Pinterest, the photo sharing site that allows you to ‘pin’ images to virtual boards, recently announced it has hit 150 million monthly users. That’s an impressive 50% more than last year and what’s more, 40% of these new users are men — quite a big deal for the platform, which is known to be heavily female-based. In addition, Pinterest noted that over 50% of millennials are now on the platform. What’s drawing in a majority of these users is not only the social aspect of following and sharing ideas with friends, but also the ability to discover products from various brands and even buy them. The incredibly effective “buy pins” Pinterest announced in 2015 have users purchasing items they find left and right.
So why should musicians take advantage of Pinterest? First, Pinterest users stay engaged for around 15 minutes at a time, discovering new things. With a platform so directly focused on discovery, it’s a great tool to recruit new fans as they discover your pins. Pinterest also offers a unique avenue to connect with fans by showing them who you really are. You will create a stronger bond as fans get a further glimpse into your taste, personality and hobbies through your boards.
Where do you start? Go through our Pinterest Starter Guide below to get up and pinning.
Where to Start
Create an account. It’s easy! Just go here and type in your email, artist name and website.
Confirm your website. By confirming your website in your pages settings, you will be able to access Pinterest analytics. This will be a great tool to help you understand what pins are doing well with your audience. Your profile picture or logo will also be shown on any pins that have been shared from your page.
Use the Save button. Add the Save button to your website. This allows anyone who visits your site to save whatever they want onto their personal boards and share it with their friends.
Create boards. Pinterest boards are the digital scrapbooks on your page. Pick a relatable theme that you would like to continuously add content to and write a title and description for each board to make them easily searchable.
Start pinning. Add relevant pins to your boards, Pinterest likes to refer to these as your “digital bookmarks” because when users click on them they lead right to the website the content came from. Something to keep in mind while creating and sharing these pins is that Pinterest is a very visual platform. Having a compelling photo with each pin is essential to catching users’ attention.
Like boards, be sure to write a description with every pin to increase the likelihood your pin will show in related searches. We also suggest installing the Pinterest browser button to pin anything attractive you find on the internet.
You can also repin other peoples pins. When you do this, use the “@“ to tag the account from which you are repinning as a way to further engage fans and Pinterest users.
Cross-promote on socials. Let fans know you have created a Pinterest account and ask them what they would like to see you share on the platform.
Ideas
The toughest part of making an account is coming up with board ideas so here are some to get you started.
Fan board. Make your board collaborative by asking fans to send photos they have snapped on tour, fan art or photos with the band, then share them on the board. Be sure to include a shout out in the description by tagging the fan who sent the image.
Personal boards for each band member. If there’s more than one person in your band, have them each create their own boards and pin what inspires or interests them specifically.
Inspiration. Create a board of your favorite music videos and songs that have inspired you and your music.
Merchandise. As discussed earlier, purchasing behavior is significantly higher on Pinterest than any other social media platform. Take advantage of this by sharing pins of your merch. Ask fans to send you pictures of them wearing it and tag them in the pin to link it back to your website where other fans can buy the products.
Music videos. Pinterest is a great place to share your music videos. Write a compelling description of the video and share directly from YouTube. You can also tease upcoming music videos by sharing still images or video clips on the board. Check out one of our favorite Pinterest accounts from Kina Grannis, who created a wedding board to tease her “My Dear” music video.
Lyric graphics. Quotes are known to do very well on this platform so creating lyric graphics that link back to the song can be a great way to engage fans and pique interest in others to check out the full song or video.
Hobbies. Do you have a hobby? Cooking, home decor and DIY projects all do well on Pinterest so sharing these will be very beneficial in letting fans get an insight into your life beyond the music. These boards will also reach potential fans that haven’t discovered your content yet.
Instruments. Find pins of instruments you have and instruments on your wish list.
Tour. While on tour, share behind-the-scenes footage for fans to follow. Take pictures of the crowds at shows and share them on your board for fans to repin.
We hope this will give you a good head start on Pinterest and look forward to seeing your profiles — and hopefully fan bases — grow.
