This may have conjured up several questions and perhaps a little doubt about why all of these people are singing the praises of Pinterest and how can one social media site bring them so many readers.
(This post includes affiliate links. Should you click an affiliate link and make a purchase I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you.)
The reason is Pinterest isn’t a social network. (Gasp!) That’s right. Pinterest is way beyond that. Pinterest is actually a visual search engine. In fact, Evan Sharp, co-founder, and chief product officer at Pinterest, recently told Business Insider that they see Pinterest as a search engine and not a social network.
As of June 2021, over 433 million people use Pinterest every month. That’s a lot of people. And these people are searching Pinterest regularly for inspiration and ways to solve problems. That means tutorials and product reviews are very popular. Plus, over the last few years, Pinterest has added more ways for people to shop via Pinterest meaning there is money for us bloggers to make via Pinterest.
Ok, so enough about how good Pinterest can be for your blog or online business. You probably want to know how you can, as they say, harness the power of Pinterest.
1. Get a business account
First off, if you haven’t already you need to have a Business Account on Pinterest. The benefit of a business vs. a personal account is that you can have branded or rich pins, and you get access to analytics so you can see how your profile is performing. See how you can get rich pins by reading my blog post Why You Need Rich Pins On Pinterest And How To Get Them.2. Write an awesome profile description
Your profile description is made up of your display name and bio.Display name: This is the first thing people see when they visit your Pinterest profile. Mostly because of the size of it. It's recommended that you use the name of your blog or what you use on your social channels to create continuity and also make it easier for your followers to search for you.
Bio: This is the text that sits underneath your display name. This is where you get to sell yourself and let people know what you offer so they know why they should follow you and pay attention to your pins. This is a great place to integrate keywords related to the topics you'll be pinning.
Below is my display name and bio. You can see that I integrated keywords into both and included a call to action to visit my blog in my bio.
3. Create attractive boards
You want to have more than a handful of boards, believe me. So when creating your boards think about how they relate to your blog or online business and if your audience would be interested in them.For example, if you sell pet supplies online having boards about makeup and skincare doesn’t make a lot of sense. But having boards about dog beds and pet food do.
If you look, all of my boards are related, admittedly some more loosely than others, to my blog topics of relaxed hair, beauty, blogging, and personal finance. This way people know what they are getting when they follow me or my boards.
4. Follow people similar to you
Before you even start pinning your own content, I recommend you start following other pinners who pin content similar to yours.This provides you with pins other than your own that you can add to your boards. While Pinterest is a great way to expose your content, you don’t want it to be all about you. Pinning just your own content looks selfish. (Yep, I said it.) It also gives you enough pins to spread throughout the day and make your boards more interesting.
I’ve seen many Pinterest tips touting an 80/20 rule or 50/50 rule for how many pins should be yours and someone else's. I used to try to stick to those rules, but since I stopped paying attention to them, pinning is less stressful and I’m also seeing more of my pins perform better than before.
As icing on the cake, when you follow a fellow blogger sometimes they follow you back.
5. Design multiple eye-catching pin templates
Yes, you need multiple pin designs. No one wants to see the exact same pin from you over and over. I don’t even want to see my pins over and over.Currently, I have 10 different pin designs. Each design has a couple of variations using different placements for the design elements.
By having these different designs I can make multiple pins for each of my posts. With each pin, I use a different headline giving Pinterest searchers different opportunities to find and be drawn to my posts.
I use Canva which is a free online design software to create my pin designs but there are other options such as Photoshop that you could use as well.
One other thing to think about when creating your pin templates is to make sure they are long. When I say long I say long that should be at least the following dimensions
The reason you need long pins is that 80% of pinners use the Pinterest app, so they are browsing throughout the day on their phones. This makes having long pins even more important. The longer your pin is, the less likely it will get lost in the mobile feed.
6. Have a Pinterest-friendly blog
You can’t do well and win on Pinterest if no one is pinning your content. You can’t and shouldn’t be solely responsible for adding your content to Pinterest. Your readers should be sharing and pinning as well.If you want your readers to pin your content for you, you have to give them a reason to and make it easy for them to do it. A couple of quick ways to do this include using long images in posts and adding a pin it button to your images.
There are some additional things you can do that you can read about in my post about how to make your blog Pinterest friendly.
7. Choose and use a scheduling tool
Manually pinning can be fun, but it can also be time-consuming. It can also be hard if you have a full-time job and can only fit your pinning in when you first wake up, during lunch, and right before you go to bed.I don’t have time to spend pinning all day so I typically use a tool to help me pin throughout the day
Pinterest scheduling tools I have used and liked are:
Tailwind: They are an official Pinterest scheduling tool so you don’t have to worry about Pinterest deciding to block them from pinning for you. Tailwind is easy to use because of its many great features.
- Smart scheduling
- Multiple ways to post
- Batch upload
- Analytics
- And more
Planoly: They are another official Pinterest Partner that focuses on the visualization of your content strategy and content. Planoly features include
- Multiple ways to post
- Bulk uploads
- Metrics
- Integrations with Dropbox and Google Drive
You can learn more about Planoly and sign up for it by using my affiliate link.
Related read: How to Easily Boost Your Traffic with Pinterest
8. Join group boards
Put simply group boards are Pinterest boards that multiple people pin to. The magic of group boards is that it gives you the potential to have your pins seen by a lot of people. Sometimes thousands.Because utilizing group boards gives you a larger audience it can help your pins go viral, and drive more clicks and readers to your blog or online business.
The downside of group boards is finding them. I’ve been able to find group boards by Googling “Pinterest group boards," searching for group boards on Pinterest, and looking at the profiles of the people I follow to see which group boards they pin to and follow.
9. Join Tailwind Tribes
Whether you’re a Tailwind subscriber or not, you can join Tailwind Tribes. They are sort of like group boards, only they are hosted within Tailwind. This is a new feature that Tailwind has been testing.Here's how Tailwind Tribes works. Members of the Tribe add their related pins to the Tribe queue. Each member is then free to post those pins to their own boards.
This is a great way to amplify your audience on Pinterest and get your pins in front of more people. In one of the Tribes that I’m a part of I’ve seen a reach of over 663,000 (reach is the potential number of impressions/people who’ve seen my pins from reshares).
Tailwind Tribes can also be an unscientific way to see what pin designs and headline types work best.
The downside to Tailwind Tribes is you can’t just join a tribe, you have to get an invite. I found the tribes I’m a part of by searching for Tailwind Tribes that are for my blog topics. But if you're interested in joining a skincare and makeup tribe, you're welcome to request an invite to my tribe. It's called Beauty: Skincare and Makeup
You can get started today by signing up for Pinterest here and signing up for a free trial with Tailwind.
Great article with actionable steps! I've tried many of these on my Pinterest profile and they definitely work (slowly but surely)!
ReplyDeleteGlad you've been seeing success with Pinterest Andrew! It was a slow build for me as well, until one day my Pinterest profile just took off. Have you joined any good Tailwind Tribes?
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