KICKSTART YOUR PINTEREST WITH THE GAME CHANGING STRATEGY
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Pinterest. A blogger’s holy grail. Let’s talk about WHY Pinterest is so important. There are over 250 million monthly Pinterest users—that’s a lot of potential traffic to your blog, and that’s exposure you do not want to miss out on. If you’re anything like me, you check Pinterest before even Google and others are doing the same. The lifespan of a Pin is much longer than any other platform as well. Meaning, the length of time your pin can stay in top circulation is much longer than, for example, than landing on the Instagram explorer page.
If you’re looking to tap into Pinterst marketing, make sure you set up a business account & remember that Pinterest is VISUAL. Focus on attractive and clean graphics to go along with your blog post. Just switch places with your audience. What type of graphics make you want to click, re-pin or download a pin? My favorite easy and creative way to design my Pins is through Canva.
Tip: Canva Pro is worth every penny, so when you’re budgeting for your business, keep this one in mind!
Now, let’s dig deeper. Much, much deeper.
First of all. Let’s remember that numbers don’t lie. 250 MILLION users month, you say? Here are some more incredible facts.
79% are female
58% use Pinterest on a tablet
88% purchase a product they pinned
49% purchased 5 or more products they pinned
Are you here as a female blogger or entrepreneur or looking to capture the attention of this demographic? Then this resource is well worth your time and attention. Call it— Professional Development! If your iced coffee mocha is ready to go, let’s get started!
First, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Those 10 year old pin boards, your outdated profile picture, your college tattoo dreams, and your cover photo that doesn’t match—blah! We’ve mentioned it before, Pinterest is a visual platform and requires you to channel your inner graphic designer and brand representative! You, by no means, need to be an expert, but you do want to invest the time and energy into learning new skills that will help your platform grow!
Maybe you’re not this pot committed— but when I was ready to take my Pinterest seriously, I started from scratch. That might not be the best fit for everyone and definitely not always necessary. For me though, it’s the fresh start I wanted and needed. I started a fresh new business account and dove deep into learning everything I could about Pinterest marketing. Lucky you, it’s all right here! Within 3 weeks— I was up to 80K Monthly visitors and growing. Fresh boards, niche specific and I focus my pins on searchable, aesthetically pleasing graphics and photos. These are stats from a 3 week-old business profile.
When I finally realigned my visual aesthetics, and I coupled that with my SEO keywords strategies— the difference was made!
What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization
In case you didn’t know, Pinterst is not a social media platform. Pinterst is a SEARCH ENGINE—And an incredibly powerful one, at that. It gives us the opportunity to find just about anything we’ve ever wanted. It’s a creative’s secret Google and I need you to understand how crucial it is that you learn to treat it like a Search Engine. That means several different things.
It’s crazy, if you take a closer look into the way the Pinterest platform is set up—they tell you everything you need to know. Using Key Search Engine Words is going to be the difference being noticed and not getting the views you’re looking for. Pinterst even tells you, in plain sight, exactly what the average users are searching for specifically in your niche.
This can now help you get ideas for what key words and phrases are most searched and you can begin using those in your Blog titles, Pin titles and pin descriptions. If your blog is in the ‘Plant Based Living’ niche, you can already see that viewers are interested in learning about plant based recipes, meals and diets.
Tip: When researching new blog ideas and looking for inspiration— hop on Pinterest first and check out some popularly searched topics within your niche. This can help guide you to what readers in your niche are most looking for and reading about! Then, of course, think outside the box and make it your own. How will you content differ from the others?
The whole point here is exposure (If you own my Growth & Engagement E-Book, you know how much I love this word)— and the best way for the best exposure is making sure you’re using these keywords in your Titles and Descriptions.
Notice that the words I am using both in the title and in the description are detailed and searchable. I also want my title to be unique enough that it can vary from Pin to Pin (I’ll cover this next…) and my description paragraph is in full sentences not bullet points. How you can best relate to your audience? Giving full, meaty descriptions will boost your SEO Keywords and promote the likelihood that your pin will turn into a “link click”.
You want your Titles to focus on Short tail keywords—they have a high search volume and bring lots of traffic, they have high competition (meaning lots of people are using these keywords in their SEO efforts) and are hard to rank high for, but are most searchable. Long tail keywords, on the contrary, consist of 3 or more words, are specific and much more targeted, allowing for better niche searches. Long tail keywords, should be full and descriptive for your pin descriptions.
Are you spinning your wheels about how you can possibly pin weekly, even daily when you’re only cranking our 3-4 blog posts a month? I get it, you're not alone here. Here are some important tricks to help you come up with consistent pins for exposure.
Many different graphics for the same post— This is pretty self-explanatory. You want to make sure that you are appealing to different readers who’s eyes and interests catch different types of graphics.
Tip: You want to also test out two or three different titles for the same blog post.
What kind of graphics, you ask?
Target a different audience
Pose a question
A full infographic with blog bullet points
Graphic with a specific quote from the content
Title with a different stock photos
Same design, different title
A Pin A Day
Fresh. Fresh. Fresh. Think about it this way. On Instagram, a single post lives and breathes for a short 24 hour time period. On Pinterest though, the life of a pin can be anywhere between 3 to 6 months, giving you extensive exposure. The platform identifies fresh pins and compares it to how it’s performing with your followers.
“What is a “Fresh” Pin exactly? Fresh Pins are defined by Pinterest as images or videos that they haven't seen before. You can create several images that link to the same blog post, page, or product listing, and each of those would be fresh when saved to Pinterest for the first time.”
Fact: Pinterest’s algorithm shows the best, fresh pins first, based on engagement— not chronological order.
Old time Pinterest rules used to tell us that we should pin 80% stranger content and 20% owned content… This is crazy! The idea of using Pinterest as a search engine and leading viewers to your blog, website, and content— is about you. Great. Re-Pin to your hearts desire. However, do not be shy about filling your boards with your own personal fresh pins on a daily basis.
Produce Evergreen Content
This means you want to produce content that can be reliable and relatable to stand the test of time. Tips, tricks, How-To’s, personal stories are all evergreen content that won’t go out of style. This is how we can keep resurfacing content to creative fresh pins for.
Pin For The Seasons
It’s no surprise that the biggest reasons for using Pinterest is to search for things we need or looking for inspiration. Holidays, weather seasons, etc… Create evergreen content that can be shared consistently throughout the seasons.
Relevant Boards
So, you joined a bunch of Pinterest Groups boards but not sure where to start. The best advice I can give you is to make sure you are joining very NICHE specific boards. The more narrowed, the better. Share your content with others in your same field to help attract the right audience back to your blog.
Tip: Tailwind tribes are also a great form of exposure.
What is my motivation?
How am I creating content that makes my viewers want to keep coming back?
How am I pushing myself outside of my comfort zone in order to benefit my business?
Am I creating a platform where I am an expert in my niche?
Am I here to solve a problem?
Am I providing actual resources that my viewers can take away from?
What is a “secret board”?
Only you (and anyone you invite) can see your secret boards. Secret Pins and boards won’t appear in your home feed, in search, or anywhere else around Pinterest. If you want to make a new secret board, create a board and toggle "Secret" when you name the board.
How Can I Re-Arrnge my boards?
Arrange your boards on your profile in a way that works for you. Sort them automatically or drag and drop them to sort by hand on web.
Sort boards automatically
From Pinterest, open your profile
Click Boards to see your boards
To open the board sorting menu, click
Last saved to will sort your boards to show your most recent saves first
A to Z will sort your boards alphabetically
Newest will sort by the date the board was created, showing the newest board first
Oldest will sort by the date the board was created, showing the oldest board first
Sort boards by hand
From Pinterest, open your profile
Click Boards to see your boards
Click on a board and drag it to a white space between two other boards (any boards around it will shift to make room)
What is Tailwind
Tailwind is the social media scheduling tool that allows you to schedule posts for platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. It’s wildly popular with bloggers because it allows you to pre-schedule weekly, even monthly pins in just a couple of hours of work. You can try Tailwind for FREE for your first 100 Pins. Yearly account is about $120/yr or $15.00 a month.
How do I add a business profile to my existing Pinterest account?
Log in to your personal Pinterest account and click in the top right corner.
Click Add a free business profile.
Follow the prompts to create your business account
Choose at least 1 topic that describes your business.
So, how many pins should I be posting a day?
Varying answers for this questions, but here is what works perfect for me. My strategy includes 1-2 FRESH personal pins a DAY and around 15+ pins to relative boards that interest me. My main focus, however, is always posting my own FRESH pins and keeping track of my analytics and how my pins are doing based on graphic types and keywords used.
There you have it, bestie. You know me— I could go on forever, but I am hoping this sets you on the right path and helps jumpstart your Pinterest journey!
Do you have any other strategies that work for you that weren’t mentioned? I am always open to learning from you.
Needing a little guidance to get your brand off the ground or help with a slump? Private coaching could be the perfect option for you. Spending some time working with me one-on-one will help elevate your strategies to the next level. Perhaps you are starting from scratch, needing serious help with content planning, blog post ideas, feed aesthetics or figuring out how to collaborate and negotiate with brands. Maybe you are just looking for someone to keep you accountable for your goals and learn the best ways to keep your audience engaged. Whatever is on the dock for you and your business— a solid sales and creative strategy will help you with the long term knowledge + boost you are looking for.
Until next time!