Pin Your Way to Success Contents Why Choose Pinterest? .............................................................................................................. 3 How to Create an Account ......................................................................................................... 5 Business Accounts ...................................................................................................................... 7 Creating a Board 101 ................................................................................................................. 9 Creating a Board 102 ............................................................................................................... 12 Pinning 101 .............................................................................................................................. 14 Moving Pins .............................................................................................................................. 15 Why Choose Pinterest? When trying to build an on-line business presence it is good to look into the features each social media platform offers to you. Many Designers, Small Fashion Houses and Boutiques will compete to showcase their products and captivate their niche market. The best way to do this is by distributing images on the web of what you have on offer and network to build brand recognition. With the wide variety of photo-sharing social networks available to you it can be difficult to choose which platform to host your Portfolio. We've done a comparison of the two leading platforms to help you decide. Pinterest and Instagram are social networks based on sharing pictures. Both sites work in similar and different ways at the same time. Instagram is focused on user created content whereas Pinterest is focused on distribution of images from users, designers and so on. At this point you may be wondering, which one suits me best? That is a relevant question so we are going to evaluate functionality of both of them. What makes a social network really appealing for us? Is it the fact that all the users have the same interest or that it includes a huge range of different people with different interests over many social networks? Pinterest is a social network based on sharing pictures, as Instagram users may like pictures from others users and share them. But there is a few differences between these two social networks, for example Instagram has the option to add filters to their pictures in order to give the option to their users to personalize their pictures, however that does not happens in Pinterest, where the pictures uploaded are in their original format. A strong point for Pinterest is the fact of having two platforms, a website and mobile platform. Nonetheless Instagram only has a mobile platform. Pinterest and Instagram are used to inspire other designers, architects, painters, and other artists. This provides a potential function for all of them and takes Pinterest into a professional sector. We should not forget the important use of pictures to advertise as a picture is worth a thousand words. This makes co-operatives to include Pinterest or Instagram into their ways to promote marketing and advertising campaigns. When social networking, everyone tries to share their content in such an exclusive way in order to look nice and really appealing for others. “You are what you share.”¹A really interesting point to highlight is the function to sell your products by Pinterest, this function makes this social network to be a step forward to Instagram. This is innovative, if you were an independent clothing designer, Pinterest offers you a huge and developed market to sell your products, manage marketing and arrange advertising campaigns. Pinterest offers different categories of pictures from animals, to science. There's plenty of professional and nice pictures, as well as shocking and artistic ones. You can find every topic by using a hashtag (#) and then typing the category you are looking for. To conclude, Pinterest and Instagram keep their origins based on social media networks, but both have really different usages. It depends on the user's interest the fact of choosing one, simplicity and/or professional purposes it's what define them. Instagram keeps their functions reduced to a simplicity use and a nice style based on mobile devices. However Pinterest focus' more on professional content, with alternative business functions and it works perfectly on the web platform as well as mobile devices. How to Create an Account Creating an account is quick and easy requiring only your email, a password, name, age and gender. It takes no longer than a minute and there is now also the option to sign up through your Facebook login details. By simply logging in to Facebook Pinterest will create an account for you using your details from Facebook. You can use this as a personal account creating a library of your hobbies and interests or then use this account to create a business account. To create an account go to Pinterest's home page here https://uk.pinterest.com/. Pinterest is the fastest growing social network with a reported growth of 4000% in 2011. You pin or post visual images on your own virtual board and allowing you to explore and uncover new interests. This allows it to become a great place to advertise your products as it may align with people’s interests. This is a guide on how to create your own personal account and it is often good to experience the website before using it for your business. You can change your account to become a business account or keep it private at https://business.pinterest.com/en-gb. Steps to Creating an Account Step 1: Enter your email and password which you will remember and click sign up Step 2: Enter your name and age (the minimum possible being 13) Step 3: It will then prompt you on your interests to get you started with a minimum of 5, you can always change your interests later You now have a Pinterest account you can search for more interests using the search bar and start creating your own virtual pin boards, to go to your home page click on your name (in this example it is “An”) Business Accounts Creating your own business account on Pinterest can greatly increase the sphere of influence of your business and reach out to a wider audience of shoppers including possibly increasing your target audience. Having a business account is a good way to further advertise your shop or institution. This also allows you to build a better relationship with your customers by being able to thank them and generate positive reviews. This creates feedback and helps your business to improve through customer advice and criticism. Pinterest allows you to gain access to a cheap way to advertise your service or product on the internet. Creating your Business Account Step 1: To start go to the site https://business.pinterest.com/en-gb and click Join as a business Step 2: You will then need to fill out all the required fields with an optional website if you already have one Step 3: If you’re converting an original account you already possess you will need to just fill in your business name and type Step 4: Your account should then have been created, I have named my business as ‘user guide’ The following steps detail how to create a business account: Step 1: To create your business accounts follow this link: https://business.pinterest.com/en- gb and click Join as a Business Step 2: Fill out all the details including: your email, a password, the type of business you own and your website if you have one. It should then take you to the home page of your new account you can also convert an existing account requiring: your business’s name and your type of business. It will keep the same email and password though you can change this in the settings if needed. Creating a Board 101 After joining Pinterest, the first thing to learn is to keep it organised. Pinners with organised profiles draw the most attention. The second thing to remember is keep it simple, separate items into distinct boards with simple meaningful names, descriptions and tags. The third golden rule of this website is keep it classy, Pinterest is known for creating demand and allure for products so why waste the opportunity to sell; sell; sell. When working from a PC you have two methods you can use to create a board. The first most common way of creating a new board is via your own individual profile. The second way is by the simple suggestions or quick create that appear when trying to pin to your profile before you’ve really made your account your own or cannot find an appropriate board (I'll cover this in my next post). Creating a Board 101 The traditional way giving you complete control over all board options. With our four easy to follow steps you can create a board in next to no time. For the sake of the tutorials I'm going to set my profile up in the manner of an interior designer. Step 1: Click on the navigation tab with your Company's/your name in it Step 2: Click on the Create board button Step 3: Give your board a Title, Description and Category (The three other options on this screen are optional more advanced features and we will come back to them later). Step 4: Click Create You have now created your first board! Creating a Board 102 Like I mentioned on my last post the second way to create a board is by the simple suggestions or quick create that appear when trying to pin to your profile before you’ve really made your account your own or cannot find an appropriate board. Creating a Board 102 Creating a board via a pin. Step 1: Click on the Pin it button on a pin Step 2: As we don't currently have an appropriate board click Create a board. If this is your first pin and you haven't created any boards yet Pinterest will do a quick suggestions list of boards for you to choose from, which you can edit later on.