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Pinterest has been around for almost 3 years now, so I may be a little late putting out my advice on it. I tend to focus on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, but I am quite the pinner.

I’ve browsed Pinterest for months, and checked it out quite intensely, but it wasn’t until about a year ago that I became active.

One weekend, I had a break from work, and I decided to look for a few things on pinterest.

I was looking for homeschooling ideas, and quite frankily, a visual in search results is much more entertaining than what google spits out.

That Saturday morning I began pinning. I pinned, repinned, commented, and repinned some more, soon I had over 600 repins in ONE day.

That night I finished of with about 20 boards. I thought any more than that would be too much for followers, right?

Ha!

A year later I have 50+ boards, over 2900 pins, and 3 secret boards. I could probably add more, but it’s already difficult enough to sort through them. I hope Pinterest comes up with more tools that all sorting, moving pins, etc. Right now I don’t know of too many that can be used for this.

Questions I’ve Gotten From Businesses:

For the new user, they often aren’t sure:

• what boards to make
• exactly what to pin
• how to find people to follow
• how to get more followers

The first question I’ll tackle is:

What Boards to Make on Pinterest for Business Accounts?

To start with you can make a board about anything. There are many categories on Pinterest but your board does not have to coincide with one. For instance, you could do a board of “Movies I’ve Seen” or “Fun Homemade Toys”, the topic to your board is completely up to you.

For business purposes, you might want to focus on board topics your future followers will want to see.

Dog training- breeds of dogs, dog nutrition, dog toys, puppy training, potty training, dog training celebrities, etc.

Organic store- brands you carry, organic health recipes, organic gardening, organic toddler meal ideas.

Business coaching- success leaders, background stories, about me, success strategies, business planning

and then, throw in a few boards for followers to get to know you.

I have boards for:

• Inbound Marketing
• Social Media
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• Google+
• Linkedin
• Internet Marketing
• Social Media Fuze Blog Posts

But then I also have boards for homemaking, homeschooling, pets, kids, littles (toddlers), organization, guinea pigs, and halloween.

There are boards for all of my interests. To be honest some people do this and some people will only make boards that interest their followers. But, followers want to see you, so I recommend posting boards you like.

What to Pin?

The simple answer is to pin images. I use the Pin Bookmarklet to pin anything I see online, which is really easy. There are photos that will be more effective than others at helping you gain followers and then traffic. These are the photos you want to look at:

• Photos with text
• Infographics
• 1 photo that shows several stages
• Graphics with text

Most websites/blogs use stock photos that have no added text, and end up being far less effective for business. There are not simply product stock photos, but stock photos from Shutterstock.

The images you pin should tell the Pinterest user what they will be reading about, because in many cases they will simply ignore the description.

For your website, I would recommend taking your stock photos and adding text with one of several Pinterest tools, or Pixlr (free photo editor). Then you can use a plugin to making pinning your images easier.

Finding People to Follow

Every pin on Pinterest allows you to see who has pinned the item. Once you find a pin you like, click through on any user profile image and you’ll be taken to their profile.

On a profile page you can click to Follow All or scroll through the boards and Follow those that interest you.

Getting Followers

My biggest tip for getting followers is to be active. Social media takes time and Pinterest is no different. The more you pin and re-pin, the more exposure you’ll get and the more people will follow you.

I’ve had more success pinning images than re-pinning for getting followers, but you still have to re-pin for community purposes.

Pinterest is a lot of fun and can be used for most businesses, so if you’ve got something to sell- jump in and get started. Hopefully these tips will help. If you have questions, ask them below.