Lessons

Lesson Info

Identify Your Ideal Customer on Pinterest

So we went over a lot of concepts in that last section, and we're gonna kind of dig into how to take some of this more conceptual stuff that we're talking about, the visual vocabulary, all of these ideas for mining content, from our process, we're gonna talk about how to take that and turn it into really effective, optimized posts that are gonna grow that following. We're gonna go from maybe 20 followers to a lot more, because we're gonna know exactly how to share it in a way that's gonna make it easy for people to engage with, and more likely to click that follow button, and wanna be engaged in your story long-term. We're gonna continue to talk about sharing our values, sharing these things that are important to our brand, and the things that really make us unique. We're gonna kinda keep hitting on these ideas of the visual vocabulary, but we're gonna kind of broaden it in terms of how we're actually gonna execute this, how we're actually gonna use this visual vocabulary and these big...

ger themes, to create posts on all of our visually-based social media platforms. So mostly we're gonna be talking about Instagram and Pinterest, but these ideas can be pretty much used throughout social media, both Facebook and Twitter, also have opportunities for you to share visual content, but these ideas are flexible, and they're gonna fit on more than one platform. So we're gonna go ahead and talk about Pinterest, and we're gonna talk about some of the things that we can do beyond just sharing our work, and sharing our products, and sort of all of the creative things that we're making, and we're actually gonna flesh out more of an idea of how to talk with our ideal customer. We all have this idea of the just-right person that we want to engage with our work, to be engaged with what we're making, and we kind of have an idea of what that person looks like maybe what they're interested in. We have this ideal customer in mind that we're making our work for. Because we're making our work for ourselves, we're making things that make us happy, and are really enjoyable to produce, but we're also making it for this end person, this ideal customer that we want to have this work, to purchase this work, and get excited about having it in their lives, and are gonna bring it into their lives and it's gonna just be a small part of the bigger picture of who they are. But we can use Pinterest as a way to kind of have more of a conversation with them about a variety of topics, about more than just our work and how it's gonna benefit them. We're also just gonna be talking to them about things that are sort of tangentially related, getting a better sense of who they are, and what's important to them, and having an authentic conversation about those different topics. So we're gonna kind of fill out this picture of what this ideal customer is like. What's interesting to them? What are they passionate about? What are they worried about? What are things that are really important to them, beyond just what this product is gonna do for them in their lives. On Pinterest, we're really able to have multiple different types of conversations. We can talk about a lot of different topics, because we have this opportunity to create multiple Pinboards on different themes. And so we don't just have to think about creativity, making the things that we sell. We can go beyond that to talk about things that are more tangentially related, that lifestyle content that we were talking about a little before, we're gonna integrate that in a very different way than we might on Instagram. Pinterest is all about thoughtful curation, and what I mean by curation is pulling in visual imagery that's consistent with your brand, that's consistent with the visual imagery that you're creating around your products, but also expands the conversation. We're pulling in all of this extra visual content that maybe we haven't created, that maybe someone else has created, that we're kind of using to compliment what we're doing, but with the end goal in mind of offering something to our ideal customer that's gonna be really appealing to them. We're trying to get a lifestyle brand across that's gonna be really something that they're excited about participating in, and they're gonna get a lot of value out of that. So like I'm saying before, we don't wanna just pin our own work. Pinterest is great because we can bring in visuals from other brands, from other people who are creating beautiful work, from lifestyle imagery that doesn't necessarily have to be products, but this is just gonna complement the work that we're putting on there as well. We wanna make sure that we're pinning our own work. We don't wanna skip pinning things from our shop, pinning things from our Instagram, making sure that we're kind of pulling people into our websites and our world, but we also wanna align with other brands, or other kind of community people who are sharing this visual imagery to make a more full picture. We're really gonna go beyond just pinning our product photos. So I've listed a couple of ideas for places for you guys to pin from. So, of course, we're gonna wanna share our own work, so we're gonna make sure that we're pinning images that link back to our website, to our online shop, if you have one, on our blog, so we're probably sharing a little bit more behind-the-scenes content, or other information about our businesses. We can also pin directly from our Instagram, so that we're kind of getting a little bit of cross-traffic. This is something that's worked really well for me, because I have an insane following on Pinterest, and when I was just starting out on Instagram, I didn't have as many followers. So what I would start to do, is pin images directly from my Instagram feed, so that when people discovered them on Pinterest, they would click over and potentially wanna follow me on Instagram as well. And so this is a way just to kind of get people coming back to your sites, back to where they can engage with you in a deeper way, and we wanna make sure we're at least doing that, but also pinning other people's work. Maybe from a collaborator who you've worked with, or someone whose work you really admire in your community that complements yours. Maybe not a competitor, but you shouldn't be afraid of pinning your competitor's work either, especially if it helps to build up your brand and align you with maybe some of the great aspects of their work. It's okay to kind of think about bringing in people who are maybe in your same industry, or creating similar work, or complimentary work. That's totally find to share, and if you have blogs or websites, or other kind of lifestyle content that you can bring in, maybe think about where do your customers wanna travel to, when are they gonna be using your products, how can we bring in other things? I know a lot of jewelry designers will pin fashion images, because you're not gonna out with just your jewelry on, unless you're leading a very active lifestyle that I'd love to hear more about. That's really interesting. I think that most people are thinking about what are they gonna wear their jewelry with, right? They are wearing it with a certain outfit, or going out to a certain place, and you can kind of think about how to paint that fuller picture for them. You can pin that image of a bracelet or a necklace that you've made, but also what you might wear with it, where you might be wearing it to. You can paint a little bit more of a full picture, so that people say, oh that makes sense. I would wear that to an art gallery, and I would wear that outfit. Okay, I better buy all this, or I better add this piece to my collection, or add this piece to my wardrobe, because it's something that I can see fitting in with my lifestyle. So we wanna connect with them on that deeper value. And by doing that, we're sharing the values of our business. We're sharing kind of that bigger picture that's gonna help people feel like you have more in mind than just making that sale. By giving them that sort of broader context for your work, and placing your work in sort of a context where it's related to the world around it, people can start to get a sense for what your true value is, and what the value will be for them in buying your work. And Erin, if I could interject since we're on the subject of sharing. We've got some more tag board images that people have been sending in, so I thought we might just take a second and go over a few of those. Yeah, absolutely. Debbie Sladek wrote in that "My visual vocabulary is color, detail, and joy." Oh, that's gorgeous. How beautiful is that? Oh my god, so springy. That's beautiful. And I'm curious if she's a professional photographer, or a florist, or kind of how this relates to her overall brand values, but this image is really beautiful. And without seeing the rest of her feed, it's hard to make a judgment about how it fits in with her visual vocabulary in total, but if she's focusing on sharing really bright, beautiful imagery, it looks like she has a really great grasp on color. This photo is edited meticulously. The crisp detail in the front, and the sort of beautiful bouquet in the back, where it's just fading out to just gorgeous, abstract color. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. And then Red Scorpio Made, hello and thanks for joining us today. "This pretty much nails my brand theme, yum," she says. Cool, I love this. And I love that you can see consistency here, because it looks like they're using a couple of filters that they really return to again and again to get that cool saturated sort of vintage look that kind of gets carried throughout, and I think that that can be a way to kind of create that consistency. If you really like using filters on your photos, that can be a way to create consistency right there, because essentially you're adopting a color pallette, maybe a saturation level that works really well for your photos, and you'll have that consistency by default if you're always using those filters. Thanks so much for sharing, this is very cool. Great, and we've got one more from Inkanta Accessories who says "where to look after a color palette, "better than in nature?" Ooh, lovely. And this is so great, too, because we're showing, this is almost lifestyle content here. This isn't exactly what I mean by lifestyle content, because then I would wanna see it on maybe a wrist, but this is connected to lifestyle content in a way, because you're seeing the conversation between elements that go beyond the product. You're seeing how it relates to her inspiration, maybe, for how she thought up this product. I saw these beautiful colors in nature, and then it inspired me to create this necklace or this bracelet. I think that's really fantastic to show a little bit about where these ideas are coming from, or relate it back to your inspiration. That's really cool. So getting back to the idea of sharing value, this is something that we wanna do on Pinterest just by expanding what we're able to offer them beyond just our product offerings, because our style relates more to kind of our general value offering, rather than just our products. When we're getting across these ideas of the visual vocabulary and style, that's really what we're about as creatives. We have a great point of view and a perspective that we have to offer our customers, beyond just the thing that we're going to sell to them. We can kind of show them how to best use it, we can set up context for them of how to integrate this into their lives, and that's real value.