What is Pinterest and how does Pinterest work?

If you are asking this question, it means

you are truly new to this platform.

So, I will explain everything you need to

know about Pinterest in a really simple way,

easy to understand even for beginners.

What is Pinterest and how does Pinterest work?

Hi!

I'm Bilal Ahmad, I'm a Pinterest marketing expert.

And I publish my Pinterest tips on this Blog.

Keep reading this article and if

you find it useful.

I publish my new Pinterest tutorials.

By the way, at the end of this article, I'm going

to tell you how you can join my Free Pinterest

Masterclass where I show how I'm getting over

300,000 monthly pageviews of free traffic

from Pinterest to my site.

So, stay tuned until the end of the video,

and I'll give you a link to my Masterclass.

On any platform, you will find two types of

users.

It's regular users and online marketers.

Regular users are doing any activities which

are native to the platform.

So, on Pinterest this native activity for

users are saving pins to nicely organized boards

on their accounts.

At the same time, Pinterest marketers, like

me for example, are trying to get more eyeballs

on their content or products on Pinterest.

So, content creators are trying to always

outsmart the platform, the algorithm, and

to get ahead of their competition.

To show their pins in the feeds of their followers

or other people on the platform.

Now that you have this general overview of

what people are doing on Pinterest, let me

focus on what specific users, regular

users are doing on Pinterest.

Pinterest is used for discovering new inspirational

content.

And in many cases, Pinterest users have a

buyer intent.

People often look for ideas about their home

decor, recipes, DIY projects, and they do

both things on Pinterest.

They save their favorite ideas, grouping them

into boards.

And the second type of activity is going from

a pin to a website.

So, people are not just saving pins to their

boards, but there are also clicking-through

from Pinterest to other websites where they

can learn more about the topic or the idea

about which the pin invited them to learn.

And the content on the Pinterest platform is visual.

All these images which you see on Pinterest

are called pins.

And most of the pins have a link to a source

site.

So, here if we look through all the pins,

most of the pins will be linked to some website.

And if you close-up the pin, you will see

that there is a specific website where the

the pin is linked.

And every pin on the platform has to be saved

to a specific board.

A pin can not exist without being saved to

aboard.

And as you can see, any user can create any

the board they want to.

So this is a regular user account.

How I can tell that it's an account of a regular

user?

The first and the most important sign is that

the user doesn't have any claimed or verified

website attached to their account.

So this is just a regular user, saving ideas

from Pinterest to their boards.

And not trying to promote anything.

Any of their own products or not trying to

bring traffic to their site.

Let's take a look at the anatomy of a regular

pin on Pinterest.

Normally, a pin would have an image of course.

And then it will be linked to some website.

Not all the pins are linked to a website.

Because sometimes people are saving ideas

that are not linked to anywhere, or the link

is broken.

And then, there is no link at all.

But also pins are including a pin description.

And usually pin description is what you will

find right under the title of the board to

which this pin was saved.

So this is how pins will look in a Smart Feed.

And then when you are clicking on a pin, it

will enlarge the image and will show it in

full together with the description, and with

the title of the pin.

And all the information that comes from the

website to which this pin is linked.

There are two types of Pinterest accounts.

It's Personal and Business accounts.

So, for personal Pinterest accounts, the pin

the limit is 200,000 pins.

On Business accounts, currently, there is

no limit, according to what Pinterest says.

But usually, on Personal accounts, you don't

really need to save that many pins.

At the same time, as an owner of a business

account, you will be probably saving a lot

more pins.

So for example, on my account, you will see

that I currently have almost 37,000 pins.

Now let's have a look at Pinterest boards.

So, what is a Pinterest board?

A Pinterest board is a collection of individual

pins.

It's a way to organize your ideas around one

specific topic.

So you can have a board called Pinterest marketing

tips, blogging ideas, summer food, Easter

eggs, air fryer recipes, gift wrapping, health

foods, and any other ideas you want to save

to your account.

So, in your Pinterest board's URL, you will

always find your username.

You see, here Bilal Ahmad username is

in the URL of my board.

You can see that I'm the only user contributing

to this board.

And there is another type of boards, it's

called group boards.

Group boards have multiple contributors.

There is still one group board owner, and

you can always see who is the group board

owner in the URL of the board.

So, in this case, it's this user account babe makes money.

And then all the other contributors of this

group board are also able to save pins to

this account.

So, the pins that are saved to a group board,

will be shown in the Pinterest profile of

the main user.

Pinterest boards can be public, like the ones

that I've just shown you on my profile, and

some boards can be Secret boards.

So this board has a setting to be Secret,

and the pins that I'm saving to this board,

will not be shown in public, and my followers

will not see them and no one actually, except

I can see the pins saved to this board.

In terms of limits, Pinterest has a limit

of 500 boards per Pinterest profile.

And now, what is actually a Pinterest profile?

I'm going to click now on my profile and you

will see what a profile shows.

A Pinterest profile contains your username,

in my case, it's Bilal Ahmad.

If you go to your Pinterest profile settings,

Click Edit here and you will see that you

can change your display name, you can even

change your username at any time if you need

to.

And in this field, you can add some information

about your profile.

If you are using your profile to promote your

business, you could give some links as well.

Of course, a Pinterest profile will include

your profile photo.

And also you can edit the look of your profile

header.

You can click on this pencil icon on the right

side of the screen, and then you can choose

which of the boards you want to feature in

this header.

Or you can just feature the latest pins on

your profile.

Now you might ask me, what does it mean on

Pinterest if someone is following you.

Unlike other social media, on Pinterest the

interaction between users is not the main

purpose of the platform.

It's more for the discovery of ideas.

But people can follow you on Pinterest.

For example, currently, on my account I have

28,000 followers.

A personal account probably will not have

that many followers because you don't have

a verified website.

So Pinterest users are not expecting that

you will be constantly creating new content

and saving new ideas related to the topic

you are interested in.

But anyway, even a personal Pinterest account

can have followers.

Usually, the number of followers will be lower.

So that was about Pinterest for regular users.

For personal profiles.

But how you can use Pinterest to promote your

business?

Or bring traffic to your website?

To do this, you must have a business

account.

And I have another article on my channel that

explains step by step how you can either convert

a personal account to a Business account,

or create it from scratch.

I will give you a link to that video above

my head.

It will be an info icon over there.

And you just need to click on it, and it will

open the video in the new tab.

And you can watch it later.

Or if you can not see the info icon, I will

also, give you a link to that video in the

the description below this video.

If you are concerned about the word " Business

account" and if you are worried that you'll

have to pay to use it, then this is going

to be a relief for you.

Business accounts on Pinterest are completely

free and moreover, when you own a business

account, for Pinterest it means that you are

a content creator and pins saved from your

verified website or the social media that

you claimed on your account, those pins are

going to get additional distribution on the

platform.

A better distribution, compared to the pins

saved by regular users.

So, how can you use a Pinterest Business account

to improve your income?

There are many ways.

I can tell you from my personal experience

that I'm driving free organic traffic, search

traffic and viral traffic from Pinterest to

my website.

And I monetize that traffic with ads on my

site.

I'm also driving traffic to my Youtube channel.

So you can see that a lot of pins that I published

recently on my business account are linked

to my Youtube videos.

You can also sell products on Pinterest.

By linking your pins directly to your products.

Like in this case, I'm sending them to a blog

planner.

It's a printable file and as you can see,

it's linked directly to the landing page.

You can also send people to your opt-in page.

So they will join your list.

You can even sell your services on Pinterest,

by linking pins to the page where you are

selling any kind of service.

And of course, you can also promote e-commerce

sites on Pinterest.

In this case, you will have the so-called

product pin type.

Not just article pins, like I have that are

linked to my blog posts.

You will have product pins - they will have

a price tag on them.

I have another video that talks about how

to promote an eCommerce site with Pinterest.

So, I will give you a link to it in the info

the icon above my head, and also in the description

below this video.

The same applies to the video about Affiliate

marketing on Pinterest.

So, you can actually make direct pins from

your pins on Pinterest to affiliate products.

You can also use course landing pages on

your site as a transition between a pin and

the affiliate product.

But as I said, you can also use Pinterest

to link directly to an affiliate product.

If you are not sure if you should use a personal

account or a business account on Pinterest,

then, well, in my opinion, it's always worth

starting a Business account.

Because then you can have one additional big

bonus, it's called Pinterest Analytics.

And it will show you what is the performance

of your account, of the specific pins on your

account.

And also, as an owner of a Business account

you will get access to Pinterest ads.

So even if you don't have your own website

at this time, you can still use a Pinterest

business account so you can get access to

Pinterest ads and promote those affiliate

products that you want to promote, without

sending traffic to your own website.