Gareth B. Davies
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Business & MarketingQuick winRated 7/10

Promoting Your Online Business on Pinterest (Especially for artists, makers, and creatives!)

By Gareth B. Davies

Jules Tillman · artist | business coach | infp

Beginner45 min
Promoting Your Online Business on Pinterest (Especially for artists, makers, and creatives!) thumbnail

If Pinterest already outperforms your Instagram, this 45-minute walkthrough shows exactly why and how to lean into it.

New to Skillshare? Your first month is free, enough to take this course at no cost.

What it actually covers

This course positions itself narrowly and sticks to that promise: it is for people who make things (art, crafts, Etsy products, blog content) and want a repeatable system for using Pinterest to drive traffic, not a general social media marketing class. The arc is sequential and practical. It opens by reframing Pinterest as a search engine rather than a social network, a distinction the teacher returns to throughout to justify why keyword choices matter more than posting frequency or engagement bait. From there it moves profile setup, board structure, pin anatomy, platform-specific pinning (Etsy versus website or blog), pinning etiquette, and scheduling, before ending on a single class project: produce one properly formatted pin and share the link.

That structure works because each lesson builds on the last. Profile keywords feed into board descriptions, board descriptions feed into pin titles, and pin titles feed into the scheduling discussion about daily volume. Nothing is presented in isolation.

Where the specifics land

The strongest material is tactical rather than conceptual. The recommendation to build pins around a 700 by 1200 pixel tall format, with or without a background photo, gives a concrete target instead of vague "make it eye-catching" advice. The walkthrough of pinning from an Etsy listing versus using the browser save button shows two different outcomes for the same product, including a real-time observation that Pinterest was inconsistently pulling either the listing title or the description into the rich pin display. That kind of unpolished, in-the-moment troubleshooting is more useful than a scripted demo would have been, since it models how to adapt when the platform changes without warning.

The blog-pinning lesson goes a step further by showing how to insert extra tall images directly into a WordPress post's HTML and hide them from normal page view, so a visitor using a share button or browser extension sees multiple pin-ready options from a single post. It is a genuinely clever, low-effort technique that most beginner guides skip entirely.

The scheduling lesson is more promotional than instructional. It spends real time on a specific third-party tool, including an affiliate disclosure, and the practical takeaway (ramp up gradually from 7 to 10 pins a day rather than jumping to 50) is useful, but a viewer without that same tool has to translate the demo into their own workflow.

Honest limitations

The pace is uneven. Some sections, like the myth-busting statistics at the start, run long relative to their value, while the group board discussion, arguably one of the more powerful growth levers mentioned, gets only a surface pass with a promise to cover it "if enough people ask." The class project is appropriately simple for a beginner course, but it only asks for one pin, so there is no structured feedback loop or portfolio built by the end.

For its stated audience, the course delivers what it promises: a clear, beginner-friendly system rather than a deep strategic education. It is not built for anyone already running Pinterest ads, split-testing pin copy, or managing multiple boards at scale.

The standout

The lesson on embedding multiple hidden tall images inside a single blog post's HTML so visitors get several Pinterest-optimized pin choices from one piece of content is the most concretely useful, replicable trick in the class.

What you will learn

  • How to optimize a Pinterest profile with keyword-rich name, bio, and a confirmed website for rich pins
  • How to structure business boards with focused, searchable titles and descriptions instead of personal-style boards
  • The dimensions and structure of a high-performing pin (tall and narrow, roughly 700 by 1200 pixels)
  • How to pin directly from an Etsy listing versus a website or blog, including hiding extra images in WordPress HTML
  • The 70/30 or 80/20 ratio for balancing your own pins against curated content, and how group boards extend reach
  • How to batch-schedule pins with a third-party scheduling tool to hit a daily pinning target without manual posting

Best for: Artists, makers, and Etsy or blog-based creatives who already have a shop or site and want a structured, beginner-level plan for turning Pinterest into a traffic source.

Skip it if: Anyone who already runs a business Pinterest account with rich pins enabled, uses a scheduler, and understands pin dimensions, since the content stays introductory throughout.

Engaging TeacherHelpful ExamplesClarity of InstructionActionable Steps