The Perfect Pinterest Board Strategy for Your Business

Whether you’ve been on Pinterest since the beginning (Remember when you had to be invited to join Pinterest??) or you’re just getting started on Pinterest for your business, it’s important to have the Pinterest board strategy that is exactly right for your business.

Pinterest is much more than pinning hundreds of pins to posts that you’ll never read to boards that you’ll never look at. While that might be how many of us first began on Pinterest, it’s not the most strategic approach to growing your business on Pinterest. I know how hard it is to decide which strategy is exactly what you’re looking for. Keep reading for the main board strategies and how to find the perfect board strategy for you!

What is a Pinterest board strategy?

So, I don’t know if a Pinterest board strategy is a real thing. I might have just made up the name. 😉

What I mean by Pinterest board strategy is the approach a person takes when adding boards to their Pinterest business account, including the number of boards, the topics of the boards, and the keywords those boards are optimized for.

It is absolutely essential to have a clear strategy when creating your Pinterest boards so you can pin smarter, not harder.

Related posts: Optimizing for Pinterest Success
Working Your Pinterest Strategy

What are the different board strategies?

There are two main approaches that I’ve observed on Pinterest. There are strengths and weaknesses for each and they appeal to different people and business models.

Let’s look at each model individually.

#1 Lifestyle board strategy

A lifestyle board strategy has boards for anything and everything! There can be food boards, clothes boards, craft boards, decor boards, quote boards, tech boards, blogging boards, and on and on and on.

Some of the positives of a lifestyle board strategy:

• These accounts appeal to a wide audience, and they’re usually the accounts that have huge numbers of monthly views and followers.
• It’s very easy to find quality pins to add to your boards because you pin on every topic!
• Your business posts fit on many different boards, so there are plenty of places to pin your pins.

There are also drawbacks to the lifestyle strategy including:

• Working to maintain all of these different boards can be time-consuming.
• You’re likely to end up with lots of followers who aren’t engaged with your content. Since Pinterest uses your own followers to check for engagement with new pins, this can hurt the reach of your new pins. You don’t want that!
• With all of these boards and all of these pins, it can be much harder for your own pins to get noticed.

Who would a lifestyle board strategy work for?

The answer to this one is easy! If you’re a lifestyle blogger, you need a lifestyle board strategy. Influencers usually do better with this board strategy. If you’re a major store brand with a wide variety of products (ex. Target), the lifestyle board strategy is definitely what you need.

The lifestyle board strategy isn’t for everyone, but it can work well for certain businesses.

PS: If anyone from Target is reading this, PLEASE let me know!

#2 Niche Board Strategy

For many small businesses and blogs, a niche-specific board strategy is the way to go. What this means is you have boards only for topics within your niche. You will still have at least 20 boards, but they relate to your niche(s).

If you blog about web design, you won’t have a board for holiday decor.

If you blog about content marketing, there’s no board on favorite fall outfits on your Pinterest business account.

Just like the lifestyle strategy, there are positives to the niche strategy:

• Your Smart Feed is much more specific to your topics.
• Your followers will be significantly more engaged with your pins.
• It’s easier to become known as an authority in your field with niched boards.

Negatives to a niche-specific strategy:

• Your follower count and monthly views won’t grow as quickly, but they don’t matter that much anyways!
• The Smart Feed can get a little repetitive because the Pinterest algorithm is pulling from a smaller pool of pins.
• Your mom won’t follow your Pinterest account (but that’s actually a good thing if she won’t engage with your pins!)

[bctt tweet=”Your mom won’t follow your Pinterest account (😢), but that’s actually a good thing!” username=”mvirtualassists”]

Who would a niche board strategy work for?

I strongly recommend a niche board strategy for all business-to-business (B2B) Pinterest users. There really isn’t a purpose for copywriters to spend their time pinning cocktail recipes on their account.

It also works well for highly-niched B2C businesses who are focused on being recognized as leaders in their fields.

 How do you know which board strategy is right for you?

There are a few things to consider when deciding what board strategy works for you. They are:

1. Your business  – As I mentioned above, some business need a lifestyle strategy and other accounts are more effective with a niche board strategy.
2. Your target audience – When you’re using Pinterest for your business, the primary focus should always be on your potential customer or client! If your audience is the average Pinterest user who is all about the lifestyle boards, use that strategy. If you have a more targeted audience (especially B2B!), please use the niche-specific board strategy. I can’t speak for others, but I only follow boards that relate to what I pin. It makes my Smart Feed more relevant and my time on Pinterest more productive.
3. Your pins – You know best what your content and pins are about. It’s essential to have at least five boards that you can pin your content to. In her post “How to Create and Maintain Pinterest Boards,” Rose from Fudgemylife.org recommends creating boards that at least five of your pins can be pinned to, and I think that’s excellent advice. You want your content to be front and center on all of your boards!

 What to do if you want to change your board strategy

There might be times or situations where board strategies need to change. If you’re changing from a personal account to a business account, you might have boards that don’t relate. The focus of your business might change, and you need your board strategy to change with it.

Don’t worry! The time you’ve spent creating and curating your boards hasn’t been wasted.

You have two options for these extra boards. You can make them secret so you can still pin to them without having them visible on your profile. You can also archive them, so they’re still there, but you can’t pin to them. You can always unarchive them if you change your mind.

Need help developing your perfect Pinterest board strategy?

If you need help deciding which strategy would work best for your business, I would love to work with you! 

I am now offering Pinterest strategy packages to help small-business owners develop a successful Pinterest strategy. With this package, you receive keyword recommendations specific to your business, two strategy sessions to develop and update your Pinterest strategy, a video walk-through of your account and recommendations to help you grow, and an exclusive Pinterest planning guide that can help you further develop your Pinterest strategy. 

Find out more about this service and my other Pinterest services on my Services page!

Summing it up

That’s it for today! Here’s a recap so you don’t miss anything:

• Your Pinterest board strategy is the approach taken when adding boards to a Pinterest business account, including the number of boards, the topics of the boards, and the keywords those boards are optimized for.
• The two main board strategies are lifestyle and niche-specific. There are positives and negatives to both, so it’s important to consider those when deciding which one you’re going to choose.
• In deciding which strategy is right for your business, consider what the business is, who your target audience is, and what content you’ll be creating pins for.
• If your board strategy changes and there are extra boards, the best options are to make the boards secret or archive them. You don’t need to delete them.

You’re now ready to find and use your Pinterest board strategy. Comment below with what strategy is best for your business!

Until next time,