You might wonder if Pinterest is just another social media platform and from the outside looking in it’s really hard to see how you can leverage Pinterest for your business. I will be breaking it all down for you and this post.

And I’ll share with you how it has become my highest source of traffic to my blog and business since I’ve started it.

When I first started my blog I just wanted to help a lot of people. But I didn’t know how to have people know about me so that I could find more people to serve.

That’s where a source of traffic is needed. And I’m sure your business is the same. I’m sure that whatever you offer whether be coaching, consulting, or services then you need potential clients and leads to find out about you.

And when I started studying and leveraging the power of Pinterest for business then my entire business changed.

In this one post I will break down for you Pinterest board ideas, is Pinterest social media, some new features on Pinterest like Pinterest videos, Pinterest story pins, and generally how Pinterest works to get new leads and clients into your business.

I’ll also answer some of the most asked questions like are Pinterest ads worth it, should I hire a Pinterest expert, how much do Pinterest influencers make, and why Pinterest is the best.

1. Is Pinterest Social Media?

2. How Pinterest Works

3. The First 3 Steps Setting Up Your Pinterest for Business Account

4. Pinterest for Business and Tailwind

5. Pinterest Board Ideas

6. Pinterest Marketing

7. Pinterest Videos

8. Pinterest Story Pins

9. Pinterest 2021 Trends

10. Pinterest Expert

11. How much do Pinterest Influencers Make?

12. Pinterest Traffic

Is Pinterest Social Media?

Against popular belief, Pinterest is not just another social media platform.

Pinterest serves as a massive search engine, similar to Google. So when your potential ideal clients, customers and leads are looking for someone to help them and an answer to their problem, they have the potential to find you through your content on Pinterest.

Here’s an example, if I search Life Coach, some of my search results that populate in Google pull content from Pinterest. If you’re a life coach this is a huge deal because when you typically wouldn’t be able to rank on the first page of Google for content, this is giving you the opportunity to be front and center in front of the person that’s trying to research these terms.

If you’re a life coach, they could find you easily through just a standard search if you have enough content that is optimized for search on Pinterest.

Much like Instagram, Pinterest has a visual appeal to it because the pins have first a visual representation of what people are searching for, as well as the ability for someone to click your pin and come back to your website or download your freebie, lead magnet, fill your webinar registrations, or sell your products directly.

Pinterest has some similarities with social media platforms and the fact that you can have followers of your content, people can like or give a heart to your content, you can build your brand on the platform, but it is very much more powerful for a source of traffic to your offers, building your email list, and allowing your ideal customers to find you.

How Pinterest Works

Pinterest works by pinning a photo representation of your content, and also things that you like.

If you think of the old school vision boards where we used to cut out a picture and tack it up onto a board, Pinterest can act the same way where people are saving and pinning the content that they enjoy and curate for a later time that they’ll come back to.

 Credit:  Leaders in Heels

The most powerful thing about Pinterest is when people pin one of your pins on their board it gets in front of their entire audience.

So say if an influencer who has a following of thousands of people pins one of your pins, now their entire audience sees your content.

The First 3 Steps Setting Up Your Pinterest for Business Account

Step 1: Go to Pinterest for Business - https://business.pinterest.com/

Click Sign Up

Then insert your business email, a password, and your age.

If you've already started a personal Pinterest account for just your own interests, I would consider starting one for just business.  You want to create an information hub for your ideal clients and the interest moves from what your hobbies are and interests to the focus shifting onto your ideal clients.

Step 2:  Go to Settings and Edit Your Profile

You can edit your display name (which should have what you do or what you want to be known for in business).

And your About Your Profile should be SEO optimized for how your ideal clients would be searching for you.

Step 3:  Create Your First Board

Go to SAVED and Click the Plus sign and click Board.  This first board should be for your website as you'll be pinning content from your own site to Pinterest.

There are a lot more steps to master Pinterest, especially for business but these first 3 will get you started.  You can download my free guide on Pinterest and get 10 free Pinterest Templates for Canva free here.  I created this to get you kickstarted in the right direction!

Pinterest Traffic

Pinterest easily becomes the highest traffic source for even influential online bloggers and coaches. That’s why they leverage Pinterest for business.

There is a social scheduling tool, and the one that I use is called tailwind.

How this social scheduling tool is different?  With other social scheduling tools I've used in the past, I would just plan my own content that I created and schedule it for an upcoming date.  Granted you can schedule ahead of time to create consistency...

But Tailwind (think of a plane getting back faster because of a tailwind...it helps accelerate speed, right) it allows you to schedule other influencers content that your audience will also enjoy.  This feature is powerful when you don't have a lot of content (yet).  Say if you are just starting out and don't have a following.

An alternate resource for planning and scheduling and Pinterest management is an app called Planoly.  I've used it in the past for Instagram scheduling.  While I no longer use it, it is a great app and it's an alternative to Tailwind.  In my experience it is more for visually pre-scheduling pins and Instagram posts.  It lacks the groups that Tailwind offers.

Pinterest for Business and Tailwind

If you are leveraging Pinterest for a source of traffic for your business, tailwind is absolutely a necessity. It’s not just 10X'ing your growth, it can 100X your growth and get you in touch with influencers that you typically wouldn’t be able to reach

The reason that you’re able to reach influencers through tailwind is that they are using it for their business as well, and success leaves clues.  

Some of the features that I most enjoy about tailwind is that I can schedule many days of content ahead of time so by spending a one hour block time in the back office of tailwind then I can schedule a weeks worth of content.

Ideally you’ll have a good mix of your own content and pins that you’re scheduling through tailwind, but there’s group boards that you can join through tailwind that will introduce you to some of these other influencers and you’ll be able to pin their content as well. Not only will you be able to pin their content, you’ll be able to offer up your content for them to pin.

In the group boards you can find the 'hottest' content, meaning it's getting shared rapid fire.  When you're sharing content that people are already loving then they start to look to you as an authority.

This is like throwing gasoline on a fire for your business. If you’re wanting to get in front of a lot of ideal clients for your coaching business and have more sales, this is the way to get in front of hundreds of thousands of people quickly.

Pinterest Marketing

There is a science behind Pinterest marketing.  It’s worth studying because Pinterest can be the best secret you have for your business.  

Here’s how you can leverage Pinterest traffic for your sales funnel.

No matter what platform you’re on including Pinterest, your ideal clients need to go through a process of knowing that they need help with a solution. And you’re likely that person that will help them with the thing that they are looking for in your niche.

So how Pinterest can be used is at the top of your funnel as the source of traffic.

Let’s say your ideal client is very problem aware. Meaning they know that they want to change. And they are searching for ways to change.

By offering content that directly relates to what you solve for people and what you offer for value in the marketplace then they will be able to start to know like in trust you as the person who could help them fix their problem.

This is how you get more ideal clients.

No matter what someone is purchasing they go through the same process.

The process usually goes from awareness, interest, consideration, decision, purchase.

And typically a sales funnel will guide them through this process.

They could enter the funnel through your lead magnets or something free that you’re offering, or even a quiz, like the one that I use on interact.

The ultimate goal is to have them become a client or a customer, this will give you a profitable business. After all, most people are not just doing this out of a hobby.

Pinterest Videos

Pinterest videos or a new feature for the platform. And I have noticed a huge spike in traffic from leveraging Pinterest videos.

This one for example has almost 14,000 views and 436 saves.  It's gotten a lot of engagement and has help build my email list. 

What I’ve seen a lot of influencers do effectively is to make videos on TikTok and then post them on Pinterest as well. This leverage is one piece of content and map it across to multiple platforms.  This one is a great example of JuneElevenCo.  The video was curated on TikTok and she posted it on Pinterest as it was something relevant to her audience.

I’ve also had it be very effective to have a clip of a video and have that drive traffic back to your YouTube channel, Instagram, or even build your Facebook Groups.

You can also use Pinterest videos to leverage a call to action, meaning if you want them to sign up for your freebie, or register for your webinar then you can record a quick video and pin it for free massive traffic that has the potential to get shared, and pinned by others for free in front of thousands and thousands of leads.

It's like having others help you build your business because they pin your content and it can be any content you choose.  Typically you'd have to spend thousands on ads on Facebook to get the same results that are available to you for free on Pinterest.

Pinterest Story Pins

Pinterest story pins are a new feature on the platform, some influencers are already really intelligently leveraging this feature.

Here’s one from Rachel Ngom That’s used effectively. It’s very similar to Instagram stories. It’s just a short picture and series of pictures, or it can be video as well that’s saved like a story pin.

In this example, Rachel had 7 Steps to her post and had 7 different story pins to represent each tip/step for her audience.  This feature adds massive value to her followers and creates that expert authority.

You’ll be seeing more of this feature as more influencers jump on board. It’s very effective Pinterest marketing because it can drive even more traffic to a certain thing that you want your ideal clients to do.

Pinterest 2021 Trends

Some of the 2021 trends for Pinterest we’ve already mentioned with the newer features like Pinterest videos, Pinterest story pins, as well as very bright, neon colors.  Check out this Pinterest Predicts insight from the platform itself.

You’ll also see the utilization of more gifs since video is allowed.

Here's some audience insights that guarantee your ideal audience is on this platform: 

442 Million Pinterest users every single month

60% Women users

50% Increase in Men on the Platform

35% Increase in Millennials on the Platform

Online bloggers, coaches, and course creators use the platform and big brands are starting to see the power of Pinterest for business.

Pinterest Drove 89%  More Cost-Efficient Traffic ~ IT Cosmetics

Pinterest Expert

You may wonder, should I hire a Pinterest expert to use Pinterest marketing for my own business?

My recommendation as a now Pinterest expert, is to utilize effective courses. That’s the exact path that I decided to take. Once I started realizing the power of Pinterest for business then I sought out information that would teach me how to effectively use the platform.

I started off with the course from Rachel and have since taken four additional courses because I never wanted to stop learning more about this platform.

I know teach how to use Pinterest to increase profitability. You can download my free templates for Canva here. This will at least get you started creating some beautiful pins for your content.

I’ve included some expert tips in the free download as well.

Now let’s answer some common questions about Pinterest.

How Much do Pinterest Influencers Make?

The Pinterest influencers that I follow all right making six figures, and even seven-figure businesses.

Pinterest Influencers Can Make $100,000-$1,000,000+

If you think about why those numbers are so high, it’s really getting back to how business makes money.  It all boils down to how much value you add to the marketplace, and how many paying customers you have.

Since you're able to get in front of so many potential clients and build your audience fast on Pinterest then the earning potential is great.  The difference of Pinterest is that others are sharing your content and the content lives on forever.  Actually the most subscribes I get to my email list is from my older content that has been shared for years. 

What other platform can you have timeless content that still gets actively shared?

Take Jenna Kutcher for example.  Fantastic seven figure entrepreneur.  Pinterest for her business adds 1 million plus viewers per month on her content.  She has mastered the sales funnels and in this case Pinterest just feeds her sales funnel.  This is where her ideal clients, course attendees, podcast listeners, and fans come from to find out more about her.

Jenna uses the same scheduling tool that I use.  On average she schedules 25 pins per day for her posting strategy and most of the pins are her own.

If you employ the Pinterest Marketing strategies like using tailwind, scheduling 15-25 pins a day, interacting with other influencers and group boards on tailwind, Creating consistent valuable content, then you’ll have more potential clients and you know what to do with.

Pinterest Success

The success a lot of experience with Pinterest is totally repeatable.

Here's a summary of what I do or Pinterest success:

1. Have my pins SEO optimized so my ideal clients can find them
2. I create content that is specified to what I'm selling for my primary offer and my affiliate offers
3. Pre-schedule content on tailwind
4. Join group boards on tailwind from other influencers
5. Share other influencers pins
6. Create consistent posting
7. Utilize Pinterest videos for hundreds of thousands of views
8. Use Pinterest story pins for more engagement and giving value

If we keep in mind the principles that popularity does not pay, then just another social media platform is not what you need. Pinterest however can be the best kept secret in your business to help you find ideal clients, customers, fill your programs, and sell your courses.

"Popularity does not pay" ~ Lisa Rooney

Be sure to download this free guide here as well as your free pins.

Helpful Resources:

• Pinterest Scheduler Tailwind Free Trial
• Pinterest for Business (Set Up Your Own Account)
• Pinterest and Instagram Planner App Planoly
• The first class I took to learn Pinterest from Rachel Ngom
• Free Download:  Pinterest Templates for Canva 

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