Last Updated on April 23, 2021

I get a lot of questions about Pinterest. And I’m doing my best to write these posts and to answer those questions honestly, with zero bs. Like many of you, I grew super tired of all the posts promising me “EXACTLY how to EXPLODE your traffic and make GAZILLIONS of $$$$ in 3 days!!” Gross. I don’t fall for that crap anymore. Instead, I’ve developed simple strategies that work for me, and I’m sharing them in case they work for you too! But I’m not promising squat. I won’t be that person. Instead, I’m suggesting you try my ideas and see if they work. I will be the happiest little entrepreneur if they work for you, because when one of us wins, we all win! So here’s a Pinterest Growth Hack that works well for me!

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But first, here’s a truth bomb. For most of us, growing our social media followings and website traffic takes time. Like, LOTS of time.

If you’ve been told that you can EXPLODE your traffic and quadruple your followers in a matter of days or even months, you’ve been lied to. Sorry, I know that hurts. 🙁

Most of us live in the real world where we can’t devote 38 hours a day to marketing and promotion. Nor do we have the budgets to invest in advertising or loads of fancy tools.

Disclaimer: I’m sure there are some people who see massive success in a short period of time. Well done you! I just don’t believe that’s a realistic expectation for most creative entrepreneurs.

Slow and steady wins the race. Play the long game and don’t give up!

Basically, all this is to say that you shouldn’t get discouraged when your growth tactics seem to be taking much longer than everyone else. Stay in your lane and persevere. And try my Pinterest growth hack. 🙂

Ready?

I won’t make you keep scrolling and scrolling to get to the good stuff. #recipeblogs

Ok, maybe a little scrolling… lol

Here’s my Pinterest growth hack:

Create Your Own Group Boards

That’s the magic sauce summed up in 5 words!

I created my first group board because it was taking forever to get accepted onto other people’s group boards.

But then I realized it was a brilliant idea! Here’s why:

People Must Follow You

The trick is to make it a rule that to be accepted onto your group board, people must be following you.

Admittedly, you’re not going to gain thousands of followers this way, but every little bit helps! I probably average 12-14 new followers a week with this Pinterest growth hack. (I average around 140 new followers a week in total).

Here’s how I worded the description for my Creative Biz Owners group board:

Share tips, tricks, printables, articles and blog posts related to being a Creative Business Owner or running a Handmade Shop. Please no spam or anything salesy. Let’s support one another and share each other’s content! Happy pinning! To join, please follow this board and me (Laura) and send me a message.

Anyone who wants to join my board has to be following me. My board, my rules.

Now I don’t have the time to check that everyone who inquires is actually following me, I take it on good faith. And in my experience, people are generally honest folk.

I have 5 group boards. To be perfectly honest, answering everyone’s inquiries gets a bit exhausting. (Which is why I understand why it takes group board owners a long time to respond to my own inquiries!)

But this Pinterest growth hack works well for me. It’s a ‘set it and forget it’ kind of tactic and those are the best ones by far.

Strategies that take too much time to maintain are big fat losers in my book. I have a 10 Minute Daily Pinterest Strategy that I use, combined with my group boards and it gives me consistent traffic and new followers without sucking up hours of my precious time.

Yes, maybe if I spent 3 hours a day on Pinterest I could see massive growth, maybe. But the trade-off isn’t worth it. I have a family and kiddos and other aspects of my life and business to work on. I need boundaries and realistic strategies. And most of the mompreneurs I’ve encountered feel the same way.

I try to create as much automation as possible in my business, it’s the best use of my time. Setting up a group board takes a bit of time up front, but once it’s established you don’t have to worry about it too much.

Promote Inside Facebook Groups

Once you have a group board all set up, you can now promote it in Facebook groups. There are many Facebook groups that have threads dedicated to Pinterest group boards where you can offer your board to new contributors. It’s a great way to populate the board with quality contributors so you look super legit!

Maybe your board only has a few contributors and a few pins. But you gotta start somewhere! Put yourself out there, get some contributors and some great pins and you’ll be off to the races in no time!

Take a look at these FB groups to see if any of them are a good fit.

Mom to Mompreneur
Blogging with Heart
Pinterest Ninjas

Here’s another little hack for finding FB groups. When you’re in a group, if you scroll down and look in the right hand side menu/info area, there should be a few suggested groups that are similar to the one you’re in.

How to Create a Group Board

It’s pretty much the same as creating a regular board.

Go to your boards page and click the red plus button to create a new board.

Name your board, something specific and relevant, and click ‘create’.

Now you can go in and edit your board by clicking the pencil button. To add contributors, click the ‘invite’ button. But that’s a later step. Just edit for now.

Give your board a keyword rich description but be specific. Be clear about your rules. How many pins per day are people allowed? What kind of content will be deleted? Are affiliate pins allowed? Think about all these things and put them in your description. Include how you wish to be contacted by potential new contributors.

Also, make sure you select a category. It helps appease the gods of Pinterest search and SEO. Don’t ask me how, SEO is a foreign language, I just do what I’m told. lol

You should go on a pinning frenzy to fill the board up. Try to get at least 100 pins in there. You want it to look like an active board with recent activity and relevant high quality content. Make yourself look as legit as possible.

Now you can go ahead and get some contributors for your board. The first few you’ll have to seek out yourself, either in FB groups or through your email list or other social media channels. But once you’ve got a few contributors and the board is active, the idea is that people will come to you.

Build it and they will come. As long as you are active on Pinterest and have a consistent pinning strategy. Check out this post if you’re feeling a bit lost.

Other Growth Hacks

Truth is, I don’t have any others. I pin every day and that consistency has led to lots of followers. I create high quality pins and pin my content to a lot of group boards.

If you’re looking for a serious in depth guide about group boards, I wrote this post.

I stick to content that is relevant to my niche. I pay attention to what re-pins I get. That informs the type of content I stick to.

But there are no other tricks or gimmicks. Just a few minutes of work a day. Every day.

You’ll get there too! Stick with it!

Drop your questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them. BS not included. 🙂

Happy Pinning!