How to Use Pinterest and Clipix to Generate More Leads in Your Small Business

I am overwhelmed by social media. In fact, I keep profiles only because I have to. Social media helps with branding and promotion, and without it, I would be lagging behind my competition. I mainly use Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, only to help spare myself from drowning. However, there is one site that keeps coming up in conversation: Pinterest.

After a lot of prodding from family and friends, I decided to take the Pinterest plunge. What better way to do that than to get expert advice from Maryann Rizzo, one of Pinterest’s top influencers? Rizzo is an interior designer and one of the original influencers of the site. Since joining Pinterest in 2010, her followers have grown to a little over 9 million, and she is now the second most followed Pinterest user in the world.

I was able to pick her brain for ways to use the site, as well as find out tips for new users. We discussed how she uses Pinterest in conjunction with Clipix to organize her personal and professional life.

Pinterest Can Be Used for Business

Many entrepreneurs feel that it's difficult to use Pinterest for business, but Rizzo dispels that myth quickly. She uses Pinterest for her business daily, not only for existing clients, but for potential clients and advertisers who browse her pins to see if she would be a good fit for their projects or promotions.

Television producer Deborah Mitchell wrote an article for Entrepreneur.com that sums up how businesses can benefit from Pinterest:

Pinterest is the only platform that embodies every brand’s dream to have millions of potential customers eagerly look through a carefully-curated catalog.”—Deborah Mitchell

Think about it, people flip through their Facebook and Twitter feeds, but they actually stop and take the time to look through their Pinterest boards. Rizzo adopts this philosophy with her use of Pinterest. She uses her boards as visual inspiration for herself and her clients.

Rizzo recalls a time when she saved thousands of magazine clippings, all cut by hand and organized in notebooks in her studio. When she started using Pinterest, she was thrilled to learn she could electronically “pin” images and put down her scissors.

During our conversation, Rizzo spoke about another popular site that works hand-in-hand with Pinterest: Clipix, an online bookmarking, file sharing, and organizational tool. Combining both has helped her organize and also share what she wants, and not share what she wants to stay private.

Using Clipix with Pinterest

Some have called Clipix an alternative to Pinterest, but according to Rizzo, that is not the case. “Most of my private boards are on Clipix,” she explains.

Unlike Pinterest, Clipix is not considered a social network, but a utility; it allows you to save and organize content from across the web onto “clipboards.” Like Pinterest, you can clip images and videos, but you can also upload digital files, including Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, PDF files, and email messages. You can also add notes, articles of interest, and photos.

So besides privacy, what are reasons why you would want to use Clipix along with Pinterest? According to Rizzo, “One of the main reasons I started using Clipix was to track my Pinterest work. For example, if I am working on an ad campaign for an advertiser, I will pin a photo and then immediately 'clip' it onto a clipboard file on Clipix. When the campaign is over I email the entire file full of pins to the advertiser. It works similarly to Pinterest, so the advertiser is able to click on the photo and it will take them directly to the pin of their product on Pinterest.”

Rizzo uses Clipix for her portfolio and to track design projects she’s working on. She also uses Clipix to back up her Pinterest boards. “Because I can move clips into any order I want on Clipix (a feature not available on Pinterest), I’m able to organize my pins in a way that makes sense to me, for example, by color and style,” says Rizzo. She also points out that you can have multiboards (boards within boards, similar to subfolders), change the size of your photos, and also upload documents and attach notes to pins.

Apparently Rizzo is not the only fan of Clipix. Dr. Oz lists it as one of his favorite apps. “It’s like Pinterest but private, so you can use it to store your medical records, or emails, or other personal information,” he told Adweek, back in 2014.

Regarding Clipix's privacy appeal, Rizzo states, "Not everyone wants everything to be public. Sometimes people just want to save things privately.”

Tips for New Users on Pinterest

Beyond the basics of making sure to have a complete profile on Pinterest, Rizzo recommends that new users take a few extra steps. First, she recommends filling boards with pins.

“If you create a board, put something on it,” she advises. “There are an awful lot of spam accounts, and having a board without pins makes you look like a spammer.” According to Rizzo, some people create profiles and follow influencers simply to get noticed. Some people don't do it intentionally, which is why putting pins on your boards, along with a profile picture, will help to differentiate you. However, Rizzo says if you don’t, there’s a good chance you’ll be purged from her follower list.

“Don’t have your boards and pins be all about you,” Rizzo adds. She recommends having a variety of different boards that will be useful to others. For instance, she has boards for her interior design work, but also has boards for pets, food, crafts, travel, and more. She says, “Having a variety of topics helped me gain a following.”

On a final note, she recommends checking pins to make sure they go to a permalink. Sometimes pins lead to spam, so be sure you know where the pin goes before sharing it. She always makes sure that anyone clicking on anything she pins leads to the actual location of the image; this helps with user experience and trustworthiness.

Final Pins

Hopefully Rizzo has dispelled the myth that Pinterest is difficult to use for business. After all, she has been able to harness its power to become the second most-followed user on the site, while using it to organize her work too. By combining Pinterest and Clipix, she has been able to realize all the benefits of online bookmarking, both public and private.

Over the next couple of months, I will be writing about my experiences using Pinterest and Clipix. It is unlikely I will get to 9 million followers, but I’ll let you know if it is everything my family says it is. Until then, you can check my progress by following my profile here.