I recently did a poll on Instagram that asked, “would you work with a Pinterest Manager if their own Pinterest account was a hot mess?” The results? Fifty five percent (55%) of people said “No”.  In fact, many business owners say they won’t work with a Pinterest expert if they don’t have a a strong account because it proves how skillful they are. And I get it, I wouldn’t want to hire a web designer who didn’t have a stellar website, or an IG expert who didn’t have great followers. 

But a Pinterest account isn’t a good way to prove how skillful a Pinterest manager is. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but there are many skilled strategists who’s Pinterest account is a hot mess. Here’s three reasons why that might be:

1)    Most of our clients don’t come from Pinterest. Pinterest users are in learn and discover mode, not necessarily hire-it-out mode, so they won’t be coming in to Pinterest to find people to do it for them. They would probably ask their business friends or search Google for businesses (not pins). Remember, we don’t sell products, so in order for us to be on Pinterest, we’d need to blog regularly. So putting for the effort to market on Pinterest isn’t going to give a great ROI since our ideal clients statistically aren’t looking for us there through blogs. 

2)    Our Pinterest accounts are a hot mess- not because we don’t care, but because that’s where we do our testing and educating. Sometimes we find strategies that need a safe place to be tested without risk of harming the performance of our client’s accounts. Or we need an account to use an instructional visual, and we can’t use our client’s accounts for confidentiality’s sake. So we use our own accounts to test theories and show people how to use certain features. As a result, our accounts don’t always look stellar- But better risk our traffic than yours! 

3)    We simply don’t have the bandwidth to do our own. It’s kind of like a landscaper who hasn’t landscaped his own lawn. Having construction contractors in the family, I know for a fact the last thing they want to do is come home and do more  work- especially more of the same work they have poured all their energy into for other people. For us, Pinterest is the same. It takes a lot of effort, brain power, strategy, design and research to make a Pinterest account strong, and at the end of the day, we have other business necessities to do (remember #1?).  

So how do you determine if a Pinterest manager has the skills you’re looking for without asking for their personal account? 

See if they have a portfolio of analytics from account they’ve managed or pins they’ve designed. Read testimonials from past clients. You could even ask what training they have had that got them to this point or what niches they are familiar with. All of these are going to be a much better indicator of skill than looking at their Pinterest account.

Do you agree with this? If this is something you have never considered, or you have questions about hiring a Pinterest Manager, please DM me your thoughts! I love having conversations around this topic. 

Until next time,

-Sarah