I highly recommend Pinterest for Etsy sellers – it’s my favorite marketing platform and new improvements are making it even better. I’m going to tell you exactly why I think it’s the best, how to connect your Etsy shop to your Pinterest account, and how to make the most out of the platform. I’ve included a free checklist at the bottom of this post with step-by-step directions on setting everything up!
Setting up an Etsy shop and waiting isn’t enough. Actually, doing that is a major biz fail. Etsy is wonderful, but you don’t become a business by just opening a shop. You have to drive traffic from other sources to the platform if you really want your sales to grow – and if you want this to be more than just a hobby.
Why Pinterest?
Pins Live Longer than Posts
When you add content to Pinterest (a pin), it is similar to planting a seed. Water the seed, maintain the plant, and watch it grow! The sooner you get started on Pinterest the better. As your pins continue to get re-pins, your content reach gains traction. A product you pinned a year ago could lead to traffic today.
Posts on other social media platforms (I’m looking at you Facebook and Instagram) have a very short life. According to Copypress.com, the average life span of an Instagram post is about 48 hours but engagement starts to taper after 6. Facebook posts only last about 5 hours. Crazy, right? That’s why I love Pinterest for Etsy sellers – it’s like the gift that keeps on giving!
More Sharing, More Shoppers
On Instagram and Facebook, each person or business is primarily posting their content or products. Pinterest is great because other people are saving and sharing your work – that’s actually the whole point. This allows for even more eyes to see your Etsy items!
Ready to create your own Pinterest strategy and grow your Etsy traffic? Enroll in Begin to Pin and learn how to set up, automate, and grow on Pinterest.
It’s a Natural Fit for Products
People are familiar with using Pinterest for things like wedding planning, home decorating, and gift buying. If you have an Etsy shop, I’m guessing there’s a big chance that your items fit in a category that is already popular on Pinterest. Shoppers visit the platform for ideas and inspiration, so it’s a natural fit that your products be there.
Connecting Etsy to Pinterest
I definitely suggest having a seperate Pinterest account for your Etsy shop. Keep your personal account for workout routines and crockpot recipes, but create a new profile for your business (it’s free!). The business account gives you tools for detailed analytics and the ability to advertise, which you might choose to do in the future. I find the insights really helpful!
After you register using your email address, go to the three dots in the upper right on your Pinterest profile page and choose “Business Account” from the drop down menu. You’ll be prompted to enter a business name and then asked to connect your Etsy shop. Click “claim” and authorize the app to access on Etsy.
If you’re connecting your shop to an existing account: on your profile page, go to settings (under the three dots drop down at the upper right), then click claim on the left. Next to Etsy, click the red “claim” button. It should redirect to Etsy and ask for permission to connect your account.
Setting up your Profile
I believe your profile photo on every platform should be the same (or very similar!) to promote brand recognition. Upload your brand photo and list your business name if you haven’t already. Add keywords to your business name that relate to your product as this helps people find you when searching!
Include your Etsy shop link where it asks for your website. In order to keep things simple, you can easily link to your Etsy shop by using “youretsyshopname.etsy.com”. I just feel like it looks more professional than using the backslashes.
Craft a bio under the About You section describing your shop and products, making sure to include keywords. As an example, my Etsy shop specializes in wedding invitations so I added related words to my profile while keeping with my brand voice. I recommend adding a call to action here as well, like “shop now”, “browse products”, “order a sample”, etc!
Creating Pinterest Boards
Ready to flex that creative muscle? List 5-10 category ideas that directly relate to your Etsy shop. Depending on what you’re selling, these might be very different. Each category will become a board and they should complement your products.
Since I sell wedding invitations, I have boards related to wedding planning and inspiration. A few of my top boards are: wedding venues, bridesmaid inspiration, wedding color palettes, cakes, florals, and more! These were created because the content is related to what I’m selling. Someone browsing invitations would likely find these boards appealing as well.
Think like a shopper as you create your Pinterest boards. My first board is “Invitations” which is where all my product goes. Other boards should be related and support your Etsy items. If you’re having trouble brainstorming ideas for your board categories, see what other people in your industry are doing for some inspiration. Leave a comment on this post with the type of boards you create to complement your product!
Pinning
Start interacting! You can follow different topics and accounts related to your product – Pinterest will start populating your feed from there. Get started by adding at least 5-10 pins to each board you created. I recommend adhering to the 80/20 rule – pin 80% of your content/products and 20% from related niches.
Add pins from your Etsy shop by copying the URL of a product and clicking the red plus sign in the top right. You’ll be asked to choose an image and write a description. Remember to use keywords in your description – this is how you get found! Etsy will populate the pin with the price, your title, and description.
If you can spend about 10 minutes on Pinterest daily to begin growing your account. You might even find your own inspiration for creating new products there!
These tips are setting up the foundations of your Pinterest account. There is a lot more that goes into really taking advantage of everything offered on the platform, which I’m happy to go into detail in future posts. Leave a comment if you’d be interested in learning more about using Pinterest – how to use keywords and hashtags, creating a pinning strategy and using automation, tagging products, group boards, communities, analytics, ads, and more!
I’ve created Begin to Pin to take you step- by-step through setting up, automating, and growing your Pinterest account. Enroll now to get started and take back your time! Side effects include: a spike in Etsy traffic and sales and more time to focus on your craft, rather than your marketing.
Want more? I’m sharing these tips and more on The Creativeprenuer Podcast, comment below if you listen and let me know your thoughts!
Hi,
I am Wiktoria and I recently started my adventure with Etsy:) thanks to you actually – you are with me from the beginning:) thank you so much for all your posts!
About Pinterest – I started twice, first with my private account, and than second one with another, but I just think it is not for me. I am afraid it is too much time consuming…and I have so little time now (newborn at home:p) I have a business account, I created a few boards and than just leave them…do you have some tricks to pin more automatically and regularly?
Hi Wiktoria! So happy to hear that! You’re welcome, I’m so glad you have found my posts helpful : )
Pinterest does take a little time to get set up, but after that it’s just browsing + pinning + repeat! I usually spend 5 minutes twice a day pinning content. TailWind is an awesome app (and recommended by Pinterest) to set up automation. This way, you can spend about 30 minutes a month planning ALL your pinning and have TailWind push the content at scheduled times. It isn’t free, but is awesome for batching to save time!
Hi! Just found your article on … Pinterest ? i like how you keep it simple and have a common sense approach about it. I have a question for you: i have a personal account in pinterest with well populated boards that pertain to my line of business which have lots of followers. I can t convert that to a business account because it has lots of personal boards on it, but i don t want to start over from scratch on a new business acount. Is there any way to tranfer some of those boards over to a business account? Copy them? Import them? Duplicate them? Anything? Thanks!
Hi Laurence! I’m so glad you found it helpful! It’s actually against Pinterest’s ToS to use a personal account for business purposes. I would do one of two things – either make all your personal boards private and convert to a biz account OR start a new biz account and pin your best content from your existing profile there. Hopefully you could do either in a pretty short amount of time. Good luck!
Great info! I look forward to future posts
Hi Michele! Thanks for commenting, I’m glad you enjoyed this post! Make sure you’re on my email list for even more info and content about selling on Etsy : )
Thank You Steph for this post on Pinterest and Etsy. I am just setting up an Etsy shop now, I am also setting up a business Pinterest page also. I have also read the blog on Instagram and Etsy, still have to set up an Instagram account. It does take a while just organising the images for each site, so if anyone is starting be prepared to take a few weeks to get everything in order.
I know that it will not be the best straight away, but I am going to have a lot of fun learning to be the best I can be.
Thank You so much for the information you are sharing. Love and Light.
Yes the catergories – Bags, Travel, Colourful, Accessories, Fashion, Women, Duffle bags, Backpacks, Wallets.
Hi Shelley! Thanks so much for commenting – this seriously made my day! It does take a while to get things going, but once you get in the swing of it – it isn’t terribly bad! You’ll learn what works and what doesn’t and be able to make adjustments easily. “I know that it will not be the best straight away, but I am going to have a lot of fun learning to be the best I can be.” – THIS! If everyone viewed getting started this way, they would find success. This is the absolute best attitude and I know you will go far!
Hi Steph, this is really helpful thankyou. Just wondering as i have about 7 etsy shops, i guess i can only claim 1 shop on pinterest so is it best to have a pinterest account for each shop or just claim the 1 and have a board for each shop?
Hi Emma! Amazing that you have 7 shops! When you claim an Etsy account, it will auto fill the Pinterest description with your Etsy description which helps with keywords. If your 7 shops aren’t related product-wise, I would probably create separate accounts for each. If what you sell IS related/complementary, I would probably link my most popular Etsy shop to Pinterest and make boards for each. Just because having 7 different Pinterest accounts would be a LOT of time and effort. If you can focus on growing one, that would be ideal!
I have been following your advice on using Pinterest for business this past week. Thank you so much for all the directions to get started. I had no idea my “fun” pinning hobby could help my etsy page.
Hi Monique! Thanks for commenting! I’m so glad you found the tips helpful and that you’ve been having fun getting your Pinterest account going 🙂 I’d love to screenshot your reply and share with others who are on the fence about using Pinterest. Keep up the good work!
– Steph
Steph,
I’m so glad I found you. I’ve changed almost all my strategies for marketing and posting. I’ve posted on facebook, Instagram and pinterest and haven’t had any sales from them. I only posted twice on pinterest but I know now I need to be more active pinning and making boards. The 80-20% percent rule and different boards, never would have thought of that. Thank you so much for your posts and advice.
So my question is do I wait to post on pinterest until I have some better photos? Mine are mediocre.
Hi Kristi!
You’re so welcome, I’m glad you found it helpful! Pinterest is like compounded interest, so the sooner you can start posting the better. I would get started even if the photos aren’t great, you can always add better ones later. Sometimes I’ve found that my lower quality photos do ok, my guess is people find it more real/authentic looking : )
I’ve opened the doors to my getting started on Pinterest course today. If you need some help getting everything set up, it’s a great resource – https://zerotobiz.teachable.com/p/begin-to-pin
Cheering you on!
Steph