5 Tactics to Boost Your Popularity on Pinterest

Raise your hand if you have a Pinterest account, but never use it?

Now raise your hand if you’ve known Pinterest is a strong visual marketing tool to drive traffic to your site, yet fail to use it for your business?

Yes, that was me. I have a Pinterest account and when I started freelance writing, I never associated the two together. I built up my social media presence on where I thought businesses were on: Facebook, Twitter, LinkeIn and Google Plus.

5 Tactics to Boost Your Popularity on Pinterest

I never thought to include Pinterest in my social media marketing efforts.

Why? Because I only thought Pinterest was for hobbyists. I mean, I used it to flag dinner recipes, find quiet toddler activities and collect hairstyle images.

But, while marketing my freelance writing business, I started reading about how powerful Pinterest is for small businesses.

Here are just a few stats about how Pinterest is becoming one of the strongest players in content marketing for small businesses:

There’s no denying the power of Pinterest. It’s time for you to reap the rewards.

Maybe you think because you’re a freelance blogger or writer, you won’t make headway on Pinterest. I mean, we deal with content, not images, so how can we attract Pinterest users to our writing website? Well, I’m going to show you!

With a little tweaking to your pinning strategy, you can drastically expand your audience and become one of the popular Pinterest pinners.

Ready to get started? Here are 5 tactics to maximize your marketing efforts on Pinterest.

1. Sign Up for a Business Account

Already have a personal account? No problem.

You can easily upgrade to a business account for free. If you go to Pinterest for Business, you have the option to create a business account or to convert your personal account into a business one.

What’s great about having a business account on Pinterest is having analytical tools handy for referencing your marketing efforts.

Here are some metrics you can view with Pinterest analytics:

  • Impressions: The number of times your pins appeared in home feeds, category feeds and search. You can view a snapshot of the last 30 days, which shows the pins with the most impressions.
  • Repins: View how many times your pins were saved on boards and shared on Pinterest. You also get a view of the most repinned images, indicating what content your audience likes and shares.
  • Clicks: Clicks are when people click on your pin to visit your website. This is handy for small businesses because you can see what content people want to learn more about, helping you with your content reach marketing strategy. And for freelance writers? You can start to tailor your blog to what the people are interested in.

2. Write Like a Copywriter in Your Description

When it comes to describing your pin, you don’t just want to slap on the title of for your blog post. What you want to do is include elements that will cause a viewer who is casually scrolling, to stop and take action.

Basically, this is prime real-estate for a catchy headline that will attract viewers to check out your pin, and ultimately click through to your website.

How do you do this in a sentence or two?

Pinterest looked at over 10,000 pins and learned what made a great pin. They found out pins with more engagement had descriptions that were:

  • Helpful: Include keywords in your description so that it’s easy for pinners to find your content.
  • Detailed: Provide just enough detail to get a pinner wanting to click your pin to read more.
  • Interesting: Include positive sentiments in your description. Using sensory and emotional words will tempt a pinner to click through.
  • Actionable: Include a CTA, or call to action, in your pin description. People often follow a CTA and if you include, “Click to find out,” or “Check out…” they might feel compelled to click through.

3. Pin Often, But Don’t Pin Too Much

I find this a hard one to do, since I’m busy writing and having to monitor all my other social media accounts.

But, if you want to tap into a unique cohort of users, you need to help them discover your pins by being in the Pinterest feed often. Some bloggers, who rely mostly on Pinterest for their traffic, will pin every 30 minutes.

For other solopreneuers, this isn’t necessary. Pinning two or three times a day (one or two pins at a time) is enough to generate more followers, likes, repins and pageviews.

Since I began focusing on Pinterest, that’s exactly what I did. I would hop on Pinterest up to three times a day and pin or repin 2-3 images. Within a few days I had new followers that were pinning my images.

4. Optimize Your Images for Pinterest

As you probably can tell, Pinterest likes vertical images. Since most of its users view Pinterest on their mobile devices, high-res vertical images make more visual sense.

For me, I found creating high-resolution vertical images harder than it sounds. You would think, just crop your image or find a vertical image, but there’s more to it.

I personally can’t find many free vertical images that relate to my blog. I can find, though, great horizontal images and that’s what I primarily use.

So, what’s the best optimized size for Pinterest images? It varies, but to start, opt for 736pixels wide by 2000 pixels high.

If you’ve noticed my blog images, I have converted to vertical images in order to reach more people on Pinterest. With a bit of strategic cropping and extending the image’s canvas in Photoshop, I can make my images taller.

Vertrical Image

What else can you do to make your pin stand out?

5. Optimize Your Pinterest Boards

When I was using Pinterest for my personal use, I placed “My Style,” “Craft/DIY” and “For The Home” as my first three boards. So, when people came to my Pinterest board, they automatically saw fashion, DIY and home decor as what I enjoyed the most.

But, after setting up my business account and focusing on attracting clients as well as a new audience, I put my business topics ahead of my personal hobbies.

Currently, if you go to my Pinterest board, you will see my top three boards are:

  1. WAHM Freelance Writing – I pin my blog posts here as well as anything that relates to blogging and freelance writing.
  2. FreelancerFAQ’s Resource for Writers – This is a new board that I created. I’m a contributor at FreelancerFAQ’s and want to promote this awesome blog as much as I can. Side note: Alicia Rades, who owns FreelancerFAQ’s, and I co-wrote an eBook called, “11 Rookie Mistakes You’re Making on Your Writer Website (That’s Costing You Clients).” If you sign up to her newsletter, you get this 30+ page eBook for free!
  3. Freelance Writing – This is a group board that I belong to. Gina Horkey, a freelance writer friend of mine, created this board and it has great pins on freelance writing.

My next few boards are small business marketing, blogging or social media marketing niches. It’s a good idea, as a solopreneur, to have business-focused boards above the fold (the area you see before you scroll).

And this has data to back it up. According to EyeTrackShop, users scan the first two rows of your Pinterest board, so make it worth their while by putting your best and most interesting boards there.

What are some other ways to get the most out of your Pinterest board?

Fill Out Your About Section

You have 160 characters to tell your Pinterest audience why you (your business) should be pin worthy. This is a good space to use industry related keywords, but make sure it doesn’t sound like you are over-stuffing your blurb with SEO keywords.

When writing your about section, try to answer these questions:

  • Who are you?
  • What do you do? (i.e. your industry)
  • What value do you bring to Pinterest users?
  • What credibility or authority do you have? (for business accounts, you can verify your website, helping you establish credibility, build brand awareness and attract a following)

Use Descriptive Words in Your Board Names

Each board should have a keyword to make it easy for users to find your board. Many users follow boards, rather than individuals or brands, so it’s important to name your board with the right descriptive words.

In the freelance and blogging word, most boards will have blogging, freelance writing, blogging tips, small business etc… in their name since it’s a popular search term. Popular boards with highly descriptive names often rank on the first page of Google.

As an example, in Google I typed in, “Beauty how-tos” and Sephora’s Pinterest board came up as the third result.

Sephora

Join Group Boards

In all honesty, I had no idea what group boards even were until very recently. This is how much I didn’t pay attention to Pinterest as a marketing tool.

It was only when Gina Horkey invited me to her group board, that I became aware of them.

So, what is a group board?

A community Pinterest group board is a board where multiple users can pin their images or other images on the board. You know a board is a community board when you see the little multiple people icon on the upper right hand corner of a Pinterest board.

Pinterest Group Board

How do you create a Pinterest group board?

It’s easy. You create a board like you normally do, and Pinterest will ask you if you want to invite another pinner.

If you know their Pinterest account, you can message them on Pinterest. Or, you can type in their email that’s associated with Pinterest, to add them to your board.

You can also request to be in a group board. Usually the description in the group board will have specific details on how to join the board.

So, why should solopreneurs join group boards? The biggest reason is to maximize your content reach. You want your brand and content to reach as many people as possible and joining a popular group board will help you achieve this.

Now, if you join a small group board, this may not yield many repins, but it will expose your content to some new viewers.

Become a Pinterest Pinning Maven

Are you ready to start pinning and sharing? These are only a few tips that can rev up your popularity on Pinterest. As always, Pinterest is a social media platform, so remember to Like pins and leave comments on pins.

Other social-friendly things to do are:

  • Re-pin images you find inspiring or want to learn more about
  • Follow boards/people that have pinned your images (Pinterest will tell you what boards contain your pin when you pin your image).
  • Connect your pins to Twitter and Facebook. This publishes content on your social media accounts and expands your marketing reach.

Are you ready to give Pinterest a chance? Let me know in the comments what you are doing to reach more people on Pinterest.

And help this freelance writer out by pinning this post and following me on Pinterest!

Hi I'm Elna and I'm a freelance writer and mom blogger. I help people just like you become a profitable freelance writer. Within 6 months of starting my freelance writing business from scratch I was able to earn a full-time living as a part-time freelance writer while taking care of my twin toddlers. Check out my free email course Get Paid to Write Online and learn the steps you need to take to be a freelance writer.

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30 Comments

Great tips! I started all this Pinterest business in these COVID-19 times, I hope it will work out 🙂Reply to 8junkies8
Hi! Yes, it sure will! You can pick up my booming niche guide that is for this pandemic to help you find the right niche right now. https://elnacain.com/course/booming-writing-niches/Reply to Elna
Hey Elna, I found that article super informative. I was wondering, what are your views on rich pins? Do you use them and do they any good?Reply to Freya
Hi Freya, Rich Pins are essential to help you gain more traffic on Pinterest! It helps users know what your pin is about and it tells Pinterest what your pin is about and is able to show it to the right people!Reply to Elna
Thank you so much for the Pinterest advice. I especially love the statistics! So cool to know what type of pins get repinned more often.Reply to Mellisa
Hey Mellisa! So glad we connected on Pinterest and now you’re here! Thanks so much and happy to hear you like my research 🙂 That’s what a freelance writers does! Pinning is a whole other social media strategy and I’m still learning how to optimize my pinning strategy!Reply to Elna
This is a great article for me as I just started using Pinterest. I know I am not using it effectively yet hopefully in time I can figure it out!Reply to Crystal
Hi Crystal, Thanks for leaving a comment! Glad to help with your marketing plans. Pinterest is a great social media platform for a variety of content. And I’m sure you’ll figure it out! You learn as you go, like I am. ElnaReply to Elna
Excellent advise! Pinning (of course) so that I can reread it over and over!Reply to Carole
Hi Carole! I’m glad my call-to-action is working! I’m going to start adding the “sharing is caring. Please Pin this” to the end of all my future posts to see if that increases my RP rates. I’m not sure, but I think Pinterest is punishing me for something I didn’t know I did. Oh well, I know I have more pins than 0 or 1. ElnaReply to Elna
Thank you for linking to our How To Create a Vertical Pin post. I think you have some great points here. I did not know that men made up 20% of Pinterest users I thought it was lower. Great post!Reply to Katrina
Hi Katrina Thanks for your informative post on how to create a vertical Pin worthy image! It has really helped me in my design elements. Yes, men are getting hooked on Pinterest! They are the fastest growing demographic and they aren’t stopping. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. ElnaReply to Elna
Elna! Sounds like you’ve gone from being a Pinterest newbie to a Pin Expert pretty quickly! Lots of good tips in here to follow. Creating your own group boards and inviting people to them is an excellent way to quickly grow your followers. Also, I recommend having the first pin board on your page be named after your blog. I pin all my original pins from my blog directly to that board, and then repin to other boards from it. I also share from it for other people to pin, so all the pins in that board end up with LOTS of repins! I linked to my Pinterest account so you can see mine – it’s the first board people see when they come to my page, and I used an image on it that tells them who I am, so it’s also great for branding.Reply to Kelly
Hi Kelly, Thanks for your tip. I never though to pin from my blog and then use that pin on Pinterest to pin to my other boards. I will give that a try and see if that increases my re-pins count. My top three boards are different since I’ve written this post. I actually added a “Best of Innovative Ink” and that’s my second board, but I will make that my first board, based on your recommendation. I value your opinion as you are super smart in social media and blogging! Thanks for stopping by! ElnaReply to Elna
This is some wonderful advice! I love using Pinterest for social media marketing, so any tips I can get on how to do it better are welcomed. I especially like your point about making vertical images, that makes things look so much more professional. Thank you for the wonderful post!Reply to Samantha
Hi Samantha! Thanks for stopping by. Yes, “going vertical” has done wonders for my traffic. I plan to make all my feature images vertical even though they don’t resonate well on other social media platforms. I’m glad I was able to provide you with some new tips to your marketing plan! ElnaReply to Elna
These are wonderful tips for using Pinterest more effectively. I’ve used Pinterest for some time, but my pins aren’t optimized. I never thought to take my squares and add a touch at the bottom to turn them into long rectangles. Thanks!Reply to Sara
Thanks Sara! Yes, optimizing your images does wonders for your Pinning strategy. For me, it’s a bit of a challenge, but I’m getting better at it!. Good luck with your Pinning! ElnaReply to Elna
I’ve been doing a lot of pinning, but these are some great ideas which I will be utilizing. Thanks for the professional help!Reply to Marjie
Thanks Marjie! Liked your article on what to buy in March. With twins, you need to stock up! I’m glad I gave you some new ideas for your Pinning strategy. I’m learning as I’m going and having a fun time discovering the power of Pinterest. ElnaReply to Elna
This is such a relevant post for me right now. I’ve been focusing on a different SM each month and Pinterest is it for me during March. Your tips have given me quite a few ways to optimize my presence there. Thank you for an awesome article!Reply to Karen
Hey Karen, Thanks for your wonderful comment! I think Pinterest has a lot of power in terms of getting traffic and readership. I’m learning a lot about it and can already tell it’s working! Don’t get me wrong, I still love Twitter, though. I can tweet the same thing all day! Thanks for stopping by!Reply to Elna
Lots of great advice here. I’ll be looking over my boards with some of these suggestions in mind as I try to increase my follower base. Until very recently, Facebook was my biggest source of social media referrals to my blog. Suddenly, Pinterest is leaving FB in the dust. I still have a lot from FB, but there are nearly three times as many referrals from Pinterest now. Not sure exactly what changed, because I still don’t feel like my pins get re-pinned a lot, but I guess they do okay.Reply to Kara
Thanks Kara! Wow, that’s great about your Pinterest referral. That happened to me, but not as drastic as what happened to you. Twitter is still my number one referral, but Pinterest was #5 until just recently. They are my third referral and I’m hoping to close the gap with more Pinterest promotion. I still have a lot to learn, so I’ll make sure to follow you and see what you’re doing to bring in traffic from Pinterest! ElnaReply to Elna
Such a comprehensive article Elna, great work!Reply to Gina
Thanks Gina! Starting to enjoy Pinterest and all that it has to offer. In fact, I just joined a Link Party, so I will see what comes of that!Reply to Elna
Great article, Elna! I’ll admit it: I’m one of those people who has Pinterest and doesn’t really use it. I’ve had people tell me to pick two or three social networks to focus on, and obviously I didn’t choose Pinterest. It’s cool to see that it’s working for you!Reply to Alicia
Hi Alicia, Thanks! I also didn’t focus on Pinterest when I first started freelance writing. I did the same as you and focussed on Twitter and FB and those still are my first two referrals. But, once I started reading about how powerful Pinterest is, I couldn’t deny it any longer! Thanks for stopping by! ElnaReply to Elna
I’ve just started focusing my attention on Pinterest in the last couple of weeks, and I’m starting to see growth from it already. Joining group boards was new to me, and it’s brought in several more reins than usual and a few new followers as well. The other thing that has been helpful is joining Pinterest centred Facebook groups, where the users repin each other.Reply to Robyn
Hi Robyn, Thanks for commenting! I have recently started focussing on Pinterest as well. I’ve also seen growth. In fact, before I focussed my marketing strategy on Pinterest, they were 5 on my referral, now they are 3, soon to be 2. Tell me more about Pinterest centered FB groups! Sounds like a great way to market your content! Thanks for mentioning it! I’ll have to learn more about it. ElnaReply to Elna