How to be Pintresting and Pinspire others.
Pinterest is a much newer social networking site, and works very differently to both Twitter and Facey in how people relate to each other. Pinterest is a visual social networking site, where you use pins and boards to display things that you are interested in, or anything else that you would like to display. Things that you admire, love, want to have and day dream about. It’s a sort of ‘Online Collage’.
Anything that you pin to your board shows in a stream on the homepage. People who see what you pin, are able to like <3 it, re-pin it, follow you, follow your board and you can do the same. As you pin and re-pin you are able to move these pins around on different boards for better classification.
Why use Pinterest to promote your Art
Pinterest is a natural fit for artists because art is a visual medium, and Pinterest is all about the visuals! On Pinterest you get to share your beautiful artwork, and get it pinned up on multiple boards if you do it right. Please take note: Pinterest doesn’t have as many users as Facey or Twitter, BUT this doesn’t mean that it’s not effective. Pinterest doesn’t filter it’s feed like Facey does. What you post will be seen by those who follow you or your board. It’s best to use this platform to gain inspiration, and to inspire others. I like to say ‘Pinspire’ 😉 People love inspiration. It fuels creativity, and you need to use this to relate to other creatives and build solid relationships in doing so.
Setting Up
This platform is super straight forward. Simply sign up with your details, fill out your profile with just a few words about yourself, and provide a link to your website. In the settings options you need to link, link, link: Link to Facebook. Link to Twitter, and make sure you don’t hide your Pinterest profile from search engines. You want to be finable! Next step, create some boards. They can be changed later, but at the start get a feel for the site and what other people are doing. Try creating boards like ‘Art I Love’, ‘I am Inspired’ and ‘Colour My World’. Be creative, there are no hard and fast rules.
An example of a good Pinterest Account. Adelaide Fringe Festival.
Using Pinterest to Promote Your Art
Pin Content
This is a fun site. You can certainly enjoy exploring pins, and gain inspiration if you are feeling blocked. There are a lot of artists showing their works. Join them! Pin works you have created, but not only this. People don’t like other people who promote only themselves. Pin other peoples pins, and reference them. Promote other pinners that inspire you. Be engaging, and post other pins that are relevant to the community. For example:
- Art that inspires you
- Colour palates
- Useful studio organisation ideas
- Words of wisdom and quotes
- Daily life inspiration
- Art in the wild
An example of useful/organisational pins. Keep your pencils in cans…cool!
The suggested ratio is 80% social and pinning of things interesting to the community, and 20% self-promotion. Use your creativity to come up with some great ideas that you can have fun with. Explore beautiful pictures with your followers and other members of the community. The focus of Pinterest is the images, not the text. Make sure pictures are displayed in an attractive way. Ensure they are large so that a person interested in your work can get a good idea of the detail. The images may be the most important aspect of this site but the descriptions will also impact how your followers feel about you.
Describe your pins well:
Again, Pinterest is a fun site. Describe your pins in an easy going, fun matter. You don’t want to obviously self promote, you want to inspire others in a friendly manner. If you talk at people and express ego, they will tune you out. Engage with people and they will interact. Show humanity, and show your loveable personality. Pinterest is not about selling you art, it’s about inspiring others. Include a URL in your description if you like, but be discreet. Add it to the bottom of your description (but before the #hastags. I will discuss this next). The great thing about adding links to the descriptions is that if your pin is re-pinned by others your link is also shared!
The last aspect of your descriptive should be the #hashtags. Provide these discreetly at the bottom, NOT at the top. It’s so important! As discussed in previous blogs, this is the key to being found, and categorising your work. For example: you pin a photo that shows the progress of your most recent work (#wip.. work in progress). Pinterest does not know what this is. You need to communicate what’s in the photo so it can tell others. Some good tags in this case are: #art #fineart #wip #paint #bluethumbart #painting #inspire #inspiration.
An example of how to describe a pin. Follow bluethumb on Pinterest 😉
Make sure you don’t stop pinning either guys! When you pin something new it shows on the home pages of your followers. Everybody can see what you have pinned. If you stop pinning people won’t see you and you’ll be forgotten. 🙁
Build relationships, gain followers and keep em!:
The best way to start getting followers is to invite friends from Facebook, and followers from Twitter. It is easy, and only takes moments to do. Go ahead and ask people to follow you in a Tweet, or Facey post. Followers don’t have to follow all of your boards, they can just follow the ones that pinterest 😉 them. Keep an eye on which of your boards have the most followers/activity. Learn from this, and pin more of this! Spread the good vibes. Engage with your followers, comment on their pins! Share their pins, be positive and encouraging. People will appreciate this and return the favour.
How other artists are using Pinterest to promote there Art:
Check out the links below for examples of how to be a great Pinner! Stay tuned for the next chapter. Tumblr! Happy Pinning Y’all 🙂
http://pinterest.com/mfrank888/
http://pinterest.com/lululadybeetle/
http://pinterest.com/onthefirefly/
http://pinterest.com/justinkemerling/
