest users are primed customers, who use the site for very specific searches. These are much warmer leads than someone using Instagram or Facebook. 

For a designer, the visual nature of the platform makes it an ideal place to spend your marketing dollars and efforts. Creating visually enticing content on Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your site, offer, course, or portfolio.

The Benefits of a Great Pinterest Strategy: Longevity and ROI

Think about your posts on Instagram or Facebook. What’s the shelf-life of those posts? For most of us, our posts on those apps stay relevant and visible for somewhere around 24 hours (maybe even less than that). That’s why content creation on those well-known social platforms can feel overwhelming and time-consuming. You truly have to create SO much fresh content in order to stay relevant and top-of-mind to your customers. 

But with Pinterest, it’s totally different. Your content on Pinterest- your pins- have a shelf-life of, well, forever. If you posted a series of pins in 2017 about how to present work to graphic design clients, a designer in 2020 who’s searching for ideas around this topic could still see your pins at the top of their search results (especially if those initial pins performed really well!). 

Translation? The ROI on your Pinterest marketing efforts is MUCH higher than on other social media platforms. The effort you put into each pin will reverberate for much longer than feed-centric apps like Instagram. 

*We should note that Instagram did just announce that they will now allow users to search by keywords instead of hashtags only – so technically, your IG posts may start gaining a longer shelf life. But, that update is still very new, limited, and untested. For all intents and purposes, Pinterest is still the social media platform that gives you the best ROI when it comes to content. 

What should you pin? Value-driven content

Basically, you want your pins to help establish you as an authority. Think: value-driven content. What are your ideal clients thinking about? Struggling with? Searching for? 

Make a list of potential topics that would resonate with your ideal client, and then start to create content that provides ideas, solutions, and inspiration for them. For many business owners, the “content” they create are blog posts, but podcasts or YouTube videos work as well. Basically, you want a unique page that you’re driving Pinterest traffic to with every pin. 

That’s the real name of the game here. The number one piece of data you want to track on Pinterest is “link clicks.” In other words, how many people clicked on your pin and traveled to your actual site. 

Don’t forget to show off your design work

In addition to the value-driven content we touched on above, remember to use Pinterest as another way to showcase your portfolio pieces. Every so often, create original pins that showcase your design work, and then target your ideal industries with your titles and descriptions. Remember to always link back to your website so that an interested party can easily dig a little deeper into your work and offerings. 

And don’t forget to use well-designed mockups to really show off that work of yours in a way that’s cohesive with the rest of your brand aesthetic.

Best practices for Pinterest pins

Like all forms of marketing, you’ll want to optimise every pin you create to work harder for you. We’ve broken down the elements to consider when you’re creating:

Images 

For the most part, you’ll want to create vertical images for Pinterest. Those do better by far on the platform. Basic design principles also apply here. Clean, aesthetically pleasing pins attract more interest than busy ones that are hard to read. Also, use keyword-rich titles even in your image file! Pinterest’s software can identify basic keywords on an image as well as in descriptions, resulting in your pin ending up in the feeds of potential clients.

Titles 

Titles are required for all pins that you create, and can only be 100 characters long, so choose your words wisely. In fact, viewers will only see the first 30 characters, so really put your efforts there. Try to include similar keywords in your title that you used in the content you’re linking to. Pinterest rewards this consistency.

Descriptions

These short paragraphs provide further context for your pin and content. They should also be keyword-rich, but not an exact regurgitation of your title. These can be 500 characters in length, but again, it’s only the first 50-60 characters that viewers can see as they’re scrolling, so put your most engaging content there. It’s best practice to use natural sentence structure, include your brand name, and a call to action in the pin description. 

Consistency 

Like Google’s SEO, Pinterest’s software rewards those who pin consistently. So, plan to pin content at least weekly in order to grow your ranking in search results. 

Join group boards 

Joining like-minded individuals on group boards is a good networking practice, and can help to drive up the views and clicks for your pins. So, even if you aren’t targeting other graphic designers, it’s still a good idea to join group boards for graphic designers. More exposure is more exposure! 

We’d argue that Pinterest is a “must” platform for designers and creatives. The visual nature of this site is what makes it an ideal place to show off your design skills and attract clients who are searching for their perfect fit. Check out our own Pinterest page for inspiration!

What questions do you have about using Pinterest for your business? Have you found success on this platform? Share your stories in our comment section below!