How to Grow Your Business with Pinterest

I spent (wasted) a good deal of time keeping away from Pinterest simply because I couldn't see how it can help grow my business. I thought it was simply a means to collect and display visual candy, and, aiming to develop a professional online presence I clearly didn't have the time to indulge myself in the business of pinning, regardless of the fact that it was getting bigger than Google...

Graphic: MRBECK

I wrote numerous comments to one of the most avid pinners I know, Paige of Little Nostalgia saying that "Ah yes, great images in your post about Pinterest but I really don't get it and I don't even have the time!" And I kept on doing this for months.

Until my husband loved it.

I figured that if a man can spend days on Pinterest, watching eye-popping map art, it should have more to it than what I initially thought. And yet again, I let it sit in the back of my mind with increased value this time.

As the months progressed I made feeble attempts to pin and repin, which was not that bad, in fact I got so much inspired by all the amazing art I found over there. But couldn't spend so much time just "fooling around".

And then Pinterest became the main source of pageviews for Kanelstrand and raised the traffic tenfold!

I finally got it, Pinterest is powerful and it really has a strong connection to my business!

Yesterday I read an article titled How to gain 25,000 Pinterest followers in 3 days.

Andrew Miller (note to self: he's male!) increased his followship on Pinterest 100 times in just 3 days! The number of his followers grew from 250 to more than 25,000! He even received serious job offers thanks to the impressive results of his pinning.

I definitely needed to forget my Pinterest presumptions as he suggested. I guess he's had some too, now that he's mentioning it. I hope this similarity makes me eligible to become a top pinner. 

Another great post full of advice on how to use Pinterest to drive your business is, in fact, an interview with Kanelstrand contributor Rebecca Dillon. She already has more than 13,000 followers and has quite a lot to teach us.

Going through a bunch of other Pinterest related articles, I devised a simple plan of 6 steps.

Pin one step at a time
Spend 15 minutes a day pinning. There is no need for the process to span for hours. Plus, this will eventually make you hate it.

Be honest
Pin things you genuinely like. Don't just pin irrationally just for the sake of pinning.

Be organized
Think about the way you are going to organize your boards and be consistent in adding to them.

Learn from the best
Go to Repinly and find the top pinners. Learn from what they do, note the number of boards they have, the topics and see how you can apply the new knowledge.

Be yourself
Don't simply copy. In a world full of information, copying won't do you any good. Try to add your unique interests and perspective. You are more likely to attract more followers by setting a trend than by following one.

Be patient
Keep on pinning. The more you do, the more people will have to look at and deem your boards valuable.

Now you might be thinking: What's the deal here? Well, there is a bigger deal than you might expect. The more valuable your pins, the more people will follow you and the more people will repin your pins.

That is what will lead tons of traffic to what you pin, be it blog posts or your items on etsy, ensuring steady traffic you have never dreamed about.

And while we're at it, follow me on Pinterest, I have some really cute Scandinavian design to share with you!.

I know a lot of you are more experienced Pinterest users, let me know if I missed anything. What are your tricks on Pinterest?