You may be sold on the idea of Pinterest for your business, but stuck on what to pin.
Once you’ve pinned the products in your store, and maybe some of your blog posts, what’s next?
As you know, I’m a big fan of Pinterest, and it’s been one of the biggest wins for marketing my own businesses. Because of that success, I’ve put together a list of powerful pin ideas that nearly any business owner can put to work right away.
Today, we’re going to talk about tutorials, how-to’s, and DIYs — and why they’re so incredibly powerful on Pinterest.
I’ve created a simple checklist for Creating Pin-Worthy Tutorials, which you can download here.
DIY is big on Pinterest
There’s no denying that DIYing is a big deal on Pinterest. Research has shown that most of what we pin to Pinterest is aspirational — it tells the story of what we want to be or do. I believe tutorials play directly into that by giving people a way to feel like they could take a concrete step towards their aspiration.
According to a study done by Georgia Tech, the word “DIY” was the most often searched, liked, and repinned word on Pinterest!
Another study found that “DIY and Crafts” was the second most pinned and most browsed category, second only to food.
Tutorials are good for just about any kind of business. Service businesses might create a tutorial to help solve lower-level problems that lead customers toward the problem you solve. Product-based businesses can create tutorials around how to use the product, of course.
Think people don’t need a tutorial for your product? Think again.
Remember this video that made the rounds on social media showing 25 different ways to wear a scarf? That’s perfect tutorial material that many people would have overlooked — and the video has been viewed more than 31 million times.
Here are some other examples that have worked.
This pin by Sincerely Sara D shows some Pinterest best practices at work, including a strong photo, vertical orientation, and graphic using the words “DIY.” By picking a very popular topic and producing a solid tutorial with beautiful images, she’s seen more than 7,000 repins for this article.
This photographer took a slightly different approach, showing a before and after for her Photoshop editing tutorial.
Before and after images can work like incredibly powerful testimonials for your article and your business. If you have amazing ones, this can be a strong tactic for pinning. (Who DOESN’T love a great before and after??)
Beauty blogger Kandee J. has had spectacular success with her tutorial for DIY teeth whitening, including a video.
The article has a great headline image with the title “How to Get Glowing White Teeth,” but she has multiple images within the post, and the video, all of which people can pin and which contribute to the article’s overall success — 231,000 pins and counting according to her website.
Try to think about how people use your product, or how they could use it if they knew the insider secrets. That’s perfect tutorial material.
How to DIY your own Perfect Pin tutorial
Convinced that tutorials make powerful pins?
Now try it for yourself!
Start by brainstorming pressing problems your ideal customers have to which you can provide a simple solution — like how to tie a scarf or whiten your teeth.
Next, make sure you follow these best practices for creating a perfect tutorial pin.
Tutorial Pin Best Practices:
- Create a graphic for your post that includes the words “DIY” or “tutorial” plus your topic.
- Include the word “DIY” or “tutorial” in your description along with other keywords on your topic, but keep the description short, about 300 characters or less. (The length of two Tweets.)
- Use the terms “DIY” or “tutorial” and your keywords in the filename of your image.
- Include the terms “DIY” or “tutorial” in your page URL as well.
Including the terms “DIY” “tutorial” or even “how to” in all these places will help your pin show up more often in search results, and win you more repins.
If you want more tips and tricks for creating the perfect tutorial pins, click here to get my free Checklist for Creating Pin-Worthy Tutorials and start pinning!
