I know I’m not the only one who has been lost down the Pinterest rabbit hole. Sometimes you have the focus to get on Pinterest, search for what you’re looking for, and get out. While other times, you realize it’s been hours and you’ve created a board for gardening and you don’t even have a garden.
If this sounds like you, then you’re in the right place. I’m about to tell you how you can turn your love for Pinterest into something profitable. Now, before you get too excited I want to make something clear, no you won’t be paid to mindlessly scroll the platform, but yes, you will be paid to create visually pleasing, SEO-friendly pins that scrollers like you and me will find and love.
In these 6 steps, I’ll walk you through exactly how to become a Pinterest Manager, sometimes referred to as a Pinterest Virtual Assistant. By the end of this article, you’ll not only if this is the right remote job for you but you’ll have the actionable steps needed to get the ball rolling on it.
Step 1. Uncover the Reality of Being a Freelancer
Before I can talk about the details of a Pinterest Manager, I want to take a step back and share the details of what it means to be a freelancer. While some companies might have the need to hire a full-time Pinterest Manager, this is definitely not the norm.
A grand majority of Pinterest Managers do this job as a freelancer and balance multiple clients.
In reality, being a freelancer has plenty of perks but it also comes with some pretty big downfalls. An important prerequisite to deciding if you’d like to become a Pinterest Manager is deciding if you’d like to become a freelancer.
If you’re already a happy freelancer and simply want to add Pinterest Management to your list of services, go ahead and hop down to Step 2. Adding Pinterest Management to your list of services is a common route for virtual assistant businesses to go. This will give you the ability to offer bigger, more in-depth packages to your clients.
For the rest of you, hang tight, and let’s first dive into the pros and cons of freelance life.
Pros of Being a Freelancer:
- You have complete freedom over your schedule
- You can pick and choose the clients you work for
- You can work from anywhere in the world
- You can choose the services you offer and your prices
Cons of Being a Freelancer:
- You’re responsible for marketing yourself and finding clients
- You can’t guarantee your monthly or annual salary
- You might get stuck with difficult clients that are impossible to please
- You might have a tough time raising your prices
- Competition can feel fierce
If you’ve decided that the pros outweigh the cons and you’d like to become location independent and work from anywhere as a freelancer, let’s jump on down to Step 2 and get you acquainted with Pinterest Marketing.
We’re not a regular travel blog; we’re a collection of women living around the world, all with different backgrounds, jobs, desires, & nationalities. What do we have in common? A passion for life abroad. Each article is written from the 1st-hand perspective of a woman who has actually done or experienced what she writes about.
Learn more about the author by clicking her bio pic at the start or end of each article.
Step 2. Learn All You Can About Pinterest Marketing
While you already are a heavy Pinterest user, that’s not all it takes to become a successful Pinterest Manager. This is a great asset though because you know what you look for in a click-able pin and how a typical user navigates the app. This will be helpful knowledge to put to use as Pinterest Manager but you’re missing out on the biggest factor for success: understanding Pinterest Marketing and how to put it into practice.
Many people consider Pinterest a social media platform but it's actually a visual search engine.
At its base, Pinterest Marketing combines the visuals of creating a pin with the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or writing a pin description. You need to be able to combine those two components effortlessly to create pins that users will want to click on but also use correct keywords so your target audience can find those pins.
The Best Sources for Learning Pinterest Marketing
There are a lot of great Pinterest gurus out there and a lot of people that can show you the basics of Pinterest Marketing. Personally, I’ve taken quite a few courses, have watched countless hours of YouTube videos, and read endless words on blogs that never really got me anywhere.
Researching is an important part of learning and a necessary means to break down all the facets of Pinterest Marketing but I would be wary of where you get your information from. There are plenty of bloggers out there that share some random tips intermingled in their blog but I suggest you follow the advice of an expert. Plus, just like any other platform, Pinterest is continually changing its best practices, so I suggest you listen to someone who is up to date on what Pinterest loves.
I was led astray at the beginning of my Pinterest Management journey by following little tidbits of advice from random bloggers and trying to mash it all together to create one cohesive strategy. This isn’t the path I’d recommend.
If you’re serious about becoming a Pinterest Manager, invest in a course from a Pinterest guru you trust.
I highly recommend Nadalie Bardo and her Pinterest Popular course. Not only will she give you the confidence and knowledge you need to get started but, by utilizing her strategy, you’ll be sure to wow your clients and keep them coming back for more.
If you don’t have the funds or aren’t quite sold on investing in a course, join us as we co-host a free webinar on May 3rd, 2022 on 3 big mistakes you’re probably making on Pinterest and how to fix them. This webinar is great for beginners who want to get started on the right foot and is also great for established users who want better results.
Only available until Saturday, May 7: Watch our Pinterest Masterclass that covers the 3 biggest mistakes you're making on Pinterest.
Step 3. Test Your Knowledge on Yourself (or a pal)
Now that you have the Pinterest Marketing skills and know how to make the perfect Pin that’s sure to get clicks, it’s time you put your knowledge into practice.
Personally, I suggest you test your knowledge on yourself. This will give you the freedom to test what you’ve learned without the pressure of doing it all for the first time on a client who is paying you.
If you don’t have a website you can test with, reach out to a friend. If they have a website but not yet a Pinterest account, they’ll appreciate your help and if they didn't have an account to begin with, most likely won’t mind you testing your strategy with the chance you’ll send traffic to their website.
Some people will suggest that you dive right into trying to get clients and instead offer your services at a lower price to compensate for your lack of portfolio. If you can make that happen, more power to you! Personally, though, I enjoy doing while learning so I’d suggest you have an account you can use while you’re going through the Pinterest Perfect course.
Having a few pin designs and the analytics of success backing you up will help you as you head to Step 4.
Step 4. Create a Website/Landing Page
After you know all about Pinterest Marketing and have some examples and numbers to back you back, it's time to create a Pinterest Management website or landing page.
You might feel the need to start off strong with a website but in the beginning, a landing page will suffice. If you already have a website with your freelance services, you could create a new page to outline your Pinterest services, if you don’t, I suggest building your first landing page via an email marketing platform like MailerLite.
There’s really no need to spend the time and money starting a website or creating a landing page on another platform when all you need to do is highlight your offer, share your results, gather potential clients' email addresses, and allow them to book a call with you.
Once you make some money and are ready to scale, then you might want to build something more customizable but for starters, a landing page built on MailerLite is plenty. This is exactly what I’ve used to gain all the Pinterest clients I’ve ever had. I’ve never felt the need for anything more in-depth.
Before you create your landing page, you should have a clear understanding of who your target audience is. Some Pinterest Managers will take any business owner as their client, while others will focus solely on wedding photographers, food bloggers, etc.
While you shouldn't need to collect payments on your site, most Pinterest managers and clients prefer to have calls together to discuss your services before to committing, you will need a way to collect payments once you've sealed the deal. From my experience, Wise is the most cost effective way to receive payments between two currencies. It links directly to your bank account and makes it easy to understand fees so you can charge accordingly. For creating and tracking clients and invoices, I use Fiverr Workspace (previously And.co).
The key aspects of your landing page:
- Header + Sub-header: This is your “what I can give you” statement. It should be short, clear, and actionable.
- The Problem: Highlight your client’s problem. For example, they don’t understand Pinterest or how to reach a wider audience.
- The Solution: Tell them exactly how you will solve their problem.
- The Proof: This is where you need to showcase your experience. When you’re new, this will come from when you built your own Pinterest account or practiced on a friend’s.
- The Offer: Highlight your Pinterest Management services. I suggest having 3 offers with 3 different price points. Each offer can build off the other to become more and more in-depth.
- Call to Action (CTA): You should have these intermingled in your page, not only at the end. This is what you want the client to do. Most likely you’ll want them to book a call so you can chat with them more about your packages and ensure you’re a good fit. I suggest linking here to Calendly.
- Bonus: If you’ve created a free downloaded or a free offer for potential clients, allow them to sign up with their email to receive the freebie. This is easy to do if you’ve created your landing page on MailerLite. If you do this, you can now use email marketing to target those people that are interested in your service but haven’t yet become clients.
Step 5. Market Yourself to Potential Clients
Now it’s time to market your services! This can be a daunting step, especially for new entrepreneurs, but it’s a necessary one. After all, if you don’t tell anyone about your services, no one will know to hire you.
I want to be clear here- finding clients can be a tough and time-consuming process. It’s likely you’ll get a few clients quickly but it’s more likely you’ll have to work hard on this step and utilize a mixture of applying for jobs, cold outreach, and shouting to the rooftops to land a few clients that stick around.
Marketing is the bread and butter of all successful freelancers. As a freelancer, unless you get incredibly lucky and score a few clients that sign long contracts for good money at the beginning, you should expect to always be marketing yourself and your services.
The best way to do this, in the beginning, is to market to people you know. That means you need to utilize social media and word of mouth to really get the word out that you’re a Pinterest Manager. It’s typically easier to close a sale with people who know you since the trust is already there.
I also suggest joining Facebook groups targeting hiring virtual assistants, freelancers, and Pinterest Managers in particular. You can also see some success by joining job platforms like Upwork.
Step 6. Grow and Scale Your Business
Once you’ve gotten into a groove of marketing your business and are receiving a steady flow of work and clients who want to work with you, it’s time to scale your business. The cool thing about being a Pinterest Manager is your time isn’t limited.
For example, if you want to become a life coach, people pay to speak directly to you. You can’t outsource your calls but instead can only scale your business so much, given that there’s only one you and only so many hours in the day.
Pinterest is different though.
As a Pinterest Manager, it’s completely feasible that you hire and train someone to help take over your accounts. This means, you can continue to book new clients and can outsource some of the work while paying your employee only a percentage of what the client pays you.
With this mindset, you’ll be able to take being a Pinterest manager as a freelancer to establishing a Pinterest Manager business.
Actually, one of my first clients wasn’t a client at all, she was a Pinterest Manager that had a bit too much on her plate so she outsourced some of the work to me. It was a win-win for both of us. She could keep saying “yes” to clients, securing her an income, while passing the overflow to me at the rate I wanted.
In Summary
When you combine these 6 Steps, I have no doubt you’ll have what it takes to become a successful Pinterest Manager. Whether you want to use this new skill as I do and offer it from time to time to the right clients as a small, extra paycheck, or you want to go all-in and create a Pinterest Management business you can grow and scale to infinity, you now have the tools to do so.
Simply start by learning all you can about Pinterest marketing from a legitimate source you trust and put in the work to find as many clients as you desire. This takes time and work but if you want to become a freelance Pinterest Manager, it’ll be worth it in the long run.
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