Tuesday 27 November 2018

Learn how to improve on Pinterest with your very own free personalized action guide

Edited Dec 24th 2020:
WITHDRAWN - Pinterest changed their stats approach
Edited Nov 28th: 
It just keeps getting better! Version 5.1 is out and gives you links that let you get related pins from Pinterest and see related boards. You'll find them in your tailored guidance section and they'll help you mold and massage your boards into better shape.


Find out how to improve on Pinterest with advice personalized to YOU. It's free and there's no registration, nothing to sell, you're welcome! You must have a Pinterest business account for this to work.

The online Nifty Pinterest Tailored Action Guide is now at V5, with a newly added csv export gizmo, so you can easily keep a history of your performance improvements.

This blog post explains how to use it and gives some tips to get the most out of it.


When you first visit, this is what you see. It's filled with generic advice, not yet personalized for you:

http://www.kdl.to/nifty-pinterest-action-guide.html?src=raza
Until you paste from your Pinterst Analytics to personalize the guidance, this is what you see


To get personalized guidance tailored to you

Visit your Pinterest Profile Analytics page and select and copy the whole page (right-click, select all, right-click, copy) and then paste where indicated (the large box, currently displaying instructions and a screenshot of it in action).

Once you paste, you see your equivalent of the following:

after pasting your Pinterest Profile Analytics page into the box



Do you see the "Get tailored guidance" button in the screenshot above? Give it a click and your personalized guidance will appear in a tan color in the paragraphs that follow. Here's the first few of mine:

the first few paras of the tailored Boards guidance I got - note the new buttons at the top



Here's the most part of the tailored guidance for my pins:

the most part of the personalized guidance I got for my pins



Pinning more of the same

If you happen to be a Zazzle artist / affiliate or a Society6 artist / curator, then you'll appreciate the links included in the tailored guidance that bring up matching products you can easily pin.

The words in the board name are used as search terms, so might need some adjusting when you get to the rapid pinning tool page. Here's the results of clicking the link given in one of my pin guidance paragraphs:

the rapid pinning tool, waiting for the search terms to be adjusted to get more results


..as you can see, there's only one result for the search terms used from the pin name. A simple adjustment of those terms will bring up plenty of similar designs to pin. The Society6 link given in the guidance paragraph leads to a similar page using Society6 as the source.



Investigating in more detail

When you clicked the "Get tailored guidance" button, more buttons appeared:

summary Board and Pin buttons



The summary pop-ups let you check things out in more detail and explore your options. Both the summaries work the same way. Here's my Boards one:

what you see when you first click the button



You can see there are various buttons surrounding the table. You can sort by any of the columns by clicking the relevant button at top or bottom of the columns. This answers the types of questions you might have like, which boards...
  • ..have the best click through rates?
  • ..require the least pins in order to get a click?
  • ..gain the most impressions for every pin?

Those are the most important because they're all about effective use of time spent pinning. If you want to see the actual values in addition to what's already shown, click the "show more" button at top right. You'll then see something like:

After clickng the "show more" button at top right



You now see three additional columns, Impressions, Clicks and Saves appearing on the left of the exisiting ones, as well as the totals for each column where totals make sense.
Again, you can sort with the buttons at the top and bottom of the new columns.

Although you might be tempted to be guided by the clicks and saves alone, just remember that they give no indication of pinning efficiency. Focussing your pinning on those boards could be much more inefficient than pinning to a board with a better pins-to-click ratio.


As mentioned before, the Pin summary table is pretty much identical in looks and how you use it, so I won't repeat myself.


When would I use the ignore buttons?

Sometimes you find that a board with a seasonal nature is in the top three, but the date for the event has passed. You're not really interested in that board anymore but you get tailored guidance for it.

The solution is simple, ignore it! When you click the button, everything to do with that board disappears from the action guide, leaving the other boards to vie for the now vacated spot. That way, you'll get tailored guidance for the one that wins (assuming it ends up in the top 3 when sorted by board value).

In my example, the Diwali and Thanksgiving events have now passed, yet there their boards are in the top three and I'm getting unwanted guidance for them. I want to focus on the future, not the past!


Watching your performance improve

You can export the contents of the summary tables with the "Export tables to CSV file" - a CSV file is a standard used by spreadsheets everywhere. Using this option allows you to keep a history so you can watch your performance on Pinterest improve as time goes on.

If you don't want to use a spreadsheet, just copy from the pop-ups instead and paste into your favourite notepad application. I find a spreadsheet easier because of the rows and columns grid you get.

Feedback and questions as comments, please. Thanks!


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I hope you agree that it's rare to get such great value out of a free tool! Why not try it for yourself right now?
Enjoy 😎

Friday 16 November 2018

Get your Pinterest personalized action guide - new features in v2.2

Edit: Nov 24 2018, Now at v4 - duplicating for Pins the functionality already present for Boards. 
Now you select the whole page for pasting - right-click, select all, right-click, copy (or <ctrl>a,<ctrl>c - or <cmd>a,<cmd>c on a Mac)

Hot off the press - new version is out. Love ❤️ the new ignore buttons and color-coded table display! Now you can home in on what works much more easily. (see previous post for instructions)

Get yours here

Do you have a board that's seasonal and the event has recently finished? Now you can ignore it and its data.

Why ignore such boards?

...because you want to focus on improving for what's coming, not what's passed!

http://kdl.to/nifty-pinterest-action-guide.html?src=raza
green, blue and orange show the top three rankings, in that order


In this table I chose to ignore two boards - Diwali and Best Boss Day. If you look at the date of the post, you'll see that those two have recently passed by. I note - and I guess it's no surprise given the date - that Thanksgiving has the best click-through-rate (CTR)

- and, yes, I'm already doing more on that board - I'd actually overlooked it and building, testing, using and enhancing this tool drew it to my attention. It works!

Get yours here


Wednesday 14 November 2018

Pinterest Tailored Action Guide - a new tool in the Nifty toolbox


Have you ever looked at your Pinterest Analyics and thought to yourself, "hmmm... it looks all very sophisticated but it's overwhelming 🤪 and doesn't really guide me in what I should do more of"?
Worse, Pinterest's analytics don't take into account how valuable click-throughs on your Zazzle afilliate links are (you know, the ones that include your referral id).

Try it out for your Pinterest Boards

That's fixed with this Tailored Action Guide from the Nifty toolbox. Here's what its output looks like:

http://www.kdl.to/nifty-pinterest-action-guide.html?src=raza
Part of the tailored guide output (tan-coloured) with the summary table pop-up shown

The tailored guidance given is on a tan-coloured background and is based on the performance of various aspects of each board and tells you where to focus your pinning effort.

Summary of steps to get your tailored action guide

  1. Get to your Pinterest account's Analytics -> Profile page (there's a handy link given on the tool page for that)
  2. Copy the section labelled Boards with top Pin impressions 
  3. Paste it into the tool page where indicated
  4. Click the button that appears labelled Get tailored guidance 
  5. Follow the advice given on the underlying page, now updated with your tailored guidance

Here's a screenshot showing the help given in step 3 for selecting and copying for step 2:



...so once you've pasted the selection from Pinterest (step 3) and clicked the button that appears, you'll see your equivalent of the screenshot at the top of this post, with the advice tailored specifically to you!

Click here to try it out for your Pinterest Boards










Monday 5 November 2018

Live-print catalogs of your Society6 stuff with Nifty, each with a QRCode

If you'd love to take a printed live catalog of each of your Society6 collections with you when you're promoting at a real-world event, then you'll be jumping with excitement at this new Nifty tool!

Here's an example of a live-print catalog - note the print button and that QR code (the live part):

http://www.kdl.to/society6-rss/s6-catalog-printer.html?qs=&coid=hightonridley/collection/fun-for-space-mad-kids--adults&rf=hightonridley&ps=240&pg=1&title=Space+Mad+Kids+and+Big+Kids
the print button is at the top left of your live-print catalog webpage



The really cool thing is the QR Code at the top of the page under your title. It removes a HUGE barrier to sales. Imagine, there you are at your stand at the exhibition and someone has been lured in for a closer look...
  • they say they like that tee shirt you've got on display but the size is wrong for them and as you chat, they also ask about other stuff you have with the same design. 
  • you tell them about how they can order it themselves at the right size and you whip out your ring-binder and flip to the right collection
  • they love some of the things they see and definitely want to buy
  • cool! Just get them to point their phone at the QR code and they're taken to the very page you printed (as long as you haven't messed with the collection in the meantime!)
  • they can then tap any of the designs they love, to then be whisked off their feet to that product's page on Society6 - they could bookmark it for later or, hopefully, even buy there and then!
Or maybe you put some out as flyers in local venues - sit and wait for the sales! Here's some more ideas:

  • ✅  Have them at your stall at events / exhibitions
  • ✅  Use them as flyers to leave at hotels, spas, wedding venues, clubs - wherever suits the collections you've made
  • ✅  Mail them out to your target audience
  • ✅  Host a coffee morning for your target audience with a few copies of each catalog - everyone can start personalising and buying right away!
  • ✅  [insert your own great idea here!]

With the Holiday Season almost upon us there's no better time to start!

🎓 It's best to pull from a collection because you then have total control over the product designs you include and their order - and you can get up to 240 products (with any other way, uyou're limited to 42, Society6's standrard page size). There's nothing to stop you pulling by any other Nifty ways you fancy - just reprint your catalog to keep things in sync after any major changes.



Getting your printed catalog

Here's the CPanel where I've set up my collection:

http://www.kdl.to/society6-rss/society6-nifty-cpanel.html?qs=&coid=hightonridley/collection%2Ffun-for-space-mad-kids--adults&rf=hightonridley&ps=240&pg=1&upgttl=Space+Mad+Kids+and+Big+Kids
choosing to use a collection as the source for the Live-print Catalog in Step 1

 Here's where you'll find the button in Step 2 to get to your Live-print Catalog:

http://www.kdl.to/society6-rss/society6-nifty-cpanel.html?qs=&coid=hightonridley/collection%2Ffun-for-space-mad-kids--adults&rf=hightonridley&ps=240&pg=1&upgttl=Space+Mad+Kids+and+Big+Kids&mcslsh=lpc
click to go the right place in Step 2 for opening my example Live-print Catalog


Here's a link to Nifty with all the settings in place to pull from one of my collections Go on, click the link and give it a go, it's really cool! 😎


⚠️ In Firefox (just on a Mac?) when you view a pdf instead of printing to your printer, later pages have fewer products and smaller sizes. Weird 🤪

It works just fine and dandy in Chrome, Safari and Opera 🙂

👁‍🗨 Once again, for the sake of transparency, the links used on the catalog page are on a 50/50 referral split. That means half of them will use your referral id and mine will be on the other half, all chosen at random. Don't worry, any royalty due on sales of your products will always go entirely to you.

If you have a Nifty Subscription, your curator id will always be used, so you get to keep all the cash 🤑

I hope you find this tool useful for helping you make sales in the real world!

Best,
Mark (HightonRidley)



🤓 Notes from Nerdsville

I've not got much control over the exact layout and font size on the printout. The systems used on the computer that is doing the printing seem to be in charge! Headers and footers are in your page setup - nothing to do with Nifty.
I'm on a Mac and printing to a real printer gives me 9 products per page on a 3x3 grid. Same for when I use PDF as the "printer" to use.