Woohoo! It’s Pinterest time!
Part of the branding homework that I ask my clients to do is set up and share a private Pinterest branding board. This serves as a fun but intentional step in the brainstorm process which enables us to begin collaborating visual inspiration with photos of textures, patterns, color themes & ideas into a digital collage board that serves as a inspiration platform for businesses.
If you do not have a Pinterest account already, we will need to go over the steps involved to create one so you can complete the homework successfully. If you already have a Facebook or Twitter account, you have the choice of creating a Pinterest account by logging in through either of those social media accounts too if you’d like. If you do not have a Pinterest account yet and would like assistance, let’s schedule a quick phone or video chat to walk you through the process (it’s literally takes just a few minutes to create one) so that you can move forward with this phase of the homework with ease.
Once your Pinterest account is set up, you’ll need to create a new private board to start pinning to.
I’ve created a quick cheat sheet reference to help you set up a private board.
#1: Create a Pinterest account.
Head on over to http://www.pinterest.com.
#2: Create a new board.
#3: Name the Brainstorm Brand Board
Title the new board as “Your Business Name Branding Inspiration Board.” Feel free to write your business mission in the Description Field if you want. Set the board to ‘Secret’ and add me, Kelly Teno, as a Collaborator either by searching for me by my email address or Pinterest username, which is kelly_teno.
#4: Search
Begin searching by typing in keywords in the top search menu. Search for items such as color palettes (my example below shows a search for chartreuse green color themes), textures, tones, decor and patterns. If you get stuck or begin straying off the vision path, think about what imagery best represents & corresponds to the personality & style you desire for your brand? Do the images you’ve pinned represent that visually?
#5: Editing & Personalizing the Photo Captions
Once you find an image you’d like to include in your board, what’s really helpful is if you ‘edit’ the caption under the photo you’d like to pin.
Click on the pencil edit button (to the right under the photo) and change the text description so that it indicates what or why this photo inspires you for your branding. Personalize your descriptions under each photo.
After editing the image caption under the photo, click the red ‘SAVE’ button on the upper left corner of the image. Keep in mind that during this step, it’s okay to ‘save’ or ‘pin’ images that are of objects, colors, textures, patterns, quotes, rooms, decor, etc. If you have other boards besides this one in your account, choose to save each photo to the private branding inspiration board that you’ve created.
Because Pinterest is so addic
ting once you begin exploring, it’s beneficial to keep in mind that although you technically can add as many images to this brainstorming branding board as you’d like, I recommend pinning somewhere between 15-20 images to complete this phase of your homework.
