How I Grew My Pinterest to 500k Monthly Viewers In Under Six Months
Last week something amazing happened, I hit 500,000 monthly Pinterest viewers! I have been blogging for under 6 months so this was a really exciting milestone for me. Pinterest for new bloggers is a must and I have really reaped the benefits of this awesome social medial site.
When I hit that 500k number I went on Instagram to talk about the milestone and got SO MANY RESPONSES! I get a lot of ideas for blog content off Instagram responses and direct messages so I knew that I needed to dedicate a blog post to this topic. Usually, my Instagram audience is excited about my lipstick color or the food I am cooking so this subject matter was an exciting new blog topic.
Lets Rewind.
When I first started blogging I thought well I know Instagram, that’s easy, but Pinterest is going to be tricky and really its been the complete opposite experience. The big difference between Pinterest and Instagram is Pinterest rewards you for your efforts and well Instagram, not so much. The Instagram algorithm and tricks of the app change at a much more rapid speed than Pinterest does, making Instagram tricky to keep up with. To be completely honest, when I first started blogging I thought Instagram would be the only social platform I would use to market my blog.
I have based my career in the B2B marketing world so I have a pretty good understanding of SEO and using social media to generate leads, what I have never used in a professional setting, Pinterest. Prior to blogging, I used Pinterest maybe once every 3 months. I got married just over a year ago, I had a very unique wedding so even for wedding plannng, Pinterest was not a tool that I used.
At this point in my blogging career, about 75% of my monthly blog views come from Pinterest. It is a necessary blogging tool and I am here to help you use it better. I’m going to be so transparent here, Instagram does not equal blog views for me. I have done some awesome networking and have amazing interactions on Instagram but that still doesn’t equal blog views for me. I currently have 4500 Instagram followers and if I get .05% to read a new blog post, its a good day. Maybe once I have access to the swipe up feature that number will change, but who knows.
Pinterest For New Bloggers
Let’s Talk About What I Did To Get These Results On Pinterest.
Quick Note: At this point I have never paid for pin promotion, it’s not something I am against just something I have yet to do. If you have paid for pin promotion, I would love to hear how that worked out for you.
Consistency
Like anything in life, you must be consistent. I love to go on Pinterest at night time when I am watching TV with my husband and just pin away. On average, I am pinning about 300 new pins a week. 300 new pins might sound outrageous but once you start that pin number adds up fast! I try to mainly pin things similar to my blog posts from that week. If I have blog posts that week about home decor and fall fashion, I’m going target those two topics.
Use Hashtags
I really thought hashtags were just for Instagram but that’s not the case. The first big influx in monthly viewers I saw was when I began using hashtags. I read once that you must use between 4 – 8 hashtags for every pin, so that has been my rule of thumb.
Why are hashtags so important?
When users search for something, the newest pins that include that hashtag in the description will show up in the results in chronological order. However, pins without hashtags will appear in order of most popular pins as opposed to chronologically. So
Claim Your Website
A few months back I was cleaning my house and listening to Jenna Kutcher’s Goal Digger podcast with Yuka Ohishi (Episode 166). Yuka is an International Programs Manager at Pinterest and her insight was SO impactful to my Pinterest strategy. I learned on this episode of the podcast that, ” Pinterest rewards content creators who bring valuable pins from their own sites”. So claim your site, start pinning from it and Pinterest will reward you. After I claimed my website I saw a dramatic increase in viewers from Pinterest. If you are unsure how to claim your blog, Pinterest explains that here.
Join Relevant Group Boards
Until I was invited to contribute to my first group board I had no idea Group Boards were a thing. Being a contributor on a group board is a great way to expose your content to a brand new audience.
Learn from my mistakes – most people would be embarrassed to share this but who cares. I want to teach from my successes but also my failures. This past month I was removed from as a group board contributor and I immediately knew why. I was constantly adding pins to the group but I was no longer repinning other contributors, a big no-no. Obviously, this wasn’t a malicious move I honestly just forgot to do it. A good rule to follow as a group board contributor is for every pin that you add, repin one pin from the group.
Repin Your Content
Get in the habit of constantly repinning your own content. Self-promotion is mandatory in the blogging world, be your blogs number one fan! Here are a few guidelines that I follow when it comes to repinning.
- Multiple times a week I go to the Analytics Overview Page and I repin my most popular pins from that month.
- Every Month I go to my blog and repin my blog post from the previous month. Sometimes that content is topical and doesn’t make sense for the new month, but if it does make sense I make sure to repin it.
- If I see a pin is doing really well, I repin it to a new board to diversify the audience. For instance: If I see a pin with a sweater outfit is performing well on my fall fashion board, I will repin it to my fashion board.
Use A Scheduling App
I use Tailwind and have found great success with their tools. My tailwind is set up so even if I don’t manually pin that day Tailwind will automatically pin anywhere from 12 – 17 pins per day. Additionally, I took advantage of the free month on Viral Tag but did not find their services as useful or rewarding as I did Tailwind.
While on the topic of tailwind, use their tribes! Tailwind gives you a free month to use their tribes, take advantage of it! Tailwind tribes are very similar to group boards, its a great way to get your content in front of new audiences.
Analytics!!!
Numbers tell a very important story, so pay close attention to your analytics. If my analytics say I had a high-performance Pinterest day, I write down whatever I did to experience success that day and recreate those actions at a later date. Additionally, if one of my pins do exceptionally well I will then create future blog content similar to that pin. Example: I normally blog about affordable fashion BUT my top 5 best-performing pins were all makeup or skincare related. If I did not pay close attention to my analytics I would not have seen the popularity of these topics.
My best performing pin to date is the drugstore makeup dupe pin below. If you want to see more makeup dupes you can find those here, here and here.
But Heather, I don’t have time…
Okay now that you see my long list of rules and tools you are probably thinking to yourself oh my gosh, what a time commitment!!! The action items may look intense but great Pinterest results can be achieved in 5 – 10 hours a week. Some weeks I have more free time to dedicate to the success of my Pinterest but most weeks, I spend a quality 5 hours a week increasing my Pinterest traffic.
I am such a new blogger and am really learning every day but I think its great to hear the perspective from all types of people on their blogging journey. I hope this list gives your Pinterest and your blog or business the traffic that it deserves. If you ever have any questions regarding Pinterest please feel free to email me, hatonthemap@gmail.com
Lets be friends! Follow me on Pinterest and Instagram
This is all so helpful! I can’t wait to try these steps to increase my traffic!
Great tips will be putting them into practice 🙂 x