
Who here has spent HOURS on Pinterest, pinning your heart out, only to see little to ZERO results? Why isn’t the traffic going to your site? How are these influencers getting hundreds of thousands, or even millions of views? WHY AM I EVEN DOING THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Girl, I’ve SO been there. It took me YEARS of research and experimentation to finally discover what really makes Pinterest marketing work, and even more importantly, I discovered the Pinterest marketing MISTAKES I was making that were preventing me from having success.
If you’re struggling to grow thorugh your pinterest marketing strategy, you might be making one of these mistakes! But the good news is, YOU CAN FIX IT! You’ve totally got this! And I’m going to lay it all out here for you so you can slay your goals.
Here are the pinterest marketing mistakes you might be making, and how you can turn them around into successful parts of your strategy.
Mistake 1: You’re putting too much focus on gaining new followers
Believe it or not, followers do NOT matter on Pinterest the way that they do on other social media platforms, because technically Pinterest isn’t social media… it’s a search engine! Pinterest’s algorithm will only show your pins to a handful of followers anyway, and while increasing the number of followers you have will certainly increase the number of people that see your pins to some extent, it’s really quite limited still.
If you really want your pins to be seen, then stop focusing your energy and time on building followers and instead, start using that energy and time to really NAIL your SEO strategy. Having strong SEO on your pins is going to help you to be seen in more searches, repinned by more users, and improve your site traffic. You don’t need a single follower to have your pins seen and clicked on!
Mistake 2: You’re not re-pinning your old content
When I first started using Pinterest, I would pin my content ONE TIME. And then I waited for the traffic to roll on in.
Ahem. FAIL.
Don’t make my mistake! You CAN and SHOULD be pinning your content multiple times! You can pin the same content to multiple boards, or go back and re-pin older pins again so they stay top-of-feed for other people. You can also create multiple pins for the same piece of content.
You can create new pin images with similar (but different) titles and new images, and create fresh new pins for all of your content, new and old. This is a really great trick to help your content go viral. If you have a piece you’re proud of or that seems to perform really well, then keep making new pins for it and adding them to Pinterest!
I have a few articles personally that consistently bring me traffic, so I create several new pins for each of them on a monthly basis and pin them.
Mistake 3: You don’t have your account set up the right way
The best advice I’ve ever gotten is that if you want to be a business, then ACT LIKE A BUSINESS. So first things first, don’t use a personal account for your business when it comes to Pinterest. When you switch your account to a business account in Settings, you’ll have access to a bunch of features like Analytics that are really going to help you use Pinterest to grow your brand awareness and business profits.
Once you’ve set up your account for a business, you’ll want to claim your website and activate rich pins. These are both tools that will help you grow as a business on Pinterest.
Finally, you will want to optimize your account by strategically using keywords in both your Pinterest name and bio, and by branding your account so it has a consistent look and feel!
Mistake 4: You’re not using a scheduler to stay consistent
The real key to success on Pinterest is consistency. I know everyone says that, but there’s a reason for it. What they don’t say however, is what “consistency” means. If you’re adding a couple of pins every week, technically that’s “consistent,” but it’s not likely to be enough to really explode your site traffic and help with the growth of your business.
What you need to do is be pinning multiple times a day, every single day, and if possible to be pinning at times when your audience is most available. That might be easy enough for some people but it eats up a lot of time and I don’t know about you, but I’m BUSY. Ain’t nobody got time to be spending the entire day hovering Pinterest to create pins at the right time 24/7, 365!
Enter Tailwind. I know, I know, if you follow me on instagram you’re SICK of hearing about Tailwind by now, but I can’t praise the platform enough! It’s absolutely such a time-saver and I attribute so much of my success on Pinterest to Tailwind! Recently, I wrote a post about how I get over 8 million monthly views, and I talked a lot about how Tailwind is a major factor in that success!
So what exactly IS Tailwind? In plain and simple terms, it’s a pin scheduler! Basically once a week, I sit down and create a bunch of pins and add new re-pins to my Tailwind schedule, and then it automatically pins them at my most optimal times every day!
I can adjust how many pins I want to pin in a day and if I want specific times, and it does all of the work for me. Instead of spending 8-10 hours every week pinning content to try and stay consistent, I spend one hour and get all of my work done for the entire week. It’s a total game-changer, and totally worth every penny! Plans start at about $10 a month (if you pay for a year) or $15 month to month, and you can cancel any time. It’s an incredible resource for growing your brand using pinterest and hands down,l one of my most important tools I use for my business.
Mistake 5: You’re not doing any keyword research
Understanding how keywords work and what makes something a “keyword” can be tricky, especially if you’re not super familiar with marketing. Keywords are basically the main word that someone will search for to find your article, so nailing this process is vital to the success of your pins.
A lot of times, I’ve seen people use traditional keywords that are searched all the time. For example, “hairstyles” is a keyword that is widely used, but it is massively overarched so if you’re using a keyword like that, your content is going to get buried. Instead, you want to focus on more niche and specific keywords, and even long-tail keywords, to help your pins stand out in search results.
You will want to use keywords in your pin titles and pin descriptions to help improve the chances of being seen and clicked on. To come up with the keywords you use, you should do some keyword research! I love to use keyword tools, like Neil Patel’s Uber suggest or keywordtool.io to see what is trending, how frequently the keywords have been searched, etc.
Then I make a list of the keywords I feel are strong and I’ll include them in my pin as it gets uploaded.
Another great way to research keywords is by using the Pinterest search engine! I’ll type in a related keyword to search it, and then Pinterest will pop up a bunch of suggestions that are related. Those suggestions are great examples of some keywords you can use.
Mistake 6: You’re not planning your pins according to season
Pinterest is like a massive central list for people to come together and share ideas, and a huge number of those ideas are related to seasonal themes! If you plan out your content just a tiny bit so that you’re pinning seasonal content during the right times, you’re pins are going to be wildly more successful.
For example, if you have some Valentine’s Day content, you can start creating pins about 4-6 weeks prior to the holiday to help it get the most visibility possible. If you only pin it the week before, you’re not going to have as many viewers because by the time the holiday comes, the Pinterest audience is moving on to the next thing and is no longer interested.
When you are creating content for your blog or to pin, think in relation to how much time you want your pin to circulate through the season, and plan around that.
Mistake 7: You’re not optimizing your pins to help conversion
It’s one thing to have pins that get seen by millions of people on Pinterest. While it’s certainly nice, it really doesn’t matter unless you have pins that CONVERT.
In plain and simple terms, that means that people are clicking on your pin all the way through to reach your website. Who cares if the pin gets seen in a pinterest feed if no one clicks on it to read the article you wrote? The point here is that you definitely want to make your pins converting pins!
I remember the very first pin I created that actually went viral and comparing it to my other pins. I noticed it had a few more things that my “regular” pins didn’t have. For example, I had taken a lot of time to create a strong, beautiful, attention grabbing design and I had used an attention grabbing header. I also used several keywords in the title AND in the pin description, and at the end, I included a call-to-action to tell people to click to read the full article.
Previously, I hadn’t done really any of those things on my pins, but I’d read some tips online and decided to give it a go on this pin, and bam! Viral pin.
What I learned very quickly is that the amount of effort you put into creating a pin with a strong design and alluring title is going to help optimize your chance of conversion. More people will see it, and actually click through to read.
If you’re currently just clicking the pin button on your website to pin your content… STOP. Take a few extra minutes when you pin your own content to add the elements that will help it be a converting pin! If you want to learn more about creating pins that convert, I have a very affordable, easy-to-follow pinterest e-course that you can find here!
Mistake 8: You’re not pinning your own pins enough
I mentioned earlier that I used to pin my blog posts once, and then I’d wait around and hope some traffic would roll in.
Do not repeat my mistakes I beg you, hahaha!
When you have a blog post you’re ready to pin, create a really great pin image, strong title and description, and pin it to your board. Then pin it to other boards and any group boards where it might be relevant.
Then come back next week and create a new pin image for the same article and do it all over again! You can pin your content AS MANY TIMES AS YOU WANT! And guess what- you really SHOULD be doing that to help keep your content active. The more times you add it in a pin onto pinterest, the more likely you are to get seen- especially if you are using new imagery and new descriptions and keywords each time because you’ll reach a broader audience!
There is a lot of grey area and debate about how much you should really be pinning your own content. I’ve seen people say only pin 1 of your own pins for every 10 pins that you do, and I’ve seen others say that 70-80% of your pins should be your own content.
Personally, I’ve had amazing success following a 4/5 rule, meaning I pin 4 pins that are other people’s content for every one of my own. Sometimes I will do more like 3/4 instead of 4/5, but that’s always about the ratio I maintain.
I find that sticking to this really helps grow my account because people are interested in the content I’m pinning and I’m not being too spammy with my own stuff, so they’re more likely to follow me. However, I’m still pinning enough of my own content that it’s driving traffic to my blog.
I recommend that regularly you go through your blog posts and determine which pieces are performing the best, and creating new pins for all of your top performers. I also create new pins regularly for whatever my several most recent posts are. This way, I always have new pins to post on Pinterest so my feed still feels fresh, and not like I am just repining old stuff. 🙂
I hope identifying these mistakes will help you to develop and build your Pinterest strategy and that you start seeing some major growth! If you’re serious about growing your business using Pinterest, you can find my super affordable, easy Pinterest e-course here!
XX Sunny
[…] Interested in more Pinterest tips? Check out this post with 9 tips to transform your Pinterest strategy, or this post about some huge Pinterest marketing mistakes that might be sabotaging your growth and how to avoid them. […]