Promoting your website or online business on social media can be quite a challenge. This post will show you how to use Pinterest for beginners in 2023. On Instagram and Facebook, you won’t really be able to reach a lot of people when you are starting out unless you throw out some money for boosting or advertisement.
What Is Pinterest And How Do You Use It?
I know, I know. When you hear Pinterest, the first thing you will ask is “Isn’t that just a website for photos and quotes?” I mean, sure it is, but it is also so much more!
So, what is Pinterest really? Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, art, DIY ideas, and a lot more. Think of it as Google but focused mostly on visual content like photos and short videos.
In fact, try googling some recipes or design inspirations and you will frequently see Pinterest on top of the search result.
Now imagine your own Pin the first photo they see when they open that search result. Viewers will click on that photo and boom! The next thing you know, hundreds of people are already on your website.
And no, you do not need to learn very complex skills or be tech-savvy to be able to use and navigate through Pinterest. If you are a beginner, then you have come to the right place because I will teach you how to use Pinterest step by step.
How To Use Pinterest Step-By-Step
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Create a Pinterest Business Account
Signing up on Pinterest is pretty straightforward. First, google “create Pinterest business account”. You will find this page https://business.pinterest.com/ and from here you can sign up. It’s important to create a business account as opposed to a personal account if you are going to build an audience for your website or promote anything through your Pinterest account.
Business accounts are totally free on Pinterest, they only have additional helpful options and tools that are not available for personal accounts.
When you click the Sign-Up button on the homepage, you can easily connect your Facebook or Gmail account. Or you can also manually type in your email address, password, and age.
I recommend you to avoid using your Facebook ok Gmail accounts to sign up and instead, use your actual email address. Otherwise, your Pinterest account will be always connected to the other platform and it definitely can create more confusion and login issues on different devices in the future.
After that, you will be asked a few more questions such as your language, region, and then Pinterest will ask you to submit a bit of information about your business. Some of the fields are skippable, for example, you can add your website later if you don’t have one yet.
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Fill the Info in Your Profile
To edit your profile photo, name, and bio, just click the dropdown button on the top right corner of your screen and go to Settings. You can also start linking your website and other social media sites on that page. You can also choose your username and ideally it should be close to your brand name. If your exact brand is not available, try something similar with extra symbols. By the way, you can change the username on Pinterest later at any time with no consequences.
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Convert to a Business Account
If you are an online business owner or a content creator, then you would want to see your Pinterest analytics and how well your pins are doing or how many people are actually visiting your site through Pinterest. A Pinterest Business Account will give you this and more.
To convert your personal account into a business account, just click the dropdown button again, go to Settings, and go to Account Settings. At the bottom of the page, you will see the option Convert to a business account. Just fill out the fields that are needed from you and you are good to go!
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Start Pinning
Once you have your account done and ready, all that’s left to do is start creating pins. I already have several videos and posts on how to create an effective pin so I won’t dive too much into it. But basically, you will want to create vertical, high-quality pins to catch user interest.
You will also want to use bright photos and bold fonts and colors when creating your pins.
You can learn more about creating pins in my video here:
The good thing about Pinterest now is that they not only just focus on image pins, but they are now also welcoming video pins and Idea pins so your content will not be limited to just photos.
What are Pinterest Boards?
We are looking at my account now, you can see all these collections of pins based on a specific topic or idea.
To find your own boards, you need to click on the Saved tab in your Pinterest account.
You can think of these boards as the folders on your computer, and each folder includes multiple files, in this case instead of the files you have pins.
How Can You Save a Pin?
I’ve shown you how you can create a pin on Pinterest by uploading a video or an image, then selecting to which board you want this pin to be saved.
This way allows you to set a custom pin title and description as you’ll have to add them manually.
The second way can be used when you are building your new boards – that’s when it makes sense to save some popular pins relevant to the board title. And these will be pins that are already on the platform. So all you need to do is select a specific pin and then click to save it, choose the board you want to save it to, and that’s it!
Another way you can use to save your own pins is with the Pinterest Save button extension that adds a Save button to your browser. It’s totally free. Just google “pinterest browser save button” and install it. Then you can simply open any website or blog post, scroll to the bottom of the page to make sure that all images have fully loaded. Now click on that Save button, select the most relevant board, and here you go – you have a Rich pin created just like that. Of course, to work as a Rich pin, the website needs to be verified on Pinterest with Rich pins enabled, here is how.
If you are not sure how to do both of these things, I have a detailed tutorial, check the link up there and in the description below.
How Do I Use The Pinterest App For Beginners?
Using Pinterest on your mobile phone through their app is easier and more convenient for business owners who are always on the go and can’t access their laptops every second. And it isn’t really that complicated – in fact, it could be much easier than the website version.
Creating your account on the Pinterest app is also easy and straightforward:
- Download the Pinterest app from the App Store or Google Play.
- Open the Pinterest app on your device
- Enter your email address, then tap Continue
- Create a password, then tap Next
- Enter your age, then tap Next
- Select how you identify
- Select your country or region, then tap Next
- Select 5 or more topics, then tap Next
- If you like, follow creators based on your interests, then tap Done.
When creating or uploading pins, you just have to click the plus (+) sign on the bottom of your screen, and there you can have the option to create a pin or board.
If you want to edit your profile, click your icon on the bottom of your screen, then click the three dots on the upper right, then click on Settings.
Who Should Use Pinterest?
Pinterest is a great source of traffic so it’s perfect for anyone who has an online business, a website, or a social platform of their own. It can help introduce your business or website to a larger audience with every new upload – and it’s totally free traffic!
1. eCommerce Business Owners
If you are selling products online, then Pinterest is a great platform to showcase all of them. I have good news for you. Pinterest definitely made a lot of changes to the interface and functionality of the platform to give a lot more space to eCommerce businesses.
You have all these additional tabs that show up on both mobile and desktop versions of Pinterest suggesting you look for products in the search results.
If you have a Shopify store, you can go to your Pinterest account settings and it will help you automatically generate pins linked to your products. You will have a catalog and will be able to install the Pinterest tag. This app is free for Shopify users.
You can upload solo photos with image pins and link them to individual products. Or show your best products in Idea pins and send traffic to the homepage of your online store!
This also works if you are selling digital products such as visual art, templates, printables, digital bullet journals, stock photos, and so on!
You have to remember that most of the users on Pinterest are shoppers and those who look for inspiration (decor, clothing, etc) so you have to make use of this advantage!
The best thing about Pinterest is that you can link your website or online store to every image or video pin, so that whenever users click on your pins, they will be sent to your product page immediately.
2. Service-based entrepreneurs
If you are looking for clients, then Pinterest is also a great place to promote yourself and your services. Pinterest is home to those who live off of content marketing since you can easily do it on the platform for free and you certainly can reach a good number of new potential clients!
There are tons of pins from service-based entrepreneurs like online coaches, freelancers, and others who market themselves on Pinterest and actually get new clients.
You can check out my service here.
3. Content Creators
Pinterest is every successful content creator’s secret. Yes, this includes bloggers, Youtubers, online, podcasters, and more! Pinterest is a place where curious people are so if you are someone who makes interesting content, then you are sure to get a set of new audience from Pinterest.
If you are creating short video content, users of the Pinterest app will find your Idea pins (similar to Stories on other platforms) in the Pinterest Watch tab and it gives your account an additional boost as it’s a whole new tab for mobile users which makes Pinterest feed look more like Tik-tok and other social media platforms.
And unlike Google where it takes several months (even years!) to get on top or even on the first page of the results page, Pinterest only takes just a few days to boost your content to several people. Just be sure you use the right keywords on your pin descriptions and titles. I talk about that more on my video here:
Final Thoughts
It is never too late to get into Pinterest. I know you will be overwhelmed with the number of pins and users you see that are like yours, but trust me, Pinterest does not discriminate. Your pins will always reach a set of new audience whether it’s tens or hundreds of people.
And if you want to follow the same strategy that I follow which includes SEO, the best times to upload Pins, the best keyword, and more, then you can check out my Pinterest SEO Traffic Secrets Course here.
I’m Anastasia and I’m a full-time blogger, online entrepreneur, and Pinterest marketing strategist. I help digital entrepreneurs and bloggers drive targeted traffic from Pinterest either through my online courses or through Pinterest consultancy.
