When it comes to growing a wildly successful business with Pinterest, Gabby Pinkerton has been there, done that. In fact, there’s really not much that Gabby hasn’t done!
Not only did Gabby start her wedding business – Cause We Can Events – in 2012, she grew it into a six-figure international destination wedding company from a boat. You read that right – Gabby, her husband, and their two dogs spent three years living and officing from a boat in a California marina. If you’re a fan of Tiny House Hunters, the “Surf or Turf” episode is all about them!
But, back to business. Gabby grew her international business using zero marketing dollars and two tools – blogging and Pinterest.
“Blogging and Pinterest combined were kind of our ticket to success before we even knowing what we were doing.
And honestly, now that I have an idea of how Pinterest works, how to use it as a business tool, it’s really just helped us kind of skyrocket and get the attention of people outside of our little geographic area. As a destination wedding planner, that’s really what we want to do – target people outside of our own city. And Pinterest is the best way to do that in my opinion.
Gabby Pinkerton
You might be asking yourself whether the experience of a wedding professional might speak to your niche, but never fear. Gabby and her team regularly work with clients who are creatives, business coaches, networking groups, and from any industry you can imagine!
And today, she’s talking to us about one of the most important things you can do with your Pinterest content – regular tuneups.
Maybe you started your Pinterest years ago and keep throwing stuff on top, or maybe you’re new to Pinterest and need a strategy to keep up with best practices and new features. That’s what we’re talking about today!
In this episode, we discuss:
- How to optimize your Pinterest profile
- Whether you should be using a logo or a portrait as your Pinterest profile picture
- Tweaks, tips and tricks you can use to make your Pinterest profile stand out
- Using Idea Pins and Videos to breathe life into your Pinterest
- How to clean up your Pinterest Boards and Pins
And so much more!
Watch the full episode here!
On The Purpose of Your Pinterest Profile…
“The profile is really kind of that quick glimpse or snapshot of who you are, what you do, and who you do it for.”
On Using Your Pinterest Name to Build a Local Presence…
“Personally, I like to use a lot of geographic keywords, and we just relocated to Nashville. So, I am trying to get a little bit more of a presence here in Nashville, and I wanted to keyword myself for this location. Basically, I’m telling people who I am – I am a part of Cause We Can Events, what I do – I’m a wedding planner, and where I am – I’m located in the Nashville area, but we also do destination.”
On Changing Keywords on Pinterest…
“I don’t know specifically what the exact timeframe should be, but I would give it at least six months before you start re key-wording yourself. So for example, with Pinterest being a search engine, it does take it’s like SEO, right?
It takes a lot of time for it to get to know your profile and the keywords you’re using and what kind of category your Pins are in before it starts saying, oh, I know what this is. This account is about, I’m going to start showing this to that specific industry. So in my case, I always believe if I can at least go six months with using very similar search keywords.
I can at least categorize myself well in six months, sometimes it could take up to a year. It really depends on how active you are on your profile. So I would say no less than six months.”
On Why You Should Claim Your Social Media Profiles on Pinterest…
“You can start tracking in analytics a lot more when you’re claiming your website and other platforms, what content is coming from those other platforms to your Pinterest.”
On Whether You Should Have a Picture or a Logo As Your Pinterest Profile Picture…
“I will say there are probably different camps of ideas here and that’s fine. Right? There’s never really a truly right answer, but here’s my thought behind it. I am in the camp of believing that it’s important to show your face and have that be a photo of your face if you are a small business. Now, if you are a larger brand and you have brand recognition with a logo, so, you know, Apple, for example, right? That would make sense.
There’s not a lot of opportunities to personalize your account. So obviously, you have some keywords. We have our name in there, but there’s very little imagery about us. And whereas, on Instagram, we tend to show our face a little bit more with behind the scenes or photos or Pins or posts, but on Pinterest, I really think it’s a great opportunity to kind of show your audience, hey, it’s me. I’m not a robot. I’m a real person behind the brand.”
On Whether Editing Old Pins is a Good Use of Time…
“You know, I’m a move forward type of person instead of spending a lot of time editing in the back. Don’t go and spend all your time trying to edit those broken links, because I think Pinterest probably already forgot about them, to be honest, they stopped distribution. So instead, focus on creating really good quality Pins moving forward with correct links. Don’t worry about the past, it’s done.”
