20 Pinterest Tips That Grew My Audience by 1,600+ Followers Per Month: Part 2
Note: Last week I shared part 1 of my social media story of 20 Pinterest Tips That Grew My Pinterest Audience by 1,600+ Followers Per Month. As I mentioned, I’m not a social media expert but all of these things helped me triple our Pinterest followers in about four months.
A few nights ago, a friend of a friend came over for dinner. He sat down on our patio pulled out his phone and said, “Sorry guys, I haven’t been online for three hours. I just need to see what’s up then I’ll put my phone down.” I was shocked. Three DAYS could go by without me logging onto social media and I would be totally fine with it. I’ll admit when I set up my first Facebook account all those years ago I fell prey to the FOMO but then I started realizing that I’d rather talk to my cousin on the phone than see a picture of what he ate for breakfast and I’d much rather be in the moment and laugh at something funny that my husband said than at the newest viral video of a mitten-clad kitten scrambling across a kitchen floor. So even though I (as a person) don’t need social media the fact is that my business does.
The social media experts suggest focusing on the social media outlets that you enjoy and that your audience is tuned into. Since Facebook and Twitter aren’t my thing, this summer I took their advice and chose to up our Pinterest game. I came up with several techniques to try and for the next few months I dedicated time to getting a better understanding of Pinterest and growing our audience. My techniques worked better than I had expected. If you click here I detail our overall growth (our followers doubled in about two months). Below are the last ten out of 20 Pinterest tips that helped me do this. If you missed the first 10 tips click here.
11. Make your boards specific and relevant.
You may love tattoos but if your customers are more conservative, pinning a bunch of tattoos may lead to a lot of unfollows. Be sure the boards that you create are relevant to your audience. Instead of creating a board that’s titled “Stuff I like” consider breaking it down into specific categories like: clothing, décor, etc… You also need to categorize your boards correctly. If your board is about design make sure it’s categorized under design and write a description using keywords that relate to what you pin. Your cover image is the first thing people see so choose it wisely and adjust it to fit in the window. When you pin make sure you put pins on the right boards.
12. Adventure to new boards and pinners.
When you pin an image Pinterest suggests other boards you may like, check them out and follow boards that fit your aesthetic. Those pinners may check their notifications and since their board was of interest to you, your boards will likely be of interest to them and they may follow you. This is also a reason that you need to keep your page aesthetically pleasing (as I mentioned in #11). You only have a few seconds to get the feel of your brand across, so make your cover photos count!
13. Use secret boards wisely.
Aside from using secret boards to pin things that I like but that aren’t right for my audience I also will create a secret board for a new category if I’m not sure if it’s a good fit for my audience or if I’ll find enough pins that fit it. You can always turn a secret board into a public board but you can’t turn a public board into a secret board.
14. Pin original pins.
Repinning is fun and quick but pinning original content makes your profile unique. People may be seeing the same pins over and over and when something fresh and original pops up it will catch their eye. I pin directly from my Bloglovin’ feed which saves me time of going to each blog I follow and pinning from it.
15. Don’t pin too much of your own stuff.
Yes, your stuff is awesome and you want to use Pinterest to grow your business but it isn’t all about you and your stuff. Mix up pinning your own stuff with pinning original pins and repining. The rule of thumb is that for every one of your own images that you pin you should pin 5-10 other images. Remember that you’re creating a lifestyle magazine for your customers. Although Martha Stewart wants to sell her products, if her magazine only featured her products it would be a catalog not a magazine.
16. Create a board for your blog/business.
This isn’t something I did but I think it’s a great idea. If you have a board that only focuses on your brand and products your audience knows exactly where to find what you make and gets a sense of your brand right away.
17. Tag and describe your pins.
Often I don’t take the time to write my own description for a pin but I need to step this up. Writing your own description helps your audience get to know your brand and voice as well as makes your pin show up in searches. Be sure to describe your pin accurately and in detail but keep it down to a sentence (or two maximum). When I create images for our website and blog I always add the name of our business. For example: “DIY glitter shoes from Dear Handmade Life”. This helps with name recognition. I don’t tag my pins although I know people who say this is super important. Don’t forget to proofread!
18. Check your analytics.
Sadly I waited way too long to set up Pinterest analytics. These analytics allow you to see what gets repined the most, what boards people are into and helps you track of your growth. There are so many ways you can use this information to adjust your pinning style to reflect what your audience likes.
19. Add ‘pin it’ buttons on your website.
As our attention spans get shorter it becomes more and more important to make things as easy as possible for your audience. If you have a ‘pin it’ button on your images on your blog or website it reminds people of what they should do (pin it!) and makes it super easy for them to do it. I suggest taking the extra time to customize your ‘pin it’ button on your site so that it reinforces your brand and aesthetic.
20. Create boards that you’ll be able to fill
Boards with more pins are more likely to get followed. I’ve not only heard this but I have seen it first hand with our profile. Our boards with less than 200 pins on them have markedly less followers than our boards with several hundred pins. For example: Our Business Tips board has 917 pins and around 3,000 followers while our The Manly Stuff board with 15 pins has less than 2,000 followers.
Bonus tip: Make sure you have links to your social media pages on your website, newsletters and in the signature on your emails.
