How to Become a Pinterest Manager

Thinking about becoming a Pinterest Manager? It’s a smart move. Pinterest is a powerful visual search engine that drives traffic and sales for businesses, and there’s a growing demand for experts who know how to make it work. This guide provides a complete roadmap, showing you the exact skills you need, how to package your services, and how to land your first client.

What Does a Pinterest Manager Actually Do?

There’s a common misconception that being a Pinterest Manager is just about creating pretty boards and pinning nice photos. While that’s part of the fun, the real job is a strategic blend of marketing, design, and analytics. You're not just a pinner, you're a strategist who uses Pinterest to achieve specific business goals for your clients, like increasing website traffic, generating leads, or boosting sales.

Here’s a breakdown of the daily and monthly tasks you can expect to handle:

• Strategy Development: You'll work with clients to understand their business, target audience, and goals. From there, you'll create a tailored Pinterest strategy designed to meet those objectives.
• Keyword Research: Pinterest is a search engine first, a social network second. A huge part of the job is finding the right keywords your client’s target audience is searching for and weaving them into Pin titles, descriptions, and board titles.
• Profile Optimization: You’ll set up and optimize client accounts by creating keyword-rich profile descriptions, verifying their website, and setting up targeted boards.
• Pin Creation: This is the creative part. You will design eye-catching and on-brand Pins (static images, Video Pins, and Idea Pins) using tools like Canva. This includes writing compelling text overlays that encourage users to click.
• Pin Scheduling: Consistency is everything on Pinterest. You’ll use a scheduling tool to publish fresh Pins consistently, keeping the account active without having to be online 24/7.
• Community Management: This involves engaging with followers, responding to comments, and participating in group boards where it makes sense.
• Monthly Analytics & Reporting: At the end of each month, you'll dive into Pinterest Analytics to see what’s working. You will create simple, clear reports for your clients showing key metrics like traffic, outbound clicks, and engagement, and then use that data to adjust your strategy for the next month.

Mastering the Core Pinterest Skills

You don't need a formal degree to become a successful Pinterest Manager, but you do need to master a specific set of skills. Let’s walk through the most important ones and how you can start learning them today.

1. Become an Expert in Pinterest SEO

This is the single most important skill you can learn. If you can master Pinterest SEO, you can drive results for your clients. Unlike other social platforms where content has a short lifespan, a well-optimized Pin can drive traffic for months or even years.

How to Learn It:

• Use the Pinterest Search Bar: Type in a broad keyword related to your industry (e.g., "healthy dinner"). The colored bubbles that appear below the search bar are the related keywords people are actually searching for. This is Pinterest telling you exactly what users want to see.
• Analyze Successful Pins: Search for a keyword in your niche and look at the top-ranking Pins. What keywords are they using in their titles and descriptions? How are they using them? This is a free form of market research.
• Spy on Competitors: Look at the Pinterest profiles of 3-5 successful accounts in your niche. Pay attention to how they name their boards and describe them. You'll see patterns in the keywords they target.

2. Develop a Strategic Content Plan

Randomly pinning won't drive traffic. You need a strategy built around your client's business goals and content. This involves identifying core content pillars and creating different types of Pins to support them.

How to Develop It:

• Identify Content Pillars: These are the 3-5 main topics your client’s business focuses on. For a food blogger, they might be "Quick Weeknight Meals," "Healthy Desserts," and "Meal Prep Ideas." Every Pin you create should fit into one of these pillars.
• Plan for Different Pin Formats: A good strategy uses a mix of Pin types. Static Pins are great for driving clicks to blog posts or product pages. Video Pins are excellent for tutorials or showing a product in action. Idea Pins are multi-page guides that build brand awareness and engagement directly on Pinterest.
• Build a Content Calendar: Plan your Pins a month in advance. A simple spreadsheet works perfectly. This ensures a consistent flow of content and allows you to plan around holidays, seasons, and product launches.

3. Master Eye-Catching Pin Design

On a visual platform, your design has to stand out. You don't need to be a graphic designer, but you do need to understand the fundamentals of what makes a Pin "clickable."

How to Improve Your Designs:

• Use Templates: Tools like Canva are packed with professionally designed Pinterest templates. Find a few that fit your client's brand and customize them with their colors, fonts, and logo. This saves tons of time and ensures a cohesive look.
• Focus on Vertical Images: The ideal Pinterest image ratio is 2:3 (e.g., 1000 x 1500 pixels). This format takes up the most screen space on mobile devices and performs best.
• Add Text Overlays: Your image should have a clear, easy-to-read text overlay that tells users what the Pin is about and why they should click. Use a bold, compelling headline like "5 Mistakes You're Making When Meal Prepping" instead of just "Meal Prep."
• Incorporate Strong Branding: Subtly add your client's logo or website URL to every Pin you create. This helps with brand recognition as your Pins get saved and re-shared across the platform.

4. Learn to Analyze and Report on Data

To retain clients long-term, you need to prove your worth. That means understanding Pinterest Analytics and communicating the results in a way your clients can easily understand.

What to Track:

• Outbound Clicks: This is arguably the most valuable metric. It tracks how many times users clicked from a Pin to a client's website. This directly demonstrates the traffic you're driving.
• Impressions: The number of times your Pins were shown to users. This is a great indicator of brand awareness and reach.
• Saves: The number of times users saved your Pin to one of their boards. A high number of saves tells the Pinterest algorithm that your content is valuable, which can boost its visibility.
• Top Pins & Top Boards: Pay attention to which Pins and boards are performing the best. This gives you direct insight into what your audience wants more of, helping you refine your strategy.

Create a simple one-page PDF report for clients at the end of each month. Highlight wins, explain what the numbers mean, and share your strategic plan for the upcoming month.

Building Your Pinterest Manager Business

Once you have a solid grasp of the core skills, it's time to build the business side of things. This means defining your services, setting prices, and finding clients.

Step 1: Create Your Service Packages and Pricing

There are a few common ways to structure your services. Instead of charging by the hour, which punishes efficiency, consider offering monthly retainer packages. This provides you with predictable income and gives clients a clear understanding of what they're getting.

Example Packages:

• The "Account Setup" Package (One-Time Fee: $350 - $750+): Perfect for clients who are new to Pinterest. This would include optimizing their profile, creating 5-10 branded boards with keyworded descriptions, designing 15 starter Pins, and providing a basic strategy guide.
• The "Monthly Management" Package (Monthly Retainer: $500 - $2,000+): Your bread and butter. This ongoing service typically includes strategy management, creating a set number of new Pins per month (e.g., 20-30), daily scheduling, and monthly reporting.
• The "Pin Design" Package (One-Time or Monthly: $150 - $500+): Some clients might manage their own accounts but need help with design. You could offer a package of just creating a certain number of custom Pin templates or fresh Pins each month.

When you're first starting, your prices might be on the lower end of these ranges. As you gain experience and build a portfolio of results, you can confidently increase your rates.

Step 2: Get Your First Client (Even with No Experience)

Landing that first client can feel intimidating, but it’s more achievable than you think. You need a case study to show potential clients what you can do.

• Use Your Own Account as a Case Study: Create a brand-new Pinterest account for your own blog or business. Apply everything you’ve learned - SEO, strategy, design - and track your results for 30-60 days. Now you have a tangible example to show prospective clients.
• Offer a Lower-Rate Trial: Reach out to a small business owner you know or a favorite blogger and offer them a one-month trial of your services at a significantly reduced rate in exchange for a testimonial. This helps you build your portfolio and gather social proof with very little risk for the client.
• Network in the Right Places: Join Facebook groups for bloggers, creative entrepreneurs, and virtual assistants. Don't spam the group with your services. Instead, participate in conversations and offer helpful Pinterest tips for free. When someone asks for Pinterest help, you'll be top of mind. People hire those they know, like, and trust.

Step 3: Arm Yourself with the Right Tools

Being an efficient Pinterest Manager relies on an effective and simple tool stack. You don't need a dozen different subscriptions, just a few key resources:

• A Design Tool: Canva is the industry standard for non-designers due to its simplicity and vast library of templates.
• A Scheduling Tool: To maintain consistency without being chained to your computer, you need a scheduler. Most allow you to schedule pins weeks or even months in advance.
• A Stock Photo Resource: Access to high-quality photos is important for creating beautiful Pins. Unsplash and Pexels are great free options, while sites like Canva Pro offer premium libraries.

Final Thoughts

Becoming a successful Pinterest Manager is a process of learning key marketing skills, practicing them until you're confident, and then packaging them into a service that businesses desperately need. By focusing on SEO-driven strategy and high-quality design, you can offer immense value and build a thriving, flexible business.

As you build your client base, a reliable social media management tool becomes your best friend. We built Postbase to streamline this exact workflow, especially as your services expand beyond just Pinterest to include Instagram, TikTok, and more. When you’re ready to manage all of your clients' content across every platform, our visual calendar and centralized inbox make it simple to plan, schedule, and engage without the complexity of older, clunkier tools.