Crafting effective copy for Pinterest content goes against any creative writing practices that we writers have come to know. We’re encouraged to avoid the repetition of words or phrases. We’re also taught to constantly strive to engage the reader on an emotional level with vivid verbs, metaphors, similes, assonance, alliteration, and/or onomatopoeia (my favorite).
Friends, that kind of blather just doesn’t cut it with Pinterest. You won’t get any traction on the platform if you insist on writing like a poet. Nope. If you want to get your goods and services seen on the platform, you’d best toss out the thesaurus and start again.
Building a solid presence on Pinterest requires an understanding of what your products and services are, who they are intended to serve, then translating that information into searchable key terms that the Bots can categorize. We must be willing to set that lofty literary language aside to get the job done.
The secret to the process is to break your offerings down into categories, no more than three to begin with. Some examples for starter categories might be Books, Audience, and Genre. Then jump on the Pinterest search bar and drop in terms and phrases that describe your categories. Make a list of the words that keep showing up. Those are the keywords that your audience is using when they’re searching for treasures on Pinterest. Those words are their pathway to finding YOU!
Say you are a published poet who teaches writing. Here are a handful of phrases you might want to explore:
Creative writing
Creative writing tips
Creative writing prompts
Figurative writing
Literary activities
Poetry book
Poetry book for children
Nature poems (You can get genre-specific here)
Poetry prompts
Language arts
The next step is to use, use, and reuse those keywords in your Pinterest profile, on your graphics, in your pin titles and descriptions over and over and over again. Take care to use a conversational tone when doing so. Light, lively, and to the point. You can add a touch of cool, if you want to. Have fun with this.
Happy keywording!