Pinterest is booming. More than 444 million people are on Pinterest every month, searching and saving literally billions of pins. A high percentage of those pins are related to the home, which makes Pinterest an ideal social media platform for real estate agents.
As agents continue to show tremendous success using Pinterest real estate marketing, we wanted to know more. We compiled the most creative Pinterest real estate marketing ideas from social media experts to help you master Pinterest for your business. Here’s what they had to say.
1. Your Pinterest Strategy Should Be About Building Community
Nicole Mickle, Realtor with almost 10 million monthly pin views
Pinterest offers a softer, more organic form of marketing. With Pinterest, you’re presenting yourself as an authority. You’re solving problems and answering questions, all in an authentic way.
We talked to real estate agent and expert Pinterest influencer, Nicole Mickle, to hear her approach Pinterest marketing:
Pinterest isn’t a punch-in-the-face kind of marketing, it’s much more of an exchange. It’s much more, ‘let’s chat, let’s exchange ideas.’ With Pinterest, I’m offering something—not selling. I’m problem-solving.
Everyone can find something to be an expert on. You like fishing? Pin that. You like to bake bread? Build community around baking.
At the end of the day, it’s about being a resource.
2. Help Buyers Make Decisions
Heather Farris, Founder, Farris & Company LLC
Most agents’ might start out by treating Pinterest like Facebook or Instagram, but Pinterest is its own thing and needs to be treated as such. People use Pinterest as a visual search engine where they save ideas to reference later, which can be of real help as real estate agents plan their marketing strategy.
Here’s social media expert, Heather Farris, to help explain:
3. Create Evergreen Content
According to digital market agency The Refinery, the average life of a tweet is about 15 minutes. Facebook posts stay relevant for about six hours and Instagram lasts as long as 48 hours.
But on Pinterest, an average post gets engagement four months after it’s been posted, making it vital that the things you post today are going to be just as relevant and interesting tomorrow, next week, and next year.
We heard more about this from international marketing consultant Nicole Gustas:
For example, a Los Angeles real estate agent will be more successful on Pinterest by creating pins for blog posts like ’10 Up and Coming Neighborhoods in LA You’ve Never Heard Of’ or ‘The 10 Hottest New Loft Buildings in Downtown LA,’ rather than something about a specific house in a particular neighborhood that is for sale at a particular time.
Alexa Kurtz, marketing strategist with Webtek Computer Company, agrees:
4. Women Are Your Audience, Plan Accordingly
Mae Karwowski, Founder & CEO, Obviously
Studies done by Statista show that upward of 77.1% of active Pinterest users are women. Mae Karwowski, Founder and CEO of the influencer marketing agency Obviously, suggests:
5. Make Sure Your Content Gets on the Right Boards
Hamna Amjad, Digital Marketing Project Manager,
Since Pinterest is part social media platform and part visual search engine, it’s doubly important that your content is categorized properly onto boards that are easy to find. Hamna Amjad, a social media expert with Gigworker, told us more:
6. Reach the Right Audience With Hashtags
Daniela Andreevska, Marketing Director, Mashvisor
Just like on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, hashtags help create conversation across the platform, across users, and across boards. Effectively using hashtags gets your content in front of a much wider audience. We spoke to Daniela Andreevska, Marketing Director and Pinterest guru with Mashvisor. Here’s what she had to say:
Each of your posts (pins) should have at least three hashtags that are popular in the industry and relate well to your image. Don’t go overboard though—any more than 10 hashtags and your posts will start to look like spam.
7. Make Your Branding Ultra-consistent
Bradley Shaw, Founder, SEO Expert Brad Inc.
As great as a visual search engine is, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of images, especially if everybody’s pins are starting to look the same. A strict style guide is crucial.
We talked to Bradley Shaw, an expert in search engine optimization (SEO), about the importance of consistency across your brand, and how that affects your brand visibility:
One simple branding touch that works well on visual platforms like Pinterest is to add a small logo or watermark to the bottom of all your pins. Keep it discreet, keep it understated—you don’t want it to take away from your message, but you do want to remind people where this quality content is coming from.
8. Your Pinterest Strategy Needs to Be a Year Long
Amanda Behm, Founder, Real Estate Digital Assist
Because of what we know about other social media platforms, it’s tempting to take your strategy a week at a time. However, Pinterest is different. You need a long-term, structured strategy to keep your messaging consistent.
Here’s what Amanda Behm, real estate efficiency expert and founder of Real Estate Digital Assist, had to say:
Set up an optimized pinning schedule and start creating your pin images—you’ll be reaping the rewards next year.
9. Pin at Peak Times
Becky Brooks, Digital Marketing Manager, The Close
Like any social media platform, there is research that shows the best time to be active and create content. For Pinterest, the same is true, so we turned to our own incredible digital marketing team to learn the times they recommend pinning.
“We find that the best time to create and share pins is in the early to late evening and on weekends. This seems to be the time users are searching for ideas, either for projects, recipes, or inspiration. This is when we try to be the most engaged and active.
“However, because Pinterest often works more like a search engine than a social network, we still get traction on even older pins. Which is why there really is no wrong time to pin, so just have fun with it!”
10. Use Pinterest to Stay in Touch With Clients
If you’re hoping to turn business into repeat business, you’ll want to stay connected to former clients and referral sources. Pinterest is an ideal tool to help. We heard more about this from Pinterest aficionado and social media expert, Lori Ramas:
Think of the things that your clients love and care about, and start pinning! Pinterest can be another touch in your communication plan with the goal of turning your former clients into repeat clients.
11. Be a Part of the Social Community
Bill Gassett, Realtor, RE/MAX Executive Realty
When we put out our call for expert advice, we figured our sources would be marketing professionals only … until Bill Gassett sent us a note. Bill is a rock star Realtor with RE/MAX, and just happens to be the most influential Realtor on Pinterest today.
Here’s what he had to say about how being social can help you grow your audience and get more leads on Pinterest:
12. Set Up a Pinterest Business Account
Lizzie Dunn, SEO Associate, Fundera
In order to get the full power of Pinterest, real estate agents should consider a business account. They’re free, easy to set up, and they unlock all sorts of bonuses unavailable to the general public.
SEO Associate and small business finance expert Lizzie Dunn gave us the inside scoop on why realtors should take this free (but important) step:
13. Target Your Audience by Location With Pinterest Ads
McKinzie Bean, Founder, Moms Make Cents
Pinterest has its own form of paid advertising, and it can be an effective way to get the right content in front of the right user. As we’ve learned, Pinterest isn’t just crafts and recipes—many users depend on Pinterest to help them make buying decisions. That’s why using paid advertising can be profitable down the line—and Pinterest makes it pretty easy to get started.
We talked to Pinterest blogger and influencer McKinzie Bean, of Moms Make Cents, to hear the best way to get started:
Narrow your audience down with a geographic location and with keywords so that you are only showing your ad to the people in your area who are searching for what you are selling.
Watch your results carefully and adjust course accordingly! Pinterest marketing is all about making sure you are understanding what is performing well and what isn’t, as the leads start coming in, leverage your successes and put a stopper in your failures.
Great Real Estate Pinterest Boards for Inspiration
We asked our in-house digital marketing team to share their favorite real estate Pinterest boards, and they came through with some great ones that are sure to inspire:
Nicole Mickle, Realtor, 9.2 Million Monthly Views
Joy Aumann, Realtor, 423,000 Monthly Views
Marni Cummings, Relocation Coach, 68,400 Monthly Views
Ladies of Real Estate, 2.9 Million Monthly Views
Bill Gassett, Realtor, 154,700 Monthly Viewers
Hilton & Hyland, Brokerage, 64,900 Monthly Views
With Millions of Views on Pinterest, Realtor Nicole Mickle Shares Her Secrets
Nicole Mickle isn’t just good at selling houses, she’s also one of the most successful Pinterest marketers in the business. This Orlando-based design and real estate expert has reached a peak of 15 million monthly Pinterest views and is crushing it with 60,000 individual followers.
We sat down with Nicole to find out how she did it—and maybe even more importantly, why.
Tell us how you got started in Pinterest marketing.
I was never going to be one of those people who makes 200 calls a day to get business. It works for some people, but that sounded like my worst nightmare. I was looking for a way to build my business, but in a way that worked for me.
Pinterest happened by accident. It was early in the pandemic and I was playing around on the Pinterest discover page. I ended up connecting with a woman who blogs about theme parks. We met for coffee and she was looking at my numbers and couldn’t believe how much they’d grown organically.
She really helped me understand what I was doing well and how I could do even better.
What makes Pinterest different from other social media platforms?
Can you give us an example of how a connection on Pinterest leads to business?
A guy is building a pool in Texas and he loves a tile that I’ve pinned. He reaches out to ask about the tile because he can’t find it in Texas, but it’s everywhere in Florida. So I connect him to the tile company here. There, I’ve made a referral to a small business in my community and I helped someone in Texas. That translates to referrals back to me.
I’m offering something, not selling. And people like that. They don’t want to be sold to—they want their problems solved.
For example, another guy is buying a house down here as an investment—and he found me because he was building a house in Canada and couldn’t find anyone up there to do these black-and-white piano stairs. So I helped him with his design and he eventually ended up doing business with me.
Are there other ways Pinterest helps you?
I had a client who was relocating here and she only had two days and not much time to find a home. I sent her lots of pins and she was able to really narrow down what it was that she was looking for. She thought she wanted farmhouse. But the photos she was picking were really a different feel. I could build what she wanted in my head and then say, OK, now I know what you’re looking for.
That let me show her houses that were what she actually wanted—not what she thought she wanted. It saved time and energy, avoided burnout, and she found the house she loved, at her price, in a neighborhood that wasn’t even on her radar.
Nicole’s Expert Tips for Success With the Pinterest Algorithm
Your Turn
If you haven’t already, follow us on Pinterest! We’d love to interact with you there. We pin new content every week, so check back often. In the meantime, tell us about your Pinterest experience. Are you driving a lot of traffic and picking up clients? What’s working or not working for you? Tell us in the comments.
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