Deciding to become a Pinterest VA is an exciting idea. It’s a flexible and lucrative side hustle if you already love Pinterest. Technically, you are getting paid to pin, but it’s more involved than simply designing pins and pinning them to the right boards.

Pinterest has over 335 million active users each month, and business owners need help reaching their ideal clients in that massive user base. That’s where you can come in as a Pinterest VA. 

I’m going to explain exactly what this side hustle is about, how much you can realistically expect to make, the easiest way to start working, and more.

How to Become a Pinterest VA in 2021 & Make Up to $50/hour

What exactly is a Pinterest VA?

A Pinterest VA is a virtual assistant that helps business owners, brands, and bloggers grow their online presence and increase revenue. Pinterest virtual assistants are sometimes known as Pinterest managers. They work as freelancers who contract out their services to multiple clients.

Related: How to Make Money With Pinterest

How much do Pinterest VAs generally make?

There are lots of factors that go into how much you’ll make, but most brand new Pinterest virtual assistants start around $15/hour. However, experienced Pinterest VAs make upwards of $30-$50/hour.

Experience is what really sets you apart in pay. Once you’ve been working as VA for a while and have a good track record with your clients, you have the skills and social proof it takes to command higher rates. 

A more experienced VA can work with bigger brands and clients, and that’s often where the big bucks are with any kind of freelance service.

Another major factor in terms of what you can make as a Pinterest VA are what kind of services you offer. I’m going to explain more about services in a second, but one of the more high-level skills is running Promoted Pins, which is Pinterest’s version of paid ads.

Promoted Pins are like Facebook ads, and they require that you know about audience targeting, among other things. They’re not difficult, but it takes more than knowing how to create a nice looking pin.

Why would a business hire a Pinterest VA?

Short answer: Pinterest has massive marketing opportunities. People come to Pinterest to find inspiration and ideas, and many of them come with the intention to shop. That marketing opportunity is good for all kinds of business owners.

Let’s look at some Pinterest statistics to help you understand what kind of opportunity is there for business owners:

• Pinterest has over 335 million active users who log in at least once a week. 
• High-income households are twice as likely to use Pinterest as low-income households, according to a study done by the Pew Research Center.
• Shopping is a top priority for 48% of Pinterest users
• Revenue from shopping ads grew by 100% in 2019
• 69% of users turn to Pinterest to help them make spending decisions

What those statistics tell me (and others) is that with the right strategy, a business owner can reach an audience of users who is ready to spend money and has the means to do.

But that’s the thing: many small business owners lack the time or energy it takes to run an effective Pinterest strategy. They need to hire someone who knows how to create eye-catching pins, use Tailwind, run Promoted Pins (Pinterest’s version of paid ads), and be able to work with the Pinterest algorithm.

A business owner can hire someone who has become a Pinterest VA and save time and energy, which for business owners, equals money. The ROI is potentially much higher.

The kinds of clients that need a Pinterest manager

I just explained how valuable a Pinterest VA can be for a business owner, but what kind of business owners?

We take a look at some more Pinterest statistics to get a better idea of what kind of niches and industries really benefit from hiring a Pinterest virtual assistant.

• 72% of Pinterest users are female
• 25-34 year-old women are Pinterest’s largest ad audience
• Promoted pins (paid ads) see a 22% lift in sales if they’re geared towards holidays or special family/life moments, like weddings or vacations
• Home content is one of the most active categories on Pinterest, including home decor, landscaping, gardening, home renovation, and other purchases for the home

That lines up with what Kirstin Larsen, creator of the Become a Pinterest VA course, says about who some of her best clients have been over the years. She’s worked with nail salons, magazines, Etsy sellers, brick and mortar shops, gift box subscription clubs, contractors/vendors, authors, city tourism and travel, furniture makers, children’s toy manufacturers, and churches.

I personally know many bloggers, myself included, who have hired Pinterest managers to help us drive traffic to our sites. For example, I have pins made for each of my articles and then pin them on a schedule to keep my feed fresh. 

Organic traffic (Google searches) is my biggest source of traffic, but I have seen an uptick in traffic since hiring my Pinterest virtual assistant.

What does a Pinterest VA do?

Pinterest virtual assistants are responsible for creating and running a marketing strategy for their client. That involves:

• Designing eye-catching pins
• Promoting pins
• Creating boards
• Maximizing Pinterest’s mart Feed (aka Pinterest SEO)
• Using Tailwind Tribes
• Running Promoted Pins
• Scheduling pins with Tailwind
• Understanding Pinterest analytics and making recommendations

Your exact role will depend on the kind of clients you’re working for. But let’s look at four examples of specific Pinterest VA tasks.

1. Creating Buyable Pins

Buyable Pins, sometimes known as shop-the-look pins, have links attached to different items in the pin, and a user can see the price and literally shop through that pin. If you’re running the Pinterest account for an online or brick-and-mortar boutique, you’d probably be creating Buyable Pins.

2. Creating pins for online content

I mentioned having a Pinterest VA for my blog — it’s a personal finance site called Millennial Money Man. My VA creates pins like these for each of my blog posts, schedule them, updates them if necessary, etc.

Pinterest can be a really good traffic source for bloggers and other online content creators. Having someone to create pins and manage where they go on your site is big.

3. Understanding how to work the Pinterest Smart Feed

Smart Feed is Pinterest’s algorithm, and it’s what ranks pins based on relevance and other markers. In super simple terms, Smart Feed decides what search results pop up. Every single Pinterest VA will have to understand how to use Smart Feed.

Say one of your VA clients sells party decorations. They need their pins optimized with search terms that will ensure their pins rank and then bring traffic to their website. So when a Pinterest user searches “2nd birthday party ideas for toddlers,” your client’s pin will show up.

Smart Feed looks at factors, like the pin’s title and description, to decide on relevancy. You can read the description in the pin below and see search terms like “2nd birthday party ideas for toddlers,” “how to plan for a 2nd birthday party,” and “2nd birthday party themes.”  

4. Knows and follows Pinterest’s rules

Technology is notoriously fluid. Platforms change algorithms and policies, and they add and cancel different features. A good Pinterest VA is going to stay up-to-date on those changes and always follows the rules.

Pinterest VAs know how to disclose relationships with brands, they know not to do anything that shortens or masks affiliate links, they understand how to target audiences in ways that aren’t insensitive, etc. 

Pinterest has made lots of changes over the years, and you have to stay on top of things if you want your client’s business to succeed despite the changes. 

One example is how Pinterest has felt about Amazon affiliate links. Pinterest allowed them, then didn’t, then allowed them again, and now it’s unclear. Okay, as of 2021, they’re allowed for EU affiliates, but it’s hazy for U.S. affiliates.

A Pinterest VA will keep track of those back and forth changes so their clients aren’t violating rules that can potentially get them kicked off the site. 

I know this isn’t as exciting as creating pins, but it’s really important stuff.

Read Pinterest Jobs: Turning Your Passion for Pinning for Profit for even more Pinterest job ideas.

How to become a Pinterest VA

Becoming a Pinterest virtual assistant can be a really fun side hustle if you’re familiar with the platform and like using Pinterest. It’s not spending your day pinning, but it’s still an exciting platform to work on.

The easiest way to get started is to check out Kirstin Larsen’s course, Become a Pinterest VA Today. Her course walks you through everything you need to know to make an extra $1,000-$2,000/month as a Pinterest VA. It’s a comprehensive course that teaches you:

• Pinterest best practices: These are new rules and guidelines you need to know to keep your clients in good standing
• Pinterest basics: Lots of tech training that covers existing and new features
• Prepping client accounts: This is the process of onboarding clients, and it teaches you an efficient system of getting your client prepped so you can get to work
• Maximizing Smart Feed: Learn what Pinterest SEO looks for and how to optimize your client’s account and pins
• Pin design: This covers everything from creating eye-catching pins using Canva to learning how to implement Pinterest SEO in your pins
• How your clients can capitalize their Pinterest traffic: This is making sure you’ve created a strong strategy to bring in traffic and revenues

The course also includes tech training and covers high-skill topics like how to run Promoted Pins. There are also bonuses, like invoice templates and a guided workbook. 

You can learn more about the course in our full review of it here.

The final word on how to become a Pinterest VA

If you like Pinterest and want to make an extra $500-$2,000 per month, working as a Pinterest manager is an ideal side hustle. It’s super flexible, you can work from home, and you make pretty decent money.

This article introduced you to one of the best ways, IMHO, to get started: The Become a Pinterest VA Today Course.

The alternative to the course is learning how to do it all on your own, which you can totally do. Basically all of those services I mentioned in the previous section are things you can research and find online. 

There are articles, how-to guides, YouTube videos, ebooks, etc. The internet is full of instructional material.

My biggest recommendation is to pay attention to when the content was created. If it’s outdated, even by just a year, it might no longer apply. Next to having everything in one place, another serious perk of the course is that it’s updated regularly and comes with lifetime access to all of those updates.