Pinterest 101 for Birth Professionals, or.. How to Have Fun Marketing your Birth Practice

I enjoyed a great call with many of you this morning exploring tips & tricks on building your business presence on Pinterest.  For those of you who missed it, you can find the call recording here. It includes plenty of guidance around how to create an effective Pinterest page for your birth practice, and creative ways to use it to better support the families you serve.

For those of you who are brand new to Pinterest, here are the basic steps you need to get started>>

1. Create your Business Profile

Go to http://business.pinterest.com to create your business profile.

The steps are relatively straightforward here, but if you already have a personal profile on Pinterest you may find that it won’t let you use the same email to sign up twice.  Either choose a different email account, or if you have gmail you can actually just add a period or 2 to your name and it will still work and forward to your main gmail account.  For example, if you have already used marysmith@gmail.com, you can change it to mary.smith@gmail.com or even mary..smith@gmail.com, and pinterest will accept this.

Add a profile picture or logo that is 600×600, or 165 x 165 (larger images will be resized by Pinterest).  When writing your profile description, be sure to include your name, services, and city or region served.

2.  Verify your website

Go to your profile page and click on the pencil icon at the bottom-right corner of your header.  Then enter your website URL and click on “verify website”. This will allow your website address to show on your profile, and you’ll have access to the pinterest analytics to track which pins are doing well to help guide your activity.  From there you will need to download the verification file. This will then need to be uploaded via ftp into your”public_html” directory. If you don’t have a CLUE of how to do this – contact your hosting provider and they should be able to talk you through it.

Finally, go back to to the Pinterest window and click “complete verification”, and you should see “site verified” next to your URL on your profile.

3.  Build your Boards

When building boards, be sure to give them specific names that are keyword rich and of interest to your ideal clients.  For example, a board about water birth safety will be far more effective than a board titled “Birth” that includes pins about water birth, home birth, and breech birth.  Don’t build more boards than you can fill!  Make sure any board you create has a minimum of 5 pins to start, and ideally 10 or more.  You want visitors to check out your boards and immediately get a sense of all the great resources you have to offer.

4.  Add Pinterest to your Website & Social Media

Perhaps the most important step to building your presence on Pinterest is to have some of your own content pinned on your boards.   This means having images on your website that are easy to pin, ideally images such as the one at left that have your URL included. Let your mouse hover over the image at left to see how a hover button will work.  While anyone can add a pin it tab to their browser, it is best if you have a pin button actually on your website to encourage pinning.  If you are on wordpress, there are many great plugins to choose from, such as the Pinterest Pin It Button.  On weebly and other template sites this is a bit trickier, but you can get custom code from the Pinterest Widget Builder and paste it on your page using a custom code box wherever you want the pin it button to appear.

There are lots of creative ways to link to your pinterest page via your website & social media platforms.  On your business facebook page you can include a link to your pinterest. Be sure to also include a pinterest button in your social media links on your website.

If you want a higher profile for your pinterest page, you can include a widget in your side bar that will feature recent posts on the board of your choice or your profile.  If you are on wordpress the Pinterest RSS Widget is a great option.  If you are on weebly or another DIY website site, you can use the options shared on the Pinterest widget builder page and paste these into a custom html box.  You might also consider using the widget builder to insert boards onto web pages and blog posts as a resource for clients.

You can also, of course, add links to your profile in your email signature, business cards, and client handout package.

6.  Enjoy!  And Be Careful…

Basically, if you love pinterest, you’re going to Love Pinterest.  It can be very easy to spend far longer than you ever intended to spend exploring all the great content you will find there.  Because it can be addictive, be sure to set limits for yourself.  Besides, it’s best to not add too many pins in one day….you don’t want to overwhelm your followers!

Also be sure to check out my post from earlier this week on why you should have a business profile for your birth practice on Pinterest. Visit my pinterest boards for more ideas & inspiration!