While Pinterest may not be revered as one of the “top social media networks,” it would be a mistake to neglect the opportunities available on this channel when marketing your event planning business.

Pinterest is an image-based search/social media platform. Users can create “Boards” that are organized by topics and “Pin” different images (which usually contain backlinks) to save in relevant boards. If you own or are a marketer for an event planning business, Pinterest is a great marketing opportunity for generating leads and making sales.

In fact, unlike many other social networks, shopping is a top priority for 48% of Pinterest users. In contrast, only 10% of Instagram users and 14% of Facebook users prioritize shopping or finding new brands when using those networks. And while it may not be as dominant as Instagram or Facebook, Pinterest’s active user base grew by 26% in 2019.

If you need to market an event planning business, Pinterest is a great tool to increase your brand’s awareness and actually make sales!

Read on to find out how to get started.

Sign up for a business account.

If you plan on using Pinterest for marketing purposes, the first thing you need to do is start a business account. This will allow you to view your analytics on your profile as a whole, as well as the analytics for each pin you post or repost. Through the use of your business account, you can also create ads. The potential for organic reach on Pinterest is pretty great, though, so you don’t need to start creating ads right away if you would prefer not to.

Create boards within your niche.

To start building up your Pinterest profile, start creating boards within your niche to post original content, as well as repinning content from others.

If your event planning business specializes in kids’ birthday parties, for instance, you will definitely want to name a board after your business where you can post pictures of your own work. It’s possible that you will create several boards to display your own work, depending on how many pictures you have. 

However, you can also create inspiration boards to repin content from other accounts, but just make sure it is relevant to your niche. Again, if you only plan kids’ birthday parties, it would be off-brand to have a bunch of wedding planning content on your Pinterest.

The more specific your content is, as with other platforms, the better chance you will attract engaged and interested followers.

Start filling up those boards with pins.

As it was stated earlier, on Pinterest, you can create pins and/or repin content from other accounts. When repinning content from others, you can just search for topics related to your niche and immediately have access to tons of content.

If you are creating your own pins, however, there are a couple things you want to remember:

• The title of your pin should be SEO-friendly, as should your description. Although pin descriptions can fit up to 500 characters, only about the first 50-60 will be visible in most people’s feeds. I.E. put your important information in the beginning.

• Include a backlink to your website for viewers of your pin. Pinterest is great for showing off your work, but the ability to redirect viewers straight to your website is what makes this a great tool for event planning businesses. Pay attention to the “Link Clicks” metric on the backend of your business account on Pinterest; this is a key performance indicator (KPI), especially if your goal is to redirect more traffic to your own site.

Join group boards for event planners.

At the beginning, your Pinterest account likely will not have a lot of followers, so a great way to increase your exposure is by joining group boards. Group boards on Pinterest have multiple contributors, usually within the same industry or niche, and interested followers.

One tip for tracking down some relevant group boards is by following other Pinterest accounts in your niche. Check out their boards and see which group boards they contribute to. When browsing their boards, you will be able to tell which ones are group boards because there will be a few profile pictures to the right of the board title.

Browse each group board before requesting to join. Are members and followers engaged? Are there rules for engagement? Is the group board relevant to your niche? How many followers does it have? As with all social media, “more followers” does not mean “more valuable” if engagement is super low.

When you decide that a group board is right for you, read the description at the top. If there are steps you need to take to submit to be a contributor, that’s where you will find them. For example, there might be a specific account you have to follow before being accepted or you may need to shoot the founding account a message.

Take some time every couple of days in the beginning to join new group boards, create pins to post there and engage with some of the posts from fellow contributors. Group boards are a great way to expand the reach of your Pinterest account and get more eyes on your event planning business.

Automate your pins.

If you are running an event planning business with owned marketing channels, as well as multiple social media channels, then you know how overwhelming it can feel to stay active on each one. Luckily, there are tons of tools to schedule and automate posts on social media ahead of time, and some of the more popular tools allow you to schedule pins as well.
 

Tailwind is probably the most widely known platform for scheduling pins. Tailwind analyzes your Pinterest and identifies the most effective quantity of posts, as well as the best times to post. Set some time aside each week to schedule original pins, as well as repins, to fill up your queue. Tailwind will post your queued pins at the scheduled times, as well as send you email updates on account growth. 

Hootsuite is another popular social media scheduling tool; if you are already using this tool for other channels, you can add your Pinterest, as well. Every scheduling tool is different, so if you are already using one to schedule posts to Instagram and Facebook, for example, check to see if you can add your Pinterest account, as well.

Don’t just set it and forget it, though! Make sure you have specific objectives for your event planning Pinterest profile. Identify your KPI’s, and be sure to review them over time.

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With the help of this article, you can be well on your way to getting started promoting your event planning business on Pinterest. Take your time trying different tactics and see the enormous potential for growth!