Gather Pinterest Followers in 5 Easy Steps

It’s relatively easy to gather followers on Pinterest, much easier than other social media platforms. 

1. Post Original Pins

The first step in gathering followers on Pinterest is to post original Pins. Now, this can get people in a tizzy. I didn’t understand what it meant when I started taking Pinterest seriously–I thought it meant that every Pin I created had to be designed by me. Not so. Original merely means you are not saving from another Pinner’s account.

Sharing from another website, a funny quote or meme, your own original images (high quality) and best of all, Infographics. In 2020, everyone devours bite-sized information and you can’t get better than an infographic.  See opposite!

2. Save Pins from Other Pinners

Don’t forget to follow the Pinner if you’re saving their stuff. You don’t have to, but 9 times out of 10, they will follow you back.

Change the description of the Pin, creating something unique to you. 

3. Use Keywords

Use the Search Bar to find out what other people are searching for and then use that information to inform your keyword selection. This will find people who are looking for what you’re putting out.

4. Connect to Your Other Social Media Accounts

Connect your Pinterest account to as many of your other social media accounts as you can. In that way, you can share your Pins and get more followers that way.

5. Make Your Website Pinterest-friendly

Make sure your website visitors can pin directly from your website by adding Follow and Share Pinterest buttons (and any other Social Media accounts you may have). I use BestWebSoft’s Pinterest plugin which is extremely simple to navigate.

Also, don’t forget to activate your Pinterest Conversion Tag if you have a Business Account (and if you haven’t, why not?). For this, you can use a plugin called Pctags – Pinterest Conversion Tags 

One last thing – Pinterest is unique in social media platforms in that you can almost instantly see results IF you put in the work. Like Jim Carey said when he wrote himself a $10m cheque – there was no point in writing it and then going off to eat ice cream 🙂

 

 

Pinterest for authors, Pinterest for Artists

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How to Schedule your Pins on Pinterest with Tailwind

If you’re regularly posting to social media sites the idea of having to post to yet another could be what stops you making the most of Pinterest. However, it doesn’t have to be like that. Serious Pinners use Tailwind, a pin scheduler for both Pinterest and Instagram (separate subscriptions).

Firstly, with Pinterest, the slicker your photos look, the better they will perform. Instagram is where you can post your own images that may not have turned out quite right but on Pinterest, you need hiRes and interesting images relating to your product/s.  Check out best practices for both platforms before posting.

SmartLoop your Pins

Apart from scheduling pins for a day/week/month ahead, Tailwind also has a nifty little feature whereby you can loop your images. For example, say one of your pins from last month or year performed extremely well, you can go add it to SmartLoop and it will be published again. You can add Pins straight from your boards so you never need to run out of material.  The image opposite is my SmartLoop Schedule

Just make sure each image is linked back to a landing page or your shop or wherever you want people to go.

Each Board a Pin is set to Loop to counts as 1 Active SmartLoop Post regardless of how often it actually Pins each month*

Tailwind Create

The latest innovation from Tailwind (they innovate a lot) is called Tailwind Create. You set up your account with your brand colours, logo and fonts and every time you create a new Pin, your settings are automatically applied.

Join a Tribe

Another cool thing about this App is the Tribes function. You can find tribes in over 4,000 niches and of course, because Pinterest is full of curated content, you’ll be able to find lots of content to repin.

You can use Tailwind Tribes for free, even if you don’t have a paid account, and your free trial has ended. When you sign up for a Tailwind Free Trial, you get 100 free scheduling timeslots with NO time limit! 

All of these are free to join, the monthly charges are low but not necessary to get you started.

This is the pricing page

Don’t forget – if you have a business you should have a business account. Check out my last post to see how you can convert your personal account to a business account.

*source Tailwind

“This post contains affiliate links, meaning that if you choose to click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you. I was also compensated to create this post, though all opinions are my own.”

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Convert a Personal Pinterest Page to a Business Pinterest Page

If you’re an author who sells (or wants to sell) books you are a business and therefore you need a Business account on Pinterest.

It’s not that difficult to do but you may not know where to start, so that’s why I’ve created a PDF that shows you step-by-step how to go about changing a Personal account to a Business account on Pinterest. Simply enter your email address opposite to download. 

If you have a go at creating your Business account I’ll share information with you next time about how you can keep a steady stream of pins to your boards.

NOTE: When you’re creating boards for your page, whether it’s Business or Personal, use your brand colours when designing the covers – see below (or visit my Pinterest page at https://www.pinterest.ie/norahdeay/_saved/) – more on this here

A Pinterest business page
Writers need a Pinterest Business account

Pinterest personal to business account

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Authors using Pinterest – top tips to get the best from your account

Authors using Pinterest – top tips to get the best from your account

Do you know that Pinterest is the third biggest search engine? Yep, after Google and YouTube shoppers go to Pinterest to make their buying decisions. Which means that if you’re an author with books to sell online, you should have an account on Pinterest. Unlike Instagram or Twitter,  your pins don’t disappear after a few minutes. People save them to their boards, either to use immediately or to come back to when they’re ready. They last for as long as you want them to – one of my most popular pins is a couple of years old. Every now and then I’ll refresh it and pin again. 

The Tips

Pinterest is one of the easiest, least taxing, social media platforms to use but there are still a few things you need to know. 

1. We usually start out with a personal account, using it to save pins of clothes, shoes, recipes and if you want to use your account to make sales you can still keep all of these on boards you can set to ‘secret’. It’s best to have a business account when you want to make sales. 

2. As an author, you will want to optimise your profile to reflect your author brand and this means having an identifiable photo, a well-constructed bio, and links to your publications. 

3. You’ll hear lots of talk about Boards and Pins. The easiest way to describe what these are is to visualise a corkboard where you keep household or office reminders. Maybe you use one as a Vision Board? Pinterest is exactly this – you create a board, name it, and then pin images to it. 

4. You can have up to 5 “Featured Boards” and the first one should be entirely devoted to your writing. 

5. It’s not difficult to use Pinterest but like all programmes new to us, there are best practices: 

  • Ensure your pins are vertical – 600 x 900 pixels 
  • Put thought into your board covers – your account will look much more professional if all the covers are branded
  • Design is better when there’s less of it so lots of white space is good – don’t go mad with all sorts of different boards. You can create Sections within a board if you want to have lots of different topics. 

Whatever you do, make sure you have fun – oh, and use video, Pinners love video! The video opposite is a typical of a pinned video – Pinterest suggests no less than 6 seconds and no more than 15, so this one is 10 seconds. 

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