I have a personal Pinterest account that I use just to keep up with things I am interested in. Much in the same way I use Evernote to store design ideas. I had read about using Pinterest for business but I never could wrap my head around how I would do that. What would I post?
One of my many Boy Scout volunteer jobs is staffing Wood Badge. If you are unfamiliar with Wood Badge, it is an advanced adult leader training course that was started by Lord Baden-Powell in 1919. Todays course is similar to training you would receive at those business leadership conferences that are held by people such as Ken Blanchard and the late Stephen Covey.
To help promote this course I developed a website called WoodBadgeAlabama.com. In this site I have photos and patches from courses as well as historical photos. Then it hit me, why don’t I post these images on Pinterest? I wasn’t thinking how it might drive traffic back to my site, I just wanted another way to share. I have been pleasantly surprised at how many people have found WoodBadgeAlabama.com through Pinterest. In the past month alone, Pinterest is the third leading driver of traffic back to the site behind Google Searches and direct traffic.
Because of the success from this I decided to start a Pinterest business account for Shawn Wright Digital Marketing. I will post logos, photos and great design that I have found on the internet. Images that inspire me. I will also post hints and tips about digital design, social media and seo.
My problem started when I had a personal account and a Wood Badge Alabama account. If I found a great Wood Badge course patch that I wanted to post but was logged into my personal account, I had to log out and then log back in as Wood Badge Alabama. That usually involved a trip into my 1Password app to find my strong password that of course I can’t remember. Now I want to add a third account to this? It’s enough to make you lose your mind.
There is a solution! You can manage all your boards from one account. This is how you do it.
- You need a unique email for each account. To make it simple you can get multiple emails and then forward back to your main email address.
- Designate one Pinterest account as your master. For me it’s my personal account.
- Sign in to the account that you want to share boards. In other words, you want access to these boards on your master account.
- In the account name at the top right, click on it and then click on Your Profile & Pins.
- Pick the Board you want to share and click the edit button.
- Under who can add pins, type the email associated with your master Pinterest account.
- An email will be sent to that account with a note that says a board is being shared with you.
- This part is important. You must click the red “See Board” button on your email. You will be taken to the page and given the option to ignore or accept the invitation. Once you accept you will have access the board from your master account. You can also go straight to your master account and a message will be waiting for you.
- All of your boards and linked boards will be on one page. Make sure you have unique board names so you won’t have two “Food” boards for instance. You can also see which boards are shared by the three person group icon to the right of the board name. If you don’t see your new board, refresh the page.
That’s it! Now you can get back to pinning and see if Pinterest is right for your business.