Pinterest is a great platform to be a creatives closest marketing-friend, but still most artists don’t use it or struggle with it. I guess you’re one of them, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. So, let me tell you that I was facing the same issues as many other artists: I had a Pinterest account, but didn’t really know what to do or improve. I tried a few things, worked on consistency and still: my views were unimaginable unspectacular. Not to talk about clicks at all. After a while I felt more and more confused and unmotivated to keep going. But through extending my knowledge in a course, and from the experience collected over the following months, I prepared five tips to help you improve your Pinterest and get your art seen.
How Does Pinterest Work?
Before I share my tips, let’s take a quick look at how Pinterest works and what their goal is, as this will help you to become a clearer vision for what you want to share on there.
So, Pinterest is more of a visual search engine and it’s closer to google than to social media platforms like Instagram (by the way, it’s the only marketing platform I use, read more over here). For us creators it means that we have to think about keywords and SEO. Everything you write into your Pinterest or on your Pins will be read by the algorithm, trying to figure out for which kind of people this is the best content, depending on their interests and searches; and depending on what they type into the search bar in the end. Also, Pinterest is great in analysing visuals and figuring out for whom they might be fitting.
But over all those techy requirements, don’t forget about why people come to Pinterest and that’s mainly to find new products to buy, to dream about their future life, to plan their homes, to find inspiration and to better their lives. They seek advice and help for common issues and not so common, very niche ones. They are, from the perspective of an artists, looking for gifts, home décor, trying to find their style, dreaming about their homes, and search for things that are connected to your art like their way of living. Always keep this in mind when creating pins.
Also, Pinterest wants to create a positive space, that fuels inspiration, creativity and well-living. It’s goal is to be the online oasis you’ve been looking for, helping you design your future life in a better way.
A lovely side-story from my own experience:
For a blog post I’ve been looking up keywords like “artists block, creativity block, etc.” and after three or four searches, Pinterest produced a pop-up, asking me if I wasn’t feeling well and told me what I could do about it by recommending mindful tasks. They also linked to a blog post by them about mental health and how to figure out what may be wrong or could be of help. Additionally, they included some local (German) phone numbers for free support and described how I could save this post for later, if I need it again. I loved that and was so surprised, but that is kind of the vibe they want to have.
Now, let’s dive into my tips on how to improve your art studio’s Pinterest appearance. Here’s my Pinterest profil, if you want to take a peek. 😉
No. 1: Find Your (Main) Keywords and Use Them Everywhere.
To improve your Pinterest, you’ll need find fitting keywords. To do so, I practice slipping into the role of my preferred customer, trying to envision their aim and think about what I may be searching for, when I would be them. Then I type the keywords into the search bar and see what happens, so I can think about what of my content might fit in there, how it would be best “displayed” or which pin-design would fit, and which keywords others are using in their title and pin description to appear for this keyword.
Questions to reflect on:
Who is this person that doesn’t yet know it needs my art in their life?
Which are the short tail keywords this person is looking for and which are the long tail ones?
Use Keywords in Your Board Descriptions.
When you’ve found out about a few keywords that fit your art and where you could easily spread your content over, name your boards accordingly. Your boards will work like folders for the algorithm, helping it to find out where to display your pins. Afterwards, write nice, precise board descriptions to add some keywords and your personal voice of writing, so the algorithm knows what to expect and the users may know what to expect as well.
We tend to forget to write board descriptions because it’s a bit annoying and not as easy as you might think, but seriously do it as it’s important for your keywords.
Use Keywords In Your Pin Titles and Pin Descriptions.
Writing a pin title is usually not as much of an issue, but keep in mind that people might not be searching for the name of your piece of art, but for something very different like “miniature artwork for bookshelfs” and if you haven’t written this in your title, from where should Pinterest know that your art is perfect for a bookshelf? Instead, add the artwork’s title to the pin description (though you don’t even have to do that).
When you’re done forging your pin title, don’t miss out on the pin description. This is your space to add more divers keywords, use your unique voice, add a call to action, give further information, create tension or a wish to know more or buy this piece of art. Also, on some pages you may read to only write X words and squeeze the most important information into the first few ones, but I would rather recommend to not over-complicate this and just put the most important information on top and the least important at the bottom. Write what you want to find in there but keep it short-ish.
No. 2: Improve your Bio
Ahhh the bio. Do you like writing bios? I don’t. But having a bio that is short, on point, but also adds a bit of your voice and vibe is great (for users and the algorithm). You don’t need to add your full name, because most of the time people won’t search for your name on Pinterest (this counts for Pin titles as well, except your very well known), but you should sprinkle some of your main keywords in there.
No. 3: Properly Connect Your Website and Use Website Links
It’s as easy as that: Use a business account, connect your website and analytics properly, and if you have, connect your shopify shop. Also, use links to your website for every pin, not just Instagram links. You want that the people come to your space, where you can tell about yourself and your art in your way, without them being pulled elsewhere.
No. 4: Create Fresh Content & Be Consistent
Pinterest, like most platforms, values fresh content, because that keeps the systems running and you can’t just pin the same successful pin over and over – which has been a practice years ago, leading to users always just finding the same content – though if a pin performs great, it will likely do so for many months or even years, so we don’t need to pin this precise pin over and over.
Anyway, since Pinterest values fresh content, it’s wise to pin several times a week, to different boards, using different keywords, while being consistent. You can use a template more than once and you can also use an image more than once, but make it look fresh, mix it up and just be creative overall (Pinterest loves creativity).
Also, and that’s what most artist’s struggle with, consistency is key. Right now I pin 4 times a week, scheduled four to six weeks in advance, and it’s been a huge game changer. Pinterest loves consistency and four times a week (I have a little calendar dedicated to Pinterest Pins so I can keep track) is what I’m capable of managing right now (your’s may look completely different). I always pin on the same week days, mixing up topics and pin formats throughout the week. So, find out the amount of pins you’re comfortable with creating and scheduling and try to be consistent for the next six months. I bet you’ll see a lot of improvment!
No. 5: How Can I Stand Out?
Looking over the keywords and themes I use and create content for, I noticed that most pins by artists look roughly the same. But in a pool of pins that look just like any other, how are you going to stand out, so people notice you? For a solution to this problem, you first need to know what others in your niche are posting and then get creative.
It’s become one of the biggest questions I’m still pondering on lately and that I’m still trying to get around. Sometimes it works incredibly well, sometimes it doesn’t. What helped me is to use canva in my design process and be fine with using their templates and personalising them, so they fit my branding and style. Though to get to the core of it, you need to be creative, experiment, be open to making mistakes, publish the non-perfect pins and see what happens, because only then you will find out what makes you stand out in your unique crowd.
Is This Enough To Be Successful As An Artist on Pinterest?
Yes and No. It’s enough for the beginning to help you get going and start seeing some results, though to really be (traditionally) successful on Pinterest there are many more things to do and work on than these five tips (otherwise it wouldn’t create as much struggle for many, right?). One thing to always remember is that Pinterest is more of a slow platform, just like google, and so for content to perform great, it sometimes takes weeks, or months, or even years. You likely never know, except your following a trend, but it’s also what I value a lot about Pinterest as it means my pins from last year may be important this year or even in a few years’ time. It’s not gone after a few minutes.
If you’re looking for help with your Pinterest presence and would like to have someone by your side that helps you and gives advice, I also offer some freelancing services, helping creatives with Pinterest. Feel free to send me a casual email or have a look at my offer over here.
