Even with the constant algorithmic updates that Instagram roll out, Pinterest still remains one of the most misunderstood social media platforms that there is. There is still a large proportion that believe it is only for pinning home inspo ideas, and the rest that post a few times, see no growth so move on and say the platform isn’t for them.
Firstly, let’s get this straight. Pinterest is NOT social media, it is a visual search engine that is highly powerful and works from keyword search. People flock to Pinterest for ideas, what to do next, how to do things next, what to wear and how to dress their home. It is a platform of ideas, and it is an absolute essential marketing platform for retail, interior design, real estate, architecture and art businesses.
As I mentioned at the start, Pinterest is misunderstood, and how you might post on Instagram, won’t work on Pinterest.
If you’re logging into your Pinterest business account and expecting to see miraculous results from pinning a couple of times a week, once a month, then you’re going to want to keep reading to see how you can harness your Pinterest marketing strategy for business in 2022.
Why Your Pinterest Account Is Not Growing
There can be a number of reasons why your Pinterest account is not actively growing, but the main reason is the lack of consistency, and original, fresh pins that you are pushing out each week. The perfect pinning strategy to achieve growth is 5-10 fresh static pins a day, and a minimum of 1 idea pin a week. Pinterest VALUES consistency and original content.
I hear ‘Pinterest never worked for me’ and ‘I’ve tried it but just can’t get any growth’ on a regular basis, and when you learn of their pinning strategy, it’s usually because they post a bulk load of pins and then don’t touch it for months.
In terms of ‘social’ platforms, they all need consistency and original content, but Pinterest does need that little bit of extra legwork at the beginning. I would actually compare Pinterest marketing more closely to SEO. It’s a long term game and one that takes 3-6 months of solid work before you can start reaping the results of passive traffic and impressions from pins that have been knocking around for a few months. Instagram could NEVER.
Perhaps the beauty of Pinterest as a whole is that pins stay active forever, as they are classed as evergreen they are continually gaining impressions, attracting traffic and followers for months, and years to come. Whereas an Instagram post maxes out its visibility at 48 hours before it disappears from your followers feeds forever (24 hours for an Instagram story).
So, we know why your Pinterest account is probably not growing. But let’s break it down into the perfect Pinterest marketing strategy for 2023, that works.
How Do I Increase Pinterest Growth
Get A Business Account
The first step to getting your account on the right tracks is switching it to a Pinterest business account, if you haven’t already done so. This will allow you to claim your website, and get unique analytical data for your account. As well as having the option to run paid catalogue and campaign ads for your business in the future.
A Pinterest Business account is totally FREE, as are all of the unique features that will help you to better understand your audience, what pins are performing well and how you can attract more prospective customers to your page to engage with your pins, and website.
Understand Your Target Audience
If you have a business, brand or blog, you probably have some idea what your ideal target audience is. With data such as Google Analytics you might already have a comprehensive outline of what that looks like. But with a Pinterest business account you will get a full breakdown of gender, age and % of users from each individual category on Pinterest. This is super helpful for crafting your pins, but also knowing who to target your paid advertising at, helping to make your pins reach the right people, at the right time, and helping them to convert.
You Need A Minimum of 25 Boards
If you only have one board on Pinterest with 5 pins inside, what value are you really offering anyone who would want to follow you? As a general rule of thumb, a minimum of 25 boards with 10+ pins (the more the better over time) gives your followers something to follow you for. However, in recent years I have found that focusing on just a few core boards is a better way to achieve growth as Pinterest quickly learns what type of content you post.
Ensure that each board is relevant to your business, if you have an interiors business, don’t start creating boards on seasonal fashion. Keep your boards highly relevant, and within your niche so you keep your current followers engaged, and so they know what to expect from you.
Fresh, Unique Pins 5-10 A Day
Now, THIS is one of the most important aspects of creating growth on Pinterest. Pinterest values consistency and fresh pins. This means pins that you have created, and ones that don’t already exist on Pinterest. Re-pinning other peoples content won’t do anything, your personal account is what can be used for that.
You might be thinking 5-10 A DAY?! But let’s break it down. Firstly, all pins can be batch scheduled, either from within Pinterest (you can schedule up to 100 at a time) or in Tailwind which is a dedicated Pinterest scheduling tool.
Secondly, if you have a blog that you are sharing to Pinterest, you can share it 4 times with different templates over a period of time, whilst it points to the same URL, they are still considered FRESH pins by Pinterest and they are all unique. That’s a day’s worth of content done already. You can also repin existing pins to other boards you have, every time you do this it is also considered a fresh pin.
Pinterest is a content machine, so you need to be able to have the amount of imagery and content required to keep feeding it and staying consistent. There is ongoing speculation about how much you should share a day, some people will say 2, some will say 40 – we have found 10 pins per day, 7 days a week has achieved astronomical growth. See below the results from a client in the interiors niche, we took them from 1k-30k+ outbound clicks in 3 months with this strategy.
Utilise Idea Pins
Idea pins used to be one of the fastest ways to gain immediate pin impressions, as they get sent straight to the top of your followers feeds (similar to Instagram stories), this has now been phased out. But, the best bit? Idea pins remain on your profile forever, they never decay, and they continue to amass impressions, traffic, likes and followers over time. Pretty neat, right?
Idea Pins can also be discovered by search, so as long as you target the right keywords you’re set for a winner. The more followers you get over time, the more people that will see your idea pins too. Idea pins are still considered relatively new on Pinterest and Pinterest is valuing those that are continually using them as part of their strategy. You can use static images or video on them.
Optimise Titles & Descriptions With Keywords
Pinterest is SEO. Remember you are writing pin titles and descriptions for a visual search engine. If you are sharing a product from a website, don’t use the direct product title, no one is searching for it! Using the Pinterest search box to look for relative keyword combinations is the fastest way to do this, and it’s FREE.
Once you have found your keywords write them into your pin titles and descriptions and make sure you max out all of the characters that are available to really maximise the opportunity of your pins getting found. Never use hashtags, this is not Instagram, just focus on crafting descriptions that are keyword optimised and make sense.
Use Pinterest Predicts & Trending Topics To Create Viral Pins
Using Pinterest predicts and trending topics WILL help you to create viral pins. It worked for my personal blog Pinterest account where I experimented and grew my account to 1 million impressions in the space of 2 weeks. When a pin goes viral on Pinterest, the results are incredible. Proof in the pudding below.
Pinterest predicts is the not yet trending search terms on Pinterest. These are usually released on a webinar and then online to the public a couple of months before the end of the year. My best advice? Go to town on every single Pinterest predicts that is relevant to your business and do it straight away. As Pinterest says, they’re not yet trending but when it does, you’ll have the presence and history of the pin to start appearing at the top of those searches. Pinterest is almost always spot on with the predictions too.
Pinterest Trends is the equivalent to google trends and it’s a great way to search topics relative to your business to see when and if the searches for them ever peak. You can also see what topics are trending for that week, and by category level.
I only ever really learnt the importance of ‘Christmas In July‘ a couple of years ago. You need to be writing content about topics at least 2 months before searches for them lift off. Christmas searches start trending in September, if you don’t start writing about it until December, well you’re better off not bothering. BEAT the curve and you will experience phenomenal growth. It’s all in the pre-planning!
Become A Verified Merchant – Connect Your Product Catalogue
If you have an e-commerce business on Pinterest and you do not have your product feed connected, shut the front door. You are missing out on essentially FREE google shopping opportunities on Pinterest, that’s what I call it. There’s a number of reasons why you need to connect your product catalogue;
- You’ll become a verified merchant with a tick next to your profile. This promotes trust, and that your business is credible on Pinterest.
- A product feed means that you have the option to run catalogue ads, this is like google shopping ads that pop up in your Pinterest feed. They convert REALLY well.
- Shoppable surfaces. Have you ever spotted something on Pinterest, say a plant pot on a photo and you just LOVE it. You click on the link and it’s got nothing to do with a plant pot and you can’t find anything similar? Well, shoppable surfaces may just change your life, and your businesses. In this case you would select the tag on the bottom right of the image (see below) this then expands what item you want to look closer at. Upon doing so Pinterest then calls on its entire directory of product feeds to match the image to similar products. IT IS GENIUS. It is perhaps the best feature on any social platform, or google. When your brand appears in this way, it is a FREE placement. It is literally free google shopping ads. Who knows if this will always be free, google shopping once used to be, but for now…. Get your product feed connected ASAP and start noticing your Pinterest growth rise dramatically.
If you have any questions about Pinterest marketing or need any help getting your product feed connected please get in touch. We are Pinterest marketing strategists based in Devon, UK, serving across the world. Pinterest is the one platform everyone wishes they knew about sooner, jump onto this platform whilst uptake is still not where it could be and start growing your e-commerce business to new heights, organically. We have a shed load of other tips on growing your Pinterest organic traffic that I’d recommend heading over to next.
If you liked this post, you might also enjoy reading about Pinterest Idea Pins and how you can harness the potential for your business. Happy pinning!
