We talk a lot about how to use Pinterest for your business through pinning strategy, best practices, and various pin styles, but have you considered some of the non-traditional uses for Pinterest in your business?
As people who run small businesses, we find that we can get fatigued with ideas and feel overwhelmed. That can make us want to shut down and not do any type of marketing at all.
Today we’d like to talk about some unique ways to use Pinterest for your business in the hopes that it will generate some ideas for you and give you some new perspective.
Specifically, we’re going to dive into ideas for:
- interior design
- photography/art
- music
- food
- fashion.
Before we dive into that topic, I want to let you know that our Simple Pin Ads Society is opening up for one week (beginning on June 7th). It is a low-cost monthly membership community that guides you through the ins and outs of Pinterest ads.
If you’re on another platform like Facebook and you’re ready to diversify your marketing and go to another space to find new customers, we believe advertising on Pinterest is the way to go.
Our Promote Pins Director, Erin, will help you learn how to leverage Pinterest ads to get new customers or new readers. We want to help you use Pinterest ads effectively so you’re getting the results you want.
Inside the Simple Pin Ads Society, we offer
- monthly workshops
- hot seats
- live Q&A calls
- campaign assessments.
Instead of a Facebook group, we have a forum where you can communicate with our team and ask questions.
I strongly recommend that you join this community if you are thinking of making Pinterest ads a part of your advertising strategy. Go check it out and get on the waitlist so you can be notified next week when it opens.
How to Use Pinterest in Unique Ways for Your Business
One of the things we know that Pinterest is putting a lot of effort into in 2021 is shop integrations.
If you are a product seller, I want you to know that behind the scenes we have been interviewing product sellers and diving deep to understand how to make Pinterest work for you.
We know your profit margins are smaller and there’s a big struggle. So, as we work through these ideas, I want you to be thinking about how to connect with your person in the most effective way to get them to purchase your product.
If you’re a content creator or a service provider, I want you to be thinking the same thing. How do you connect with your person on the other side who doesn’t really know who you are?
Let’s get started by thinking about Pinterest board collaboration, inspiration, information, and helping your people make a decision.
I want you to remember that Pinterest users are looking for a solution to what their problem is or what their future project is. I joke about this many times in interviews, but Pinterest people don’t really care about you. That’s not to say you’re not important, but they’re not looking for a person, they’re looking for a solution.
With that perspective, it becomes easier to start thinking about marketing with them in mind. So let’s dive into our first category and some ideas to get you inspired.
How to Use Pinterest Creatively for Interior Design
We know those of you in this space are wondering how you can showcase your services in a way that will inform your audience about what you have to offer them.
Here are three suggestions for using Pinterest in an out-of-the-box way to draw in new clients.
1. Redesign a room for a client on a Pinterest group board.
You and your client could each pin your favorite ideas to the board for discussion. In this way, you can get a feel for their style preferences beforehand.
2. Create a board displaying color and textile options.
You might display your textiles for a particular style or display colors for a theme. You might create a board named Modern Farm Design or Using the Color Navy in Your Home.
3. Display examples on a board of what you’ve done for other clients.
Your business name needs to be in the name of this board. People commonly look for reviews of companies on Yelp and Amazon so you might consider naming your board (Your Business Name) Reviews.
Related: Pinterest Marketing for Interior Designers
Outside the Box Ideas for How Photographers and Artists Can Utilize Pinterest
It can be a bit tough working through how to target Pinterest users and their needs in this niche.
Here are a few suggestions we’ve brainstormed for you.
1. Provide examples of your work.
Show off examples of art on a board and lead potential customers to your website. This might work well especially if you have a Shopify or WooCommerce integration where potential customers can easily buy your work.
2. Display photos of your artwork in various rooms.
This provides potential customers inspiration and feeds their imagination for how your art might look in their home or place of business.
I saw a cool idea to rent an Airbnb for a night and then take a lot of pictures of your art displayed throughout the rooms. You’ll have a stock of photographs you can use over time on all of your website and social media platforms.
3. Before you create a commissioned piece of art, have clients send you images of art they like.
A group board shared between you would provide an opportunity to see that you are both on the same page.
4. Talk through your location and styling options before a photo shoot.
This is another great way to use an inspiration board. You can show each option you offer to your clients.
These ideas won’t necessarily capture a large audience on Pinterest. Instead, they provide an opportunity to use Pinterest as a tool to build a relationship with your client and create more effective communication.
How to Use Pinterest in Creative Ways if You are a Musician
Music is an interesting niche to explore on Pinterest. I will say we haven’t tested all of these ideas with musicians — they are ideas from our brainstorming sessions. We’re just suggesting them as something you might try.
1. Share snippets of your music in short podcasts.
Try out a WavePlayer or similar technology to share a 15-second snippet of your music as a way to lead people to your website or store where they can make a purchase.
It might be really cool to have an album cover, a picture of yourself, or some artwork with a WavePlayer icon displayed over the top. You could add text that shows your music genre. The only hurdle I see to this is the possibility of sound not playing on Pinterest.
2. Collaborate with other artists with similar musical styles on a group board.
Use well-keyworded board names (e.g., R & B Music).
3. Use video and idea pins to share snippets of your music.
A 15-second snippet video pin could be pretty cool.
Some people have been repurposing TikTok videos in this way. I’m still on the fence about this. I want to see how it’s going to go with Pinterest. I’ve read threads of people who are super annoyed with TikTok, so I think the jury is still out on this.
Creative Ideas for How to Use Pinterest if You are a Food Blogger
Sharing recipes has always been a great Pinterest strategy for our food bloggers. Here are a few suggestions to help you find that unique space.
1. Create video and Idea pins.
I still think the number one way you can diversify and inspire people is through video and Idea pins (formerly known as story pins).
I know Idea pins don’t provide an opportunity to link anywhere, and that can be frustrating. Just know that I’ve seen people use them creatively to lead to direct traffic. Even more important, Idea pins now have a proven ability to build credibility for people’s websites and their recipes.
2. Collaborate on a group board with one or two other food content creators focusing on a very specific topic.
Collaborating with a few people who share your vision and will reciprocate with ideas via a Pinterest group board might be a way to bring some new engagement to your pins. I want to caution you to have those boards on your profile first and make them very specific as well.
3. Create Idea pins that show how to make a simple recipe.
Not all recipes are blog-worthy, but they may bring increased engagement. Quite frankly, there is a lot of work that goes into a recipe blog post and they take a huge amount of time!
This might be an idea to try with a favorite recipe you make all the time that’s not something you want to necessarily blog about. Try sharing it via an Idea pin to see if you get good engagement.
The bottom line here is to keep the foundational static food pins that you know will bring in traffic and use Idea and video pins to supplement those and increase engagement on your Pinterest account.
How to Use Pinterest as a Fashion Blogger
I love how people are so inspired by different types of outfits and clothing. Here are some ideas for you to consider.
1. Zero in at fashion trends
You can find these in two places:
• Pinterest Predicts – This is a prediction of the trends and terms for the coming year. An up-and-coming example is the term athflow which is redefining the term athleisure from last year.
• Pinterest Trends – This is where you can discover what people are currently looking for on Pinterest. You can find trends listed for the U.K., the U.S., and Canada.
Related: Pinterest Trends: A New Tool for Pinterest Keyword Research
2. Teach your audience how to put clothing items together to create outfits.
You might create a board that illustrates many different ways to wear a scarf with different outfits.
My good friend Kelly has a course, Adore Your Wardrobe, and the whole premise is to dress your body shape. You could create a board that’s devoted to fashions for a particular body type.
3. Cooperate with other designers on a project.
A group board with a couple of like-minded designers to share the best ideas from each member might be a way to elevate each other. Stick with a few people you know you can work with and who will reciprocate.
There you have it! Ideas for how to use Pinterest outside the box across five popular types of niches.
We hope you’ve been inspired to think outside the box and find your own unique ways to use Pinterest for your business.
Don’t forget to sign up for the Simple Pin Ads Society waitlist. It will be open the second week of June. We want to make sure you get in while it’s open. Once it closes it will not reopen again until September.
For Further Listening/Reading:
