My company wants to start using Pinterest to help market our products and I’ve been tasked with creating a set of Pinboards for our accounts that are ready for product photos. Problem is, I’m supposed to have them launch with lots of photos already pinned and I’m at a bit of a loss for how to do that. What’s a fast way to create new Pinterest boards that are full of photos?
I’m not surprised to see this query as savvy companies are learning that if your product fits the Pinterest demographic (mostly female, 25-45 age range, over 50% have children, mostly personal products) or one of the many sub-demo groups, it can be a smart fit and far more effective (and less time consuming) than a Twitter campaign.
The challenge, as you have identified, is to create something worth paying attention to in the first place, and for that you don’t want to just build a dozen different “boards” of photos, all with just one or two product shots, but rather establish a set of Pinterest pinboards that are interesting and useful from the get-go, so that you can add to them with your products and services.
And a key point: remember that like any other social media marketing, effective use of Pinterest comes from being able to pin or repin photos of interest to your audience, not just those related to what you’re trying to sell. Pinboards that are billboards? Not so much.
With that in mind, let’s say that I want to sell a BBQ sauce recipe I’d just created. I could simply pin it to an existing board, but let’s be smarter and create a new BBQ board, then populate it with a dozen or so BBQ-related photos from elsewhere on Pinterest.
To start, log in to your Paccount (is that the right word? 🙂 and jump to “Your Boards”:
You’ll see all the boards you’ve created, but in slot #1 you’ll also see this:
Click on “Create a board” to build the new Pinterest pinboard (and in case you haven’t figured out yet, “pinboard” and “board” are interchangeable in the Pinworld).
Now it’s time to fill in the fields:
Definitely encourage you to specify the appropriate category to help people find new entries, and you’ll probably not want to choose “Secret”, though if you do create a secret board, you can add all the entries you want without anyone seeing. Then later you can switch it from secret to a public board (but you cannot change your mind and go back. beware)
Spend a moment or two coming up with a good name and description, then click “Save Changes”.
Now you have a big fat empty board, very uninspiring:
That’s the first part done. The fun now beckons!
Go up to the top left search box and type in a word or phrase that describes the kind of pins you would like to add to your shiny new board. For my example, I’ll type in “BBQ”:
Notice that Pinterest suggests additional phrases based on what’s actually on the site, which is great for brainstorming. Later perhaps I’ll come back and add some “bbq party” pins! For now, however, I’m going to stick to “bbq”, and will see tons of stuff…
Interesting how a category where I’d expect to see a lot of food actually ends up being a lot of products for sale. I think this is a keyword that attracts sellers, somehow!
Still, a bit of scrolling reveals plenty of bbq food photos and recipes, and that’s what I’m seeking. Here’s an example, some delicious looking BBQ pulled brisket:
The “PinIt” and “Like” buttons show up when you move the cursor over the photo and a click on the red “PinIt” button pops up a window:
Here’s where you want to find the new Board, then edit the description if you’d like. Done? Click on “PinIt” and you’ve just added your first pin to the new board.
Now repeat the find image-repin cycle as many times as you need to have the new board look like it’s interesting and worth following. I add at least a dozen pins when I create a new board, and total elapsed time is maybe 5 minutes, depending on how sidetracked I get.
Finally for the new BBQ board, here’s how it looks when I’m done:
Looks good, doesn’t it? Delicious food, and a board worth following!
Now you’re ready to post some product images that promote your own goods or services. Just remember that the best social media marketing comes from no more than 25% your products, 75% or more other related content that’d be interesting to your target audience.
Good luck!
Oh, and if you’re curious, here’s my BBQ board and you can follow me on Pinterest too.