Podcast Episode 8: How to Use Pinterest to Sell on Etsy

Today we are going to talk about one of THE MOST powerful ways to promote your Etsy shop and listings --- OFF of Etsy --- for FREE. And that is the platform PINTEREST.

And Free is a rare gem to find lollll--- so I’m excited that we have this amazing tool at our fingertips and I think it’s going to be so fun and inspiring to talk about the ways you can get more visibility for your Etsy shop and why I think we’re in a super unique season of opportunity to really embrace Pinterest and get a major leg up.

I personally discovered how powerful Pinterest was when I used it for my blog over a year before I even started my Etsy shop. I had heard from a blog course I purchased that Pinterest was the top driver of traffic for their blog posts-- and of course—my ears perked up. I decided to dig in and see what I could learn. And sure enough-- learning how to create engaging pins and using strong keywords helped me skyrocket my page views.

In fact—within just a few months of consistent effort blogging and creating pins for Pinterest, I was receiving over 50k pageviews per month on my blog AND was earning regular ad revenue from all the visitors on my site.

Pinterest is extremely effective for visual content—such as your Etsy product

So I hope you’re feeling as excited as I am about this! Let’s dive into some practical ideas.

First of all--- just in case the platform is totally foreign to you:

What is Pinterest? That is a loaded and ever-changing question. LOL.

Basically--It started out as a search engine tool. It was created as a virtual pin board where you could curate, organize and store a picture with or without a URL in a beautiful way that you could easily find again.

Initially--- a Pinterest Pin was simply an image that almost always had a link connected to it. So imagine one of those old school bulletin boards that you would collect important flyers and resources and pictures – or whatever – on, and you would use a pushpin to tack that paper to the board. Pinterest does this kind of a thing with website URLs. You have a virtual board which is like a folder and you save websites to it by using a photo to hold the space on the board. So imagine a virtual recipe box or a virtual file folder filled with organizing tips

That’s a basic explanation BUT there have been some changes in the past year which we’ll talk about in a bit. And I really think they can give you a huge advantage if you embrace them. Right now—using Pinterest with this new feature would be like if you had gotten on Instagram in the super early days and now had a massive following because you were one of the early adopters.

But I’m getting ahead of myself! Let’s tackle Pinterest first from the traditional perspective of using it to show off your Etsy listings and get off-Etsy traffic to your shop.

So Pinterest (like Etsy) is a super visual platform. On today’s platform you can use pics, video, or a combination to draw attention to your content. AND like Etsy and Google, Pinterest is also a search engine—so the way many people engage with it when they login—is they type what they want to find in the search bar and the feed shows them a bunch of Pins that match their search.

This means that the great photography and SEO or search terms work you’ve already done (or should prioritize) in your Etsy shop will be directly usable over on Pinterest too.

What you want to do is create 4-6+ different Pinterest pins for each of your products (maybe start with your best sellers) using great pictures and titling the pin with the search terms that your ideal customer would use to find your product.

The best place to design Pinterest pins is the website or app Canva. (I’ll link it in the shownotes) It’s a website that you can use for free or upgrade to the paid version for more features and it has all the tools you need to turn your photos into a beautiful Pin for Pinterest. They have amazing templates so you don’t have to have graphic design skills. You can use what they provide and just personalize it to your products.

(I would also throw in a little pro-tip here that you should watermark your pins—which just means you should add your logo or Etsy shop name in an inconspicuous spot to claim ownership of your image. That way if someone tries to steal it or repurpose it, people will still see your branding on it. This isn’t a bad practice for your pics on Etsy too, by the way!)

One of the keys for your Pinterest strategy is consistent daily pinning—that’s one of the things that will draw attention to your profile and your pins--- so you either need to make time to login each day and post new pins or repin some of your content OR you can use Tailwind (which is what I do). It’s an INCREDIBLE website platform that will allow you to schedule your pins in advance and it automatically posts your pins for you exactly when and where you tell it to. I’ll also link Tailwind below. For a busy shop owner, blogger, or any business owner today-- it’s a life-saver so you don’t have to take daily time away from working on or in your business. It’s one of the tools that I think is a MUST-HAVE.

If any of this is feeling overwhelming or you think you definitely need to learn more about Pinterest, don’t worry! I’m about to talk about the Pinterest course that I most highly recommend!

PERFECTING PINTEREST:

Today’s podcast is brought to you by The Perfecting Pinterest ecourse by Sophia Lee.

Ok so I’m particularly excited about today’s sponsor because if you use this resource correctly you could completely blow up your Etsy shop with sales. If there was ever a game changer for Etsy success—it’s Pinterest and learning how to master it.

Before I tell you more--- you need to know I have quite literally spent over a thousand dollars on Pinterest courses over the years (several thousand on blogging courses) – and learned a ton. Most of them were valuable and I don’t have a bunch of regrets. LOL 

BUT—earlier this year I was introduced to the blogger Sophia Lee who started her blog in college and has killed the game – 4 years later earning $70k+/ month from her blog. I was intrigued and so I bought her blogging ecourse AND her Pinterest ecourse—because A) I was curious about her strategy since her blog is so lucrative and B) I could NOT believe how reasonable the price was.

LIKE WOW. Compared to what I’d spent before it was an absolute steal!

I also have a blog in addition to my Etsy shop and I learned early on that Pinterest is the MOST POWERFUL way to get readers to your blog. AND--- it’s one of the BEST FREE ways to drive traffic to your Etsy shop.

So the reason I’m partnered with Sophia Lee today is because I went through her Pinterest course and it was OUTSTANDING. It was packed with SO MUCH VALUE and I would recommend it to my best friend—I already recommended it to my Mom lol – who took it! And I have zero reservations recommending it to you. If you have not tried promoting your Etsy listings on Pinterest (which is some of the best free traffic you can get) or need to learn how to build a strategy for it--- I can’t recommend Perfecting Pinterest enough.

Sophia Lee built her Pinterest course to teach bloggers how to promote their posts—but what you’ll learn directly applies to your Etsy listings too. In all the places where she is linking a blog post—you’ll do the same with your Etsy listings.

I feel confident that you’ll get a ton of value out of it. You can grab my link down in the show notes and check out the course info today. It’s immediately available to you and I’m excited to see what a difference it makes!

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For the final segment of today’s show—I want to spend a few minutes on why I think this is the BEST time ever to get serious about your Pinterest strategy and we have a special window of getting massive exposure.

Pinterest right now is almost like a brand new platform so you can have a unique advantage if you embrace their new form of content called Idea Pins.

The background is that Pinterest first launched this concept as “Story Pins” in Beta in September of 2020 and they renamed them a bit later. They’re unique for Pinterest in that they don’t directly link off-site because now Pinterest is trying to make the platform more social and keep users on their site longer.

Idea Pins function kind of like a combo of Instagram stories and reels in that they are short form images or videos--- but the main difference is that they do not expire.

Story pins consist of 5-20 “cards” or slots for timed content. They can be photo, video, or both—however using video appears to be more effective.

Using story pins call allow you to get more exposure whether you’re a brand new or established Pinterest account. So basically—Idea Pins are getting a priority in the Pinterest algorithm and a lot of more senior Pinterest users are not using them because they’re frustrated that they can’t link to their websites. That means you and I have an advantage to get seen if we start to use them and master them NOW.

I will link an incredible podcast and resource for you that will get far more technical and tell you all about Idea pin strategy. I was giddy after listening to it—I had so many ideas. I will be listening to it several more times. It’s from Simple Pin Media (a great Pinterest marketing podcast.)

Ok well that’s about all for today! I’m extremely excited about Pinterest right now for promoting your Etsy shop—especially if you try Idea Pins. And I really can’t encourage you enough to check out Perfecting Pinterest – the Pinterest course by Sophia Lee that’s linked in the show notes. It will show you how to pick images, what keywords to use, how to create gorgeous pins, and how to schedule them out using Tailwind.

Happy Pinning and let me know how it works out for you!

EPISODE DETAILS

Did you know that Pinterest is one of the most powerful tools you can use to sell your products on Etsy? It can drive a whole new audience of shoppers straight to your shop for FREE! Tune in today as we talk about what Pinterest is, how it has changed (to your advantage), and how you can use it today to help boost your Etsy sales.

**“How to Sell Your Stuff on Etsy” is not affiliated with or endorsed by Etsy.com

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Stuff I mentioned:

Pinterest Course:

Perfecting Pinterest by Sophia Lee: https://bysophialee.teachable.com/courses/perfecting-pinterest?affcode=699001_4rutj5q9

Tools:

Canva: https://partner.canva.com/c/2545784/647168/10068

Tailwind: https://tailwind.sjv.io/RybELv

Amazing Pinterest Podcast:

Simple Pin Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-pin-podcast-simple-ways-to-boost-your-business/id1114667498

Simple Pin’s incredible episode about Idea Pins: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simple-pin-podcast-simple-ways-to-boost-your-business/id1114667498?i=1000535367393

*Some of the links above are affiliate links which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you. You can see my affiliate disclosure here: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/affiliate-disclosure

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Looking for more resources?

Here’s my free guide that will show you the "4 Strategies I used to grow my Etsy shop from $25 to $6000+/month"

Grab my eCourse “Listings that Sell” and learn how to skyrocket your Etsy business:

Listings that Sell: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/offers/Xo52uqVF

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 HOW TO SELL YOUR STUFF WEBSITE: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/

HOW TO SELL YOUR STUFF INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/howtosellyourstuff/

HOW TO SELL YOUR STUFF SHOWNOTES:  https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/blog/podcast-episode-8-how-to-use-pinterest-to-sell-on-etsy 

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Today’s Sponsor is “Perfecting Pinterest” by Sophia Lee. An ecourse that will show you exactly how to use Pinterest to get a ton more views on your Etsy listings: Perfecting Pinterest: https://bysophialee.teachable.com/courses/perfecting-pinterest?affcode=699001_4rutj5q9

*Some of the links above are affiliate links which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you. You can see my affiliate disclosure here: https://www.howtosellyourstuff.com/affiliate-disclosure