- The past few weeks, we've been exploring
all the crazy, and somewhat maddening,
changes on Pinterest in the last year
and how the heck you can navigate them
with your Etsy shop without losing
your ever-loving mind.
In today's video, we're moving on
and getting to the most important part of this series,
I'm going to give you eight solid success tips
for Etsy sellers on Pinterest
so you can spend your Pinterest time wisely
and bring more visitors to your handmade shop.
Ready? Let's dive in.
(playful music)
Bonjour, my name is Deb and I am the founder
of Tizzit.co, a membership community for makers
and handmade shop owners, just like your fabulous self.
You can learn more about our community, Tizzit HQ,
via the link below this video,
but for now let's jump straight into today's conversation:
eight success tips for Etsy sellers on Pinterest.
Let's jump right in and talk about the first success tip,
pinning more fresh content.
Fresh content is truly king these days.
Less is more, and your focus should be
on creating quality pins.
Now, if you don't know what fresh content means,
here's a quick overview for you.
Fresh content means creating a pin with a new image
that you have never added to Pinterest before.
The pin can go to URLs
that have already been shared on Pinterest,
or to a new URL that you're sharing on Pinterest
for the first time but you need to have
a new pin design.
Next let's talk about tip number two, no more repins.
Hand-in-hand with this new focus on fresh content
is a drop in the value of repinning.
Although repinning was a very important part
of any Pinterest strategy in the past,
this is not the case going forward.
If you don't know what repinning means,
here is a quick summary for you.
Until a few years ago, you could create a pin
for one product, repin it infinitely to as many boards
as you wanted to, and it just kept on delivering results.
Then, as Pinterest started shifting
towards wanting more fresh content,
the strategy was to repin less
and to repin to a maximum of 10 boards.
But this has changed again.
Repinning is now out
and you don't want to do too much of it anymore.
Instead, you really want to focus
on repinning your top performers,
the pins that are really working for you
and only those ones, and you only want to repin them
to a small number of highly relevant boards.
So no more repinning a pin again and again
to up to 10 boards,
that's not going to work moving forward.
This will feel like you're pinning a lot less,
because you will be,
but the quality of those pins should increase.
I actually made a video a couple weeks ago
about the recent changes on Pinterest
that guides you through a bit of the history
of what's changed, and when,
so that you can better understand
what these latest changes mean,
plus it will help you distinguish
outdated advice on YouTube,
or anywhere that you're looking for advice on Pinterest,
from current and more accurate advice
so that your Pinterest strategy is current
and not outdated.
I'll put this link below
so that you can watch it next,
but make sure to finish this video first.
Next up is tip number three,
don't focus on group boards.
There's still a lot of advice out there
that will say go and join as many group boards
as you can but, honestly,
this is not going to get you great results.
It's very basic and old advice.
Pinterest does not reward the use of group boards
like they used to as a way to get more exposure,
they want pinners to use group boards
to collaborate with each other
on a project instead.
Does it still work to get your pins out there?
Sure, sometimes it does,
that's why I wouldn't dismiss it completely,
but it's certainly not a must have
inside your Pinterest strategy
in the same way it used to be.
There is a lot of outdated advice on the internet
to pin your pins to all the group boards in the world
to be successful on Pinterest
so it's important that you are aware
of these latest developments
and don't get tempted to go down
the group board rabbit hole.
If you're a part of a group board
that's working for you, great,
leave it as is.
If you do it as part of a Pinterest strategy
as opposed to it being the whole strategy,
it can work well.
If you're new to Pinterest, however,
don't waste your time looking for
and applying to group boards
because, honestly, it can be time consuming
and I'd much prefer you spend that time
creating lovely fresh pins.
Instead, if you happen to discover a great group board
while browsing Pinterest or Tailwind
or you notice that your pins getting saved
to a group board regularly
and it is relevant to what you sell,
then go ahead and join and try it out,
but don't go out of your way to find it.
If you're using group boards looking
for that extra boost and exposure,
Tailwind Communities are a much better option these days.
You can use the free version of Tailwind to do so,
you'll just have a lower limit on the number of pins
you can add in a month.
At any rate, you will be much better off
spending your time on all the other tips
that we're sharing in this video
versus spending it on group boards.
My fourth success tip for Pinterest
is to focus on engagement
rather than obsessing over impressions.
It's super easy to get caught up
in tracking how many times your pins are seen.
And obviously, you want them to get good reach
and good visibility because if they don't,
then no one's going to click
and no one's going to buy your products.
But there is way too much emphasis
on tracking your pins' impressions,
it's a statistic that everyone obsesses over a little,
but in reality, Pinterest is a slow burn.
It is a snowball-effect type of platform.
Your impressions will naturally increase
and increase and increase and increase
as long as your engagement is high for that pin.
Impressions will of course be low to start,
and then they're going to snowball into higher numbers.
That's the power of Pinterest.
That's why some of those pins
are going to bring you visits to your store
for months and years to come.
This is why you need to focus on engagement first.
Engagement is what will drive your growth,
so at first if you don't see super-high impressions,
it's okay,
what you want is for your engagement
to climb nicely in the background.
So saves, pin clicks, outbound clicks,
swipes, all of that.
Once you are getting engagement,
it will have a trickle-down effect
and you will start to see your impressions increase.
So making pins that people engage with
that they want to click on and save
and go visit your shop from,
that's what you really need and is the metric
that you want to be focusing on.
Next let's talk about idea pins.
Idea pins are great, but here's the thing,
they can't be clicked yet.
And if they can't be clicked, guess what?
They can't generate direct traffic to your store,
not good.
So they should not be the main focus
of your Pinterest strategy.
You can't take impressions to the bank
and I see a lot of makers getting stuck there,
pushing idea pins like crazy and not getting results.
Now, a word of caution here.
At the time I'm recording this video,
as I just explained, you can't add links to idea pins.
But I wouldn't be surprised if soon this changes
and we see Pinterest create the ability
to add a URL to those pins.
If they want to push idea pins as an ad format,
they're gonna have to add this feature,
so I think this is going to happen at some point soon.
But until then, please don't put all your eggs
into the idea pins basket
even though they get a lot of impressions,
get a lot of engagement,
and the algorithm seems to be favouring them,
it doesn't mean that it's a good Pinterest strategy.
So use them, but don't abuse them!
One other word of advice for those of you
who make idea pins.
A mistake I see a lot of makers make with those
is sharing so much of the behind the scene
and the process of how to make their product
that the pin ends up being shared more on Pinterest
by people who are trying to learn the craft
that you are skilled at,
rather than those actually buying the product.
Remember, the point of your idea pins
is to sell the product,
you don't want to give away how you make it.
And on Pinterest, it's very important to incorporate
this distinction into your pins
because there's a lot of crafters on the platform as well,
and you do not want them to see your pins,
you want shoppers to see your pins.
So it's very important to remember
that what you share in your idea pins
needs to be carefully planned.
Next up is tip number six,
the buyer's journey on Pinterest.
And what I mean by this is that you have
to be knowledgeable about the stages
a buyer goes through and how to appeal
to each one with your pins.
It's important to remember that some people
are just starting their buyer's journey.
They will be looking for ideas and inspiration
but are nowhere near ready to purchase anything.
Other may be getting a bit more serious
about their planned purchase
and they're looking for different product options,
and of course some may be at the final stage
where they're actually making their buying decision.
What's important to remember here
is that you have to create different pins
with different formats and different design goals,
each different pin will appeal to a certain set of people
in a specific stage of their buyer's journey
and meet them where they are.
Here's an example of how images change
during the buyer's journey.
You can see that the images that appeal to someone
at the beginning of the buyer's journey
are meant to inspire them,
and as you move along the journey,
the images become more focused on a specific product
and how you would display or use that product.
For example, in the first couple of stages,
we have lifestyle images and pins with text
that offer ideas and inspiration
like ideas for selling indoor plants
or how to hang plants form the ceiling.
But as your potential buyer starts getting clear
on what they want to purchase, in this case,
we are selling macrame plant hangers,
I should have said that,
the images and designs start to focus more
on the product itself.
I actually have a course in Tizzit HQ
that teaches you how to create pins
for each specific stage of the buyer's journey
that you may want to check out,
I'll leave a link at the bottom of this video,
but for now just know that you have to create
different pins with different types of visuals
for each stage, because shoppers at one stage
will be looking for totally different things
than shoppers at another stage
and you want to be present at every stage.
Each pin you create has a specific role
in your overall strategy and is meant to appeal
to people in a specific stage of their buyer's journey.
So you need to design based on those stages.
I've kept the best few tips for last,
which is to have a solid Pinterest SEO strategy
and to create a yearly calendar to hit trends.
Let's start with tip number seven, SEO strategy.
It's important to realise that your Pinterest SEO strategy
will be different from your Etsy SEO strategy
and will use different keywords
than the ones you are using on Etsy.
The best way to tap into the power of Pinterest SEO
is to take the time to understand
how the Pinterest algorithm works
and how to do proper research and determine
which keywords perform best on Pinterest.
Once you do that, you will see your pins
start to rank slowly but surely for key terms
your buyers are searching for.
If you'd like me to do a video
specifically on that like Pinterest SEO
and how the algorithm work,
let me know in the comments below.
If I have enough requests for it,
I'll add it to my content calendar.
And speaking of calendar, oh my god,
segue of the century,
let's talk about your Pinterest content
and promotion calendar.
That's tip number eight,
creating a yearly Pinterest calendar for yourself.
You will want to be creating
a yearly content calendar for Pinterest
that helps you hit the trends.
By creating a content calendar based on trends,
you can time your pins for maximum success.
Timing is very, very, very important on Pinterest.
Pinterest is a platform where people go to plan
so they go there early.
This means that you need to know
when trends are hitting, in general,
over the year, and you then plan to pin for that trend
even earlier so that you're paying rent
by the time the trend comes,
as in your pins have been out there a while
and have some traction behind them.
When you do your keyword research,
you will want to take notes of when those keywords
that you're going to be targeting
in your SEO strategy are trending.
Be sure to use the trends tool inside of Pinterest,
the new trends dashboard is amazing for example.
You'll also add to your Pinterest content calendar
the type of products that are trending
at different times of the year on Pinterest.
That way you can create a yearly content calendar
for yourself that has you pinning content
for your products based on the trends,
which in turn gives your pins
the best chances of success.
Bonus tip, I have one more bonus tip
I want to share with you today.
It's very, very, very important that you understand
what you can and can't do with Etsy on Pinterest
at the current moment,
because so many things have changed recently.
I made a video about this last week
that explains what has changed
between Etsy and Pinterest.
As you may know, Etsy and Pinterest broke up,
but it's still possible to have
a successful Pinterest strategy for your Etsy shop
if you know what to focus on
which I just told you about.
So if you haven't watched last week's video yet,
make sure you do so that you are current
on all the facts about Pinterest for Etsy sellers.
It's showing on your screen right now.
I'll also put a link down below this video
to another one that I mentioned previously
that goes through all the crazy changes
that happened on Pinterest these last few years.
I really recommend you watch it too
so you really understand where Pinterest is at
and so you can navigate through the sea of information
about Pinterest online to make sure
that any information you're using is not outdated.
Finally, I'll also link to my Pinterest mastery
for handmade seller course,
it's my most comprehensive course ever
and covers absolutely everything you need
to be successful on Pinterest.
If you're serious about making Pinterest work,
check it out.
Thanks for watching.
Make sure to check the links below
and until next time, au revoir.