Interior design is one of the top categories on Pinterest. For that reason alone, Pinterest should be an important marketing channel for all interior design business owners. Unfortunately, being great at interior design doesn’t make you great at promoting your interior design business on Pinterest.

That’s where Pinterest VA (Virtual Assistant) Francesca Scomparin comes in.

Francesca is an Italian-born, UK-based Pinterest Strategist / Manager / Virtual Assistant who helps interior designers develop a powerful presence on Pinterest. Unlike other Pinterest VAs, Francesca has a background in interior design. She doesn’t just know Pinterest. Francesca knows interior design.

Luckily for us, Francesca was also willing to answer all of my questions about Pinterest, interior design marketing on Pinterest & hiring a Pinterest Virtual Assistant / Pinterest Manager to build your brand & take your business to a higher level.

Here’s our chat…

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: Why should interior designers be on Pinterest?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: Interior design is one of the most searchable topics on Pinterest. People use Pinterest for ideas, suggestions, tips about how to decorate their houses. Being on the Pinterest platform is an excellent opportunity for interior designers to get noticed and promote their business and services.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: How does Pinterest compare to other social media platforms, SEO, etc? - Could you comment on Pinterest as a search engine vs a social platform like Facebook or Twitter or even Instagram

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: The big difference, as you said, is that Pinterest is not social media. So, the approach is entirely different. People go on Pinterest to research ideas, purchases, etc., so why miss out this opportunity to be on this platform and promote your business.

How much time do we spend on social media to try to get some engagement?

I don’t know Twitter, but I know that on IG and FB it is very difficult to grow without paying ads. On the other hand, on Pinterest, it is still possible to get organic visibility (without ads), and most importantly, the pins remain on the platform forever. It means that your audience can find your business, services, blog posts after weeks or months and sometimes after years.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: Should designers use Pinterest strictly as a brand-building tool OR can Pinterest work to send potential clients to their website, email, telephone?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: Pinterest drives traffic to different sales channels. Every pin has an external link to drive traffic to. As a business, you can use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website, blog, email for sign-up, YouTube channel, Instagram, and e-commerce.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: Is there a "best way" for interior designers to set up their Pinterest boards?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: The best way to organize the boards is to choose ones that complement your business. Every board needs to have a description with keywords to describe what is related to it. In each board, you should only ever save pins related to that topic.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: Is there a "best way" for interior designers to set up their Pinterest profile?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: In the profile, you should always explain how you will help your potential client.

• Why do they need to work with you?

• What are you offering that is different from others?

And find the keywords to describe that.

When I do an audit for customers, I frequently see that their profile is not optimized. For example, most of the time, the boards don’t have any descriptions.

Also, I see too many pins without overlay text (so I don’t know what that pin is related to). If I see a pin with a beautiful kitchen on it, how can I see the topic behind that pin? For example, if I have a blog post about 5 Scandinavian Kitchens ideas, I will put an overlay text on the pin saying "5 Scandinavian Kitchen Ideas for your home". The pin, in this way, has a better possibility to be clicked because it provides helpful information.

We have to remember that people want to find information as soon as possible, without wasting their time. So, we need to provide as much information straight away.

The function of Pinterest is that the potential client clicks the pin and goes to the website and does not just save a pin in their boards.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: Is there a “best way” for interior designers to design their pins? Templates, software, colours, etc

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: I suggest using Canva to create Pins. Usually, Interior Designers have a lot of their pictures to use, so the free versions of Canva should be enough. However, creating pins can be time-consuming, so I recommend creating different templates for their pins. Add a logo or website to them, and it is preferable to use the colour palette to recognize the brand.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: As a Pinterest strategist/assistant, you help interior designers set up their Pinterest accounts, boards, etc. Can you describe your process?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: To do a great job for my clients, I first have to understand their needs. Once I know what they need, I can offer different services:

• Setup and cleanup of the account

• Monthly management (based on the goals of the client). I work on the account every month (usually to see some results it takes between 3-6 months)

• Design pins and template

• Coaching (for customers who want to manage their account but want to understand how to do it).

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: What does your Pinterest management service include?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: My monthly Pinterest management service includes:

• Account clean up and board optimization,

• Pin scheduling. Usually, I ask the customer to provide a Tailwind subscription (Tailwind is a scheduler tool),

• Creating the Pins

• List of keywords that the customer can use for his content too (it is important to use the same o similar keywords on Pinterest and blog posts, YouTube descriptions, product description, etc.)

• I also provide a Pinterest analytics report. This is essential to measuring, modifying & perfecting the client’s specific Pinterest strategy to achieve their specific Pinterest goals.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: If I hire you to set up & manage my Pinterest account, how do we get started? Do you need to understand my business, my goals & my ideal clients? What input do you need from your interior designer clients? Images, client profile, etc

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: I will describe the process in these steps:

1. Schedule a call or complete a questionnaire to help me understand the client’s goals (increase the website's visibility, increase the subscriptions of the newsletters, promote their services, etc.).

2. Determine if their business is ready to effectively market their business on Pinterest (it depends on the quantity of the material they can provide, in terms of blog posts, video, etc.)

3. If the customer is ready to work on Pinterest, they need to provide material on a consistent basis. There is no point creating pins for a blog post in one week and nothing else for a month.

4. The client needs to provide photos, a colour palette for the brands, URL links to drive traffic, and videos (if they want to have video Pins or Pin Ideas).

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: In return for your fee, what can the average interior designer expect to see in return? Time savings, improvement in specific Pinterest analytics, visits to the website, client leads, etc.

What kind of timeline is required to see an improvement in the above metrics. I am assuming that clients want to pay the minimum BUT expect to see their Pinterest following explode in the first month of management...what is realistic, what is optimal, what is unrealistic.

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: This is a good question because, in general, people think Pinterest is an easy platform to manage. Create Pins, video Pins, Pins Idea request time, but Pinterest requires more than that. Deciding on a correct strategy to put in place and the right keywords to use is not so simple. The list of the keywords that I provide helps create content to save time on researching the topic (for example, in blog posts). Some profiles can take even six months to see some results. I like to say that Pinterest is a long-term game, like a marathon.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: What do you wish interior designers knew about Pinterest?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: Consider Pinterest as a great platform to promote your business. It is not social media, so you don’t have to waste time engaging with people, but you need to know your goal and what you want to achieve and work on the correct strategy.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: What do interior designers get wrong about Pinterest? I assume that because interior designers have a great eye for design, most assume that they have the skills to dominate Pinterest

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: I see some profiles not optimized for Pinterest. We have to remember that Pinterest is a search engine; keywords are crucial in this platform, probably more than the images (even though the images have a fundamental role too).

So, having an optimized bio, boards, pins, and boards descriptions is essential.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: What should I be looking for before hiring a Pinterest Strategist / Pinterest Manager / Pinterest Virtual Assistant?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: The role of a Virtual Assistant is to help a business grow, taking away the tasks that are time-consuming and not related to the core business.

In my case, helping to manage the Pinterest Account to promote the business and the services.

In my previous work, I have always worked in corporate positions, in teams. The significant results that I have achieved are when we worked together as a team.

This philosophy is so important for me and what I want when I work with a customer is this: understand his business, and he can trust me as a person to work with him and have common goals to achieve.

The reason why I became a Virtual Assistant and I choose Kaffeina as my business name and you can find it on my website "... also because while I am enjoying a good espresso I can relax and give my mind a break. So, my support for you would be that cup of coffee, or your favourite drink, where you can slow down, take a pause, knowing that a trustworthy and reliable person is helping you grow your business. “

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: I know that recently Pinterest has changed its algorithm. Could you explain this better and how it can impact the workload?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: Pinterest has changed its algorithm since 2020, and the platform prefers quality over quantity. So, it is preferable to pin (or save) pins every day rather than save 20 in one day and then not pin for an extended period of time.

Consistency is the key to this platform. Also, you can create different pins for the same URL. If you have an old blog post that performs well, you can create new pins to drive traffic to it.

The workload has changed in creating more pins and consequently more graphics, pin descriptions, and a scheduling strategy in place. All this process can be very time-consuming! Even though it pays off in time.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: Pinterest has introduced a new Pin. What are Idea Pins?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: Idea Pins is a great feature (previously Pins stories), and at this moment, Pinterest is pushing them a lot. In my opinion, Idea Pins are an excellent feature to use if you want to get noticed and you don't have so much content to share. A pin idea can contain a mix of pics and videos (max 20), and you can show your brand, your ideas, your work behind the scenes.

Douglas Robb - Interior Designher: Final thoughts?

Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant: Like most of the other platforms, Pinterest prefers videos, so probably in the future, Pinterest will become more social than it is now. But in the meantime, playing around using all the pins that the platform provides is the best way to go.

Being on Pinterest is a marketing tool to consider in the strategy, and it is the most creative platform out there!

About Francesca Scomparin - Kaffeina Virtual Assistant

Born in Italy, based in the UK, Francesca’s Pinterest VA business help interior designers from around the world build their brand & grow their business.

With a corporate background, Francesca believes in teamwork and working with her clients to achieve their desired goals for their interior design business.

Contact Francesca

Email: info@kaffeinavirtualassistant.com

Website: www.kaffeinavirtualassistant.com

Pinterest: @KaffeinaVA

Instagram: @kaffeina_va

Facebook: @KaffeinaVirtualAssistant

Linkedin: @francescascomparinvirtualassistant