If, like me, you’ve spent time researching the best way to use Pinterest to grow your business, then no doubt you’ve seen multiple blog posts such as “how to schedule a month’s worth of content in an hour and explode your blog!”. Well, I’ve read those posts and I call bullshit. Scheduling that much content takes closer to 4-5 hours. Plus I’ve tried all kinds of strategies that were supposed to ‘explode’ my views, and no dice. So I found a way to harness the power of Pinterest as a marketing platform for my online business without letting it become a huge burden and time suck. And the results speak for themselves. I get 2.2 (edit: 4.1!) million monthly Pinterest viewers using this simple Pinterest strategy! 🙂
This post contains affiliate links. Read more.
(This means I may receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.)
I’m at a point in my business where I’m pretty tired of all the click-bait articles that promise me explosive sales and pageviews. I’ve clicked them and they’ve let me down. (Never mind the fact that most ‘how-to’ posts don’t ever tell you ‘how-to’ do anything. So annoying.)
Turns out there is no formula for making your business a success. You’ve got to march to the beat of your own drum so to speak. Your business, your rules.
So that’s what I’ve done with my Pinterest strategy. I’ve made it my own and this strategy has been working really well for me.
Here are some stats:
Monthly Pinterest viewers: 2.2 million (Update March 2021: 4.1 million)
Monthly Pinterest engaged viewers: 75K (June 2020: 125K)
(these numbers fluctuate a bit but if they go down they always come back up about a month later)
I get an average of 10-12 new Pinterest followers a day. Some days I get close to 30!
Blog monthly pageviews from Pinterest: 25K (March 2021: 30.5K)
Pinterest accounts for about 30% of my Etsy shop views.
My sincere hope and belief is that this simple Pinterest strategy can work for you too.
But I’m not going to sit here and promise you explosive results. That’s crap and I won’t do it. All I can do is share the strategies that work for me.
Above are my personal stats, but Tailwind (the Pinterest scheduler I use, but which isn’t a requirement for this strategy to work) also publishes the Typical Results of Tailwind for Pinterest Members every year, so you can see exactly what the average growth rate looks like for their members.
What I do ask, is if you give my strategy a try, try it for a minimum of 60 days. That should definitely be enough time to see if it’s working for you. You should see your followers start to grow daily and your views go up dramatically.
You’ll know it’s working for you when the process doesn’t feel like a huge chore but you’re still getting great results.
This strategy is so simple. It might be simple enough that lots of people are already doing it! But on the off chance that you’re still searching for a Pinterest strategy to help grow your business that won’t take up all of your waking hours, this is it!
I used to try to sit down once a week and schedule all the following week’s pins. I pin about 30 pins per day. So scheduling all of those was taking me well over an hour.
Now I’m a busy mom. I’m juggling a lot of stuff on a daily basis and finding 60-90 minutes to work on a single task is nearly impossible. Someone always needs a snack or help with their lego, dinner needs to get made and appointments got to. Scheduling pins just never made it very high on my priority list.
So what ended up happening was that a whole week would go by and I never got a chance to pin a thing. And an inconsistent Pinterest strategy is almost worse than no strategy at all!
I discovered that what I CAN commit to is 10 minutes a day to schedule that same day’s pins. I typically do it while I’m eating breakfast. Because mom life = multi tasking.
I schedule all my pins using Tailwind. (But don’t stop reading if you don’t use Tailwind, my strategy works with manual pinning too!) Tailwind functions as a browser extension, so this strategy applies to pinning on a desktop. But it also works on mobile without Tailwind.
Tailwind suits my needs because I pin to a lot of group boards. (around 70 I think) Tailwind helps me make sure I’m making the best use of those group boards and keeps track of when I’ve pinned to them. Mainly so I don’t end up accidentally spamming boards with my pins or breaking group board rules.
One of Pinterest’s more recent updates is that they prefer you only pin a pin to 10 boards or less. Tailwind is great because they give you a heads up if you are over-pinning.
Read Also: A Comprehensive Guide to Group Boards
and: Pinterest Growth Hack – Actionable Pinterest Tip
I like that I can space out my pins and schedule them to multiple boards in just a few clicks. Tailwind also schedules pins at optimal times of day for me, so I don’t have to be awake at 2am in order to capitalize on the waking hours of pinners in California.
So let’s get to it.
BIG March 2021 EDIT! So Pinterest has made some changes that affect this strategy. I’ve modified the strategy so it still works, just not quite as smoothly as it used to. *big sigh* I’ve left the older strategy here anyway, because it still works on mobile, but I’ve italisized anything that no longer applies (unless you still happen to have the un-updated version of Pinterest.)
10 Minute Pinterest Strategy
The first step for me is scheduling my own pins. Those are pins from my own blog posts or of my shop products.
(I wrote an in depth tutorial on the best way to create pins for Etsy listings, which you can read here.
I also wrote an entire e-book on How to Rock Your Product Photography Using Only a Smartphone.)
I schedule any new blog posts, new product pins or older content that hasn’t been re-pinned for a while. I schedule all my pins to my own relevant boards and to all relevant groups boards. That will account for about 8-10 pins per day.
Next I need to find another 20ish pins to fill in the rest of my day’s schedule.
I do that by clicking on the ‘following’ tab in the top menu bar. Scroll down, allowing all the pins to load until you reach the red button that says ‘find more people to follow’.
2021 Mobile Edit: When you are on the home page in the app, simply click the ‘following’ tab in the menu bar at the top.) Then you can scroll and pin what you like!
2021 Desktop Edit: Click on your profile, then click on your ‘# following’. When the box opens up, you can toggle between ‘people’ and ‘boards’. Pick a person or a board and scroll through to either schedule pins or pin as you go. Repeat this with different people/boards until you’ve reached your daily pin quota.
Try to pick different people/boards every day.
You need to scroll all the way down in order to load all the pins. This is a necessary step if you are using Tailwind. Otherwise when you click the blue flame Tailwind button only a handful of pins will appear for scheduling.
Then I simply work my way through the feed and select the very best pins that will appeal to my audience. I schedule all those pins to my own boards. (I only add my own content to group boards, not other people’s content.)
I’ve found that I can usually pull 20-25 great pins from my ‘following’ feed.
With any luck I’ll end up over-pinning by 5 or 6 pins which will help fill in the next day’s schedule. If I do that every day I might get the weekend days filled up too so I don’t have to even think about Pinterest over the weekend, another perk of using Tailwind! (I’m trying to find a better work/life/mom balance. If that’s even possible. Whomp whomp.)
Another Pinning Option
Another similar strategy would be to pin from your home feed.
Watch out for the ads or promoted pins that tend to clutter up the home feed though.
My home feed was never that great in the past, it was full of crappy pins. But lately it looks improved. Maybe the recent Pinterest changes also affect the quality of the home feed. I’ll keep an eye on it and maybe write another post on how to curate your home feed. 🙂
How to Adapt to a Manual Pinning Process
Your ‘following’ feed is a great place to find relevant pins whether you use a scheduler or not. Since Pinterest rolled out the simplified pinning button, it takes much less time to re-pin things.
You can simply scroll through your feed, pinning as you go. If you work through the whole feed you should get a good 20-25 pins, which is a great daily amount to see some growth in your Pinterest account.
The down side to a manual pinning strategy is that you can’t take advantage of optimal pinning times throughout the day. You’ll be pinning all the day’s pins at one time.
And you’ll have to come up with another method of keeping track of the pins you send to group boards, which can be a real hassle.
Pinning manually might add an extra few minutes to the process, but not too many. Time is money and all that. Either you save time by spending money (on a scheduling tool) or you save money by spending time (pinning manually). It’s up to you how to use your limited resources!
Why This Pinterest Strategy Works
As long as you are following a good variety of people, your ‘following’ feed will contain a solid variety of pins. This means you can schedule pins to a number of different boards all from one page. No more searching for “DIY nursery decor”, finding a few pins, searching for “dairy-free desserts”, finding a few pins, etc.
Also, I like to support the people I’m following by re-pinning their content. I think it helps foster community and hopefully it means other pinners are re-pinning my content in the same spirit!
I know there’s lots of opinions out there about whether or not we should be ONLY pinning our own content. Here’s my 2 cents.
Pinterest doesn’t exist exclusively as a platform of self-promotion. A non-blogger/business owner is just pinning the content that interests them, from a large variety of sources. I think that’s the way Pinterest is organically designed to function. I don’t think Pinterest would like it if I only ever pinned my own content.
Plus my target audience is not SOLELY interested my content. They like other stuff too! So by pinning that other stuff, I’m appealing to my audience, telling them their interests are important to me, and I’m not appearing spammy.
Would you follow someone who pinned nothing but hair clips all day long? Or someone who pinned hair clips, kid outfits, nursery decor, birthday party ideas, etc? Exactly.
Ok I’ll get off my soap box. lol
How to Curate Your Follows
For the first week you use this Pinterest strategy, you may need to curate your ‘following’ feed so that you are seeing only the best and re-pinnable content. I don’t have time to sift through useless pins and neither do you.
So for the first week you’ll have to add an extra 5 mins to the process.
This part still works on mobile. Scroll through your ‘following’ feed and observe the pins that you would never re-pin. Either the content doesn’t suit your audience or the pins are visually unappealing. If there is more than one pin of this nature from a single pinner, click through to their profile and unfollow them. Unfollow 3-5 pinners a day.
(this part doesn’t): Next, click on the +person button at the top of the ‘following’ feed or on the red ‘find more people to follow’ button at the bottom. This will take you to a page of suggested pinners tailored to your interests. Find 3-5 new people to follow who produce high quality pins that will appeal to your audience.
2021 Edit: Finding new people to follow is actually much easier to do on mobile than desktop now. So that’s my recommendation. Anything you add on mobile will show up on desktop too.
When you’ve clicked through the ‘following’ tab, click the double lined icon beside the search bar.
Then click ‘recommended’ and there will be a whole list of profiles that you’ll likely be interested in!
On desktop, the best way to find new follows is to scroll through your home feed. Stop when you see a really awesome pin and click on the profile of the pinner. Follow them if you don’t already!
After about a week you will have a well curated feed of high quality content to re-pin from.
Wow, I had a lot more to say on this subject than I thought I did! Haha! Props to you if you made all the way to the end of this epic post!
Drop ANY questions you have in the comments, I’m happy to help!
Hey. I really enjoyed the article, however I am a bit confused about where can I find the following page. My feed doesn’t seem to have the upper button for the following page. Any tips? thanks
Hi Andreea, It looks like I need to update this post! Pinterest has made some changes. Your ‘following’ tab is now located in your profile, next to where your number of followers is located. Those are clickable links even though they don’t look like it.
Hi Laura,
This post was super helpful but I did have a few questions (my apologies if they have already been answered). I have just started a blog and the first question is, from your experience, what is a reasonable amount of time for you to begin followers and engagement on Pinterest for New Bloggers? Also, when it comes to scheduling your Pin with Tailwind, are you scheduling the Same Pin (Same Image and Link) or do you switch them up? I am just asking because I know Bloggers which up Images for their posts, however, trying to create 10 new images a day for older content seems a bit daunting. I was under the impression that you should schedule new images every time. For Example. for this Blog post every time you wanted to Pin it, did you have to go through all the trouble of recreating a Featured Image just to Pin. I am looking for a much simpler yet effective way if there is on out there.
Thanks
Hi Gigi, First off, thanks for reading! The thing I’ve learned about blogging is that it’s a long game but very rewarding. So I think it took about a year before I started seeing significant traffic. I mean, everyone’s experience is different, but I suspect those bloggers that claim to earn lots of $$$ in 1 or 2 months are the exception, not the rule. If you are consistent though, then the traffic WILL come.
As for pins, here’s my current strategy: Write blog post, create pin. Schedule that pin to 10 (ish) RELEVANT boards and Tailwind communities. When I am ready to re-pin that blog post, (in 3-6 months time) I will probably create a new pin for it. I simply don’t have time (or energy to be honest) to be constantly creating new pins for old content. I’m not scheduling new images every day. It’s not realistic for my life. I’m a part-time blogger, I run an Etsy shop and I’m a mama. I gotta prioritize. I hope that helps!
When I scroll to the bottom of my following, I do not get a button that says find more people to follow. Does that only appear if you are using Tailwind?
Also, when I scroll through people I follow, it only shows their icon and a following button. It does not show any of their pins.
Hi Susan, Yes it looks like Pinterest has made changes again. I also don’t see that button anymore. 🙁
Hello! First of all, thank you so much for sharing your strategy. I find it extremely helpful in this business to be able to see that people are having success using all different types of strategies, it helps enforce that you need to find what works for your account, and it is so helpful to have people willing to share so we can all learn from one another! With all of that said, can you share if you have changed your strategy with the new practices and algorithm changes? I’m learning we are supposed to focus on our own content, not repinning other people’s, with some professionals recommending pinning 3-5 times per day of your own high-quality pins (the newer the URLs the better) instead of pinning a bunch of other people’s content. I’d love to hear if Pinterest changes have impacted how you approach your pinning and what you’ve learned!
Hi Amy, Thanks for reading! I have not changed my strategy recently. I don’t get too hung up on so called ‘algorithm changes’ unless Pinterest themselves or Tailwind updates their best practices. Pinterest has always been a place to pin whatever interests you. Including other people’s content. The average Pinterest user is just someone looking for recipes or decor ideas or travel tips, and the platform is designed for that purpose. So I”m going to continue pinning other people’s content because I think that’s the nature of Pinterest. Of course I pin my own content regularly too, but I don’t think Pinterest would like it very much if I ONLY pinned my own content. I think the best way to keep up with any official Pinterest changes is to sign up for their newsletter and get your info directly from the source. I hope that helps!
So, I guess I am a little bit confused about what types of pins I should be scheduling to my boards to gain followers. I want to drive people to my Etsy shop, but pins about other things are not going to do that. At least I don’t see how that will work. Am I missing something? Thanks. Your article is great, by the way!
Hi Samantha, The idea is to pin things that interest your target market. If you make and sell baby bibs, then your ideal customer is likely young moms. Their interests include all things baby, nursery decor, simple meals, baby scrapbooks, etc. So you want to pin content related to those topics in order to attract mom followers to your boards. Your ideal customer is not SOLELY interested in baby bibs, you need to appeal to their other interests too. If all they see is pin after pin of baby bibs it will come across as spammy. But if they see baby bibs mixed in with other baby-related pins, they are more likely to follow you. I hope that makes sense!
I saw one of you pin several times on Pinterest and finally click on it and now I’m so glad I did! This post was so resourceful. I’m new to Pinterest business and marketing online. Thank you so much for taking the time to write this. I even took some notes lol. I have 2 questions? One, I want to increase traffic to my new blog but I have affiliate products that aren’t related to the subject of my blog, is it okay to have several boards with totally different topics ( fashion, skincare, self-care, finances, website funnels)? And two, I’m not sure what’s a group board. Is it a board that I create and pin my content with other people’s content? Thank you in advantage and happy new year to you and your family!
– Jenn M
Milk & Honey Lifestyle
https://milknhoneylifestyle.com/
A group board is a board owned by someone else who allows you pin on it. Or a board you own that you allow others to pin to.
Girl SAME. OMGGGG!!! I saw this post SO MANY FREAKING TIMES (excuse the language, im so excited). But I never clicked because I though it was just another one of those posts that never give any value. But man was I wrong.
Hi Jennifer, Thanks so much for reading! I’m gonna dish out a little tough love though. I don’t think it will helpful to you in the long run to be an affiliate for products that aren’t related to your blog or target audience. I think it will make your followers feel like you’re salesy. Rather, pick products that fit seamlessly into your content or that you have personally used and trust. For example, I write DIY posts on making felt flowers, so it is natural for me to link to the glue gun that I use. But it would feel awkward and out of place if I suddenly linked to a floor cleaner. Does that make sense? While I don’t agree that bloggers need to niche down to a single topic, (lifestyle bloggers can be very successful!) I do believe you need to niche down to a group of topics that naturally fit together or that have a single target audience. <3
Finally someone to explain my main issue with tailwind!!! I tried tailwind for a few months and hated trying to schedule because I didn’t know I had to let the whole page load before clicking on the tailwind button. I ended up canceling tailwind thinking it was just not going to work. Plus I hated trying to find good content on tribes. (Any advice on those) I will definitely try this strategy. And may even get tailwind again. Also I love the following feed advice. Thank you so much!!!
Would this strategy still work with the new pinterest updates? I heard Pinterest is cracking down on people repinning other pins as creators?
Hi Carolina, I’m not sure I understand what you mean?
I’m confused. You mention using Tailwind to fill your feed but the directions to go through the “Following” tab are for directly on Pinterest. When I”m on Pinterest, there is no way to space out the pinning schedule.
Are you saying you go through your following, organically (manually) pin pins from those you are following AND then go to Tailwind to fill your feed for the day?
Hi Christina, You are correct, you can’t space out your pins if you are pinning directly from Pinterest. (Unless you pin once every 10 minutes and who has time for that?!) I schedule my pins with Tailwind. But if you don’t have Tailwind you can just pin manually from Pinterest. Maybe 20 pins, once a day would work for you.
This is one of the best articles I have read promoting Tailwind. I have read a lot, even tried Tailwaing (free and paid versions) but haven’t seen the benefits of it yet. I think it will be great implementing what other people didn’t mention, like currating my pinterest to be on point with my target audience. Thank you for taking the time to write this! Definitely going to look you up on IG and check out the rest of your blog.
That is supposed to be tailwind… sorry for the typo!
OMG I am new to this pinterest thing and I’ve been spending all my weekends designing pins and I’ve only got about 10 – gulp!!. Now you tell me I have to “follow” other people and pin their stuff to other boards – or did I get that wrong? Its late here, I think I need sleep lol
Thanks, Laura. What a valuable post! Thank you for sharing your Pinterest strategy with new bloggers.
Minosh.
Hi there! Your strategy sounds terrific! One question: Has the number of pins you schedule to Tailwind changed in 2020? Are you still pinning 8-10 of your own and 28-30 of other peoples?
Hi dear
Thank for this great post
I am just starting my blog,do you think this strategy works for beginners?
I was told I should pin minimum 100 pins per day, do you think 40 is enough?
Hi! Yes I think 40 is enough. 🙂
This is really smart, especially about curating your feed and unfollowing people when your interests diverge.
Thank you so much for this post! It’s genuinely SO helpful. I’ve been struggling with growing my Pinterest following. A couple of questions for you… is there a difference between using the “following” feed and “for you/home” feed? And what are some of the ways in which you refresh older content to re-purpose as new pins?
Hey Taleen! The ‘home’ feed can contain pins that have already been pinned to your group boards. It may also have your own pins in it or pins you’ve already re-pinned and forgotten about. I just feel safer using the ‘following’ feed to make sure I’m seeing a bigger variety of fresh content. For older content I don’t do much except make sure it’s up to date and the links are all working. To create new pins for older content I just pick a new picture and switch up the font and text to target different keywords. 🙂
What a great post! I’ve been searching how to focus my efforts on Pinterest lately and I was just lost. This gives me something to start from!
Can this pinning strategy still be used? Unless I’m overlooking something obvious, I cannot see the pins of people I am following. It only shows a list of who they are. I was loving this new way of pinning and now I can’t seem to do it.
Hi Leslie, Pinterest recently rolled out an update and the ‘following’ tab is now in a different spot. I’ll update my post. If you click to get to your ‘home’ feed, there’s a menu of options across the top and one of them is ‘following’. 🙂
I’m so glad to hear it can still be accessed. Thanks for your help and great tips!
Thank you so much for this informative post. I was struggling with Pinterest trying to follow what everyone claims to be working for them but didnt get much.i made an overhaul of my account,followed your advice and i will back here to share how much its working. Being a newbie in the blogging field i hope to learn a lot.
Hi Laura,
I’m coming back here after successfully using your tips and I can say I’ve seen a lot of engagement (such as link clicks and save) on my pins.
Thanks a lot!
Thank you. This is a lot of help. I am struggling with Pinterest. And to fit in writing new content and make pins, it is all too much. I can’t invest anymore money until I see where this blog goes but thank you for the good, “real” advice!
Hi this was one of the few Pinterest strategy posts that were very helpful. So easy to take in. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for this article, it will hopefully be helpful. I’m not using Tailwind yet – financially not viable at the moment. What takes me the most time is giving a description for each Pin I post – even if I’m copying and pasting from previous pins, this is still time consuming. How can it only take you a few minutes to pin 8-10 of your own pins, with writing titles, descriptions and copying in the website link??! This bit takes me so long! Am I missing a trick somewhere? Thanks
Hi Alison, You should only have to write that stuff once, then when you re-pin it’s all copied automatically.
Hello,
How many times can you repin (your own pin) to the same board?
Hi Ashley, The key is to space out re-pins so it doesn’t look spammy. I would say you could re-pin the same pin a few times spaced out by a few months each time. But Pinterest really values fresh content. You’d be better off creating new pins (for older content) rather than always re-pinning the same pins. 🙂
Hi Laura,
Thanks for the post! I’ll give it a try.
I’m fairly new to Pinterest and have been experimenting with it the past few months. Like you did for your business, I’m trying to find myself a strategy that works for me. Some things I’ve tried have worked decently but others haven’t. What you said about having very little time to spend on finding content to pin hit home with me. That’s my case too. Like you, I too have learnt my lesson about articles that claim to teach you things but don’t. These days, I learn by way of experimentation and from selected articles. I appreciate that you’re not promising us the moon here and you’re keeping it super practical: 10 mns. I’ll stop by to let you know if your strategy worked for me in a month or two 🙂 Thanks again for sharing what worked for you! Alex
Great Article! I love the way you come off as the No-BS type because honestly, nobody has time for that. Thank you for keeping it straight forward! I am new to Pinterest and using it to grow my blog so I’m not too familiar with it yet. My question is, why is repinning other people’s content necessary? I hope this isn’t a silly question, it’s just hard for me to see how repinning other people’s content will help to get followers who enjoy my content?
I hope that’s not confusing! Anyway, if you have an answer to this I would greatly appreciate it!
Take care!
Such a great article Laura, really helpful thank you I haven’t been making use of my followings pins. Also I do have tailwind and now I have a clear idea on how to use it strategically. Thank you.
Thanks for this post! I am just confused about one thing… you said here:
“I schedule any current blog posts, new product pins or older content that hasn’t been re-pinned for a while. I schedule all my pins to my own relevant boards and all relevant groups boards. That will account for about 8-10 pins per day.”
Does this mean you schedule 8-10 individual pins to lots of boards (for example if there are 10 relevant group boards and 2 of your own relevant boards for one pin, then that specific pin would be pinned to 12 boards? And do this for each pin) or literally just 8-10 of your own pins to a relevant board each?
Sorry, I think you mean the former but I am struggling to grasp this whole thing! 😛 How many pins do you have your Tailwind set to schedule each day? Thank you so much for your help!
Following. This is my question too.
Thanks a lot I was wondering how to pin but your post is very helpful
Hi there, May I ask where do you obtain pictures to create a pin? Do you take the pictures yourself or do you use a website to obtain pictures to create unique pins?
Hi Kimberly, it depends on the post. If it’s a DIY or tutorial or an Etsy listing, I’ll use one of my own pictures. If I’m writing something business-related I often use stock images.
Hey Laura, This is a great post! I do have a question for a part I don’t understand. I read somewhere that pin your most popular first, then seasonal and new, what does that mean? I understand to pin the popular. For seasonal and new do you mean you pin them later in the month? Later in the schedule? Can Tailwind help in such situation.
Hi Laura,
Thank you for the article, it’s really helpful. My biggest question is how to be accepted by group boards?! I emailed about 20 and used an adapted a template from a pinterest course I did but I didn’t even get responses!! It’s amazing that you’re part of 70 group boards- just a tiny fraction of that would be amazing as a starting point.
Hi Freya, what’s the link to your pinterest profile? I know it can be frustrating, but stick with it! Sometimes it takes board owners a long time to respond. I’ll look at your profile and see if I have any tips for you. 🙂
Thank you so much for this. I have struggled with whether to manual pin or use tailwind. I usually always use tailwind because it is easy and to me, it seems like it could be the same as manual pinning if you select your own times. Plus, an added feature is that Pinterest views each pin sent from tailwind as “fresh content” which seems like a win to me!
This was kind of brilliant… not gonna lie. Thank you!!
Exactly what i needed xxx
I’ve read so any articles but this one is absolutely amazing and completely different – thank you so much !!!!! Micheleavon
This was an incredibly useful post! I’ve been working on Tailwind for a couple months now and I’m still trying to figure out how to best use it for my blog. Following these tips it’ll make it so much easier to schedule pins, so thank you for sharing!
Hi Laura,
Thanks so much for this great post! I’ve been looking for a way to “refine” my pinning plan. I already use Tailwind, and love it. But, I wasn’t having much success with trying to schedule pins only once a week. It was just taking too much valuable time.
I’ve been scheduling daily, and it only takes a few minutes, like you said. Much more efficient, and I expect I’ll use this approach for quite a while. Thanks again!
Thank you so much for this article! I’ll try your method to grow my blog! Do I simple repin relevant pins? Thanks!
Great post. I have tried many other pinning strategies and still trying to figure out which one works the best.
Will give it a try, thanks for sharing.
WOAH Thank you so much for being so honest and upfront! This gave me hope as a manual Pinner for now such an actionable post and thanks for reminding everyone that Tailwind or no Tailwind is a personal call
Thank you for being so authentic and honest! I’ve been following all the strategies and am growing slowly but surely. I have yet to do the following button one so thank you for this tip!
Amen! And, love this. I personally left Tailwind when my stats dropped. I agree: This is a personalized business. No two alike and you HAVE to find out what works for your blogging business. Thank you!
Hi,
How do you create your own pins, is it just interest graphics that are linked to your blog, I am just starting out so I don’t have so many posts. Is it okay to create posts about my product as well?
Thanks in advance for the help!
Hi Corine, I wrote a whole post on how I create pins for my products, you can read it here: https://www.theyellowbirdhouse.com/how-to-create-pins-for-etsy-listings/ . As for blog posts, if you don’t have any of your own photography, you can use stock photos. I like to use unsplash.com . Thanks for reading!
Hi Laura, so great to ‘meet’ a fellow Nova Scotian entrepreneur! Great post but I am a bit confused. You said you schedule your pin(s) daily which equals about 8-10 pins, surely that would only be from one pin (8-10 to your boards and group boards)? Also, how do you schedule pins from your following feed to Tailwind so quickly?
Hi Kenda! I have multiple pins go out each day from my various blog posts. Do you use Tailwind? It’s pretty speedy once you get the hang of it. Using the Board Lists feature is a huge time savings!
This was super helpful and I’ve actually been basically doing this because I can’t afford another expense right now. It makes me happy that it working for me isn’t a fluke lol.
Hey Laura. Thanks for taking the time to write this post. I’m definitely going to try it your way and see if I can step my Pinterest game up a bit. I do get about 100 new followers a day but I really think some of them are not real people. I try to weed out the ones that I don’t think are real but that gets very time consuming. Do you get followers like that?
Hey Julie, I’m sure some of my new followers are fake, that’s par for the course with social media. But the majority are legitimate people. I wouldn’t worry about weeding out fakers unless they are spamming you though. Thanks for reading!
Wow I love that you have given me an ACTUAL plan to work on. I don’t have Tailwind yet but will definitely invest once I am ready. For now the manual pinning will have to do. Your blogs are all awesome and very practical. One of the most useful ones I have read so far!
Thank you so much! 🙂
Thanks for the information. I am a newbie to this whole process and any advice or assistance is well accepted.
I’m so glad you found it helpful!
Thank you so much for USEFUL information on finding success with Pinterest! I am also running into a lot of articles that promise “how-to’s” only to delivery nothing of value. Anyway, you mentioned how many group boards you are a part of. Do you mind disclosing how many Tribes you are a part of on Tailwind? I am currently only a “plus” member with a limit of 5 tribes. I don’t know if it’s worth the money to add more or if group boards are just as good. Any insight is greatly appreciated!!! Thanks in advance!
Hey Natalie, Thanks for reading! I’m in 10 tribes, plus 2 that I own. I would keep going with your group boards for now and try to track how they perform for you. Tribes are similar to group boards in that they are not all created equal. So some of them could be duds, while others are really active. At least with tribes it’s easier to track how your pins are doing, but you have to pay for it. It’s 6 of one, half dozen of the other. 🙂
Hi Laura do you have a post about Tribes as I’m in 4 & have 1 of my own. I think it’s easier just to be in them Than having your own?
This was really helpful information.
My question is, I’m not ready to start a blog yet (just don’t have the time to dedicate to make it how I would want). I do however want to get my Pinterest established. What do you think is the best way to do that if I don’t have my own content to publish yet?
Hi Laura, thank you for this great article. There’s one thing I probably should understand by now but don’t. Can you clarify, for the 8-10 pins of your own content, to how many different boards does each of those 8-10 pins go? And similarly, for the 30 or so pins you find from those you are following, to how many of your own boards do each of those go? Thanks!
Thank you so much for your refreshing blog tips!
I also work in 10 minute increments while eating so this is perfect! I love reading what actually works for others! Thanks for the tips!
Love your blog and posts! Just a suggestion – can you move the social bars to the top or bottom? They’re kind of interfering on the side when reading your awesome posts! 🙂
Thanks for the heads up! It’s weird though, they interfere on my husband’s computer but not on mine. So maybe it’s a screen thing?
I’ve been using Tailwind and I love it, but I didn’t realize I should be doing that many pins a day! I figured the 4-6 a day on Tailwind and the ones I do from Facebook Groups (about 5-10) would be plenty. Good to know I should be more active on it!
Also, I had no idea about curating my following boards. I need to revamp my Pinterest in general. I’ve had it for several years and used it as a personal one, but only recently switched to a business account so it’s kind of full of junk honestly. I’ll be adding a Pinterest Revamp to my schedule with curating my following boards as a main focus. Thank you!
So I sell Stampin’Up products and also offer classes. What do I advertise on Pinterest? the products, things I have made from the products or the Stampin’Up website via my personal link? my blogs? An affiliate item?
Rarely do I comment on the post that I read unless they are EXCELLENT content that really is filled with relevant information worth taking the entire time to read. This was one of the BEST posts that direct, concise, and not loaded with distracting ads. You are mommypreneur who is certainly at Pinterest strategy expert who is worth following and recommending to others.
Perfect Pinning Strategies! I love that you added in the manual one as well!
Thank you for this info! I’ve been trying to increase our traffic through Pinterest and this seems like a great way.
Thank you so much Laura for the great lead – I’ve been floundering now for too long and getting frustrated – you’ve given me lots of hope! I’ll probably get stuck along the way and will need more answers and it’s great to know there is someone out there like myself who was in the same boat I am and now has clear sailing. Thank you again for that.
Hugs Dianne
Thanks, Laura for a great and actionable post. As a blogger we’re always short on time and strategy is everything; I learned something today for sure. Thanks again and I look forward to perhaps learn more from you. Wilfried
Thanks for this, Laura! I was feeling really discouraged and TOTALLY understand why you call BS on “empty promise” type posts 😉 This one was practical, helpful, and realistic. Going to start implementing this week!
Thanks Laura! This is INCREDIBLY helpful. I like the simple idea of pinning from the following tab. I tried Tailwind, but it’s not worth the expense when I don’t have many blogs. Does it matter if I pin at the same time? I saw that Tailwind chose the evening hours, so I can try and replicate that time. I thought I’d try the Pinterest schedule for my own pins. Now I have to come up with a chart to keep track of which pins I pin where. If this is too much of a pain, I may renew Tailwind, but I’d prefer to try it manually. Again, I appreciate your honesty. It bugs me how some people make everything seem so easy when it’s not. Your approach does make sense. Please let me know if you have any other tips for scheduling your own pins. Thanks!
Hi Laura. Great post and thank you for sharing that information.
I just have one quick question. Regards “‘following’ tab in the top menu bar..etc until all pins load and waiting for the red button. I spent 2 minutes scrolling down and stuff just continually loads and the red button never appears so I’ve already spent 2 of the 10 minutes and counting on loading all the pins. Any further advice. Thank you in advance 🙂
All the best
Valeria
Hi Valeria,
I’ve noticed the same thing actually. Sometimes the red button is there and sometimes it’s not. I think Pinterest must have made changes since I wrote this post. Just make sure you scroll down far enough to allow a large number of pins to load, but don’t scroll forever or you’ll lose the day! 🙂
Thank you, thank you, thank you! And thank you for being honest. I am a new blogger (like a couple months in) and so I’m not ready for adding in a lot of monthly expenditures. I have been so frustrated wading through all these “click bait pins” like you said aren’t really telling you anything and then trying to sell you info for a really inflated price. At some point I’m sure I’ll be ready to invest more in my blog but for now I feel like I’ve been wasting a bunch of valuable mama time trying to figure out what steps to take next. SO appreciate this post! I’ve pinned it and followed you!
Thanks for sharing your tips -this is helpful… I’ve been working on in my Pinterest strategy lately -so I’ll def give all this a try.
You shared that this strategy has helped with your stats, however I’m curious if it has dramatically increased your income or been beneficial to your sales. Would love to hear more about that piece of the puzzle 😉
Hi Lydia,
The short answer is yes. But the long answer is, well, long. Lol. Being active on Pinterest greatly increases my traffic and more traffic means more money in my case. I mainly monetize my blog with ads and the more traffic I have the more money I make. But some people have great success with affiliate programs and traffic volume doesn’t necessarily affect that revenue stream depending on how good of a sales-person you are. I could probably write a whole post about this!
Thank you for your honestly!! Love that you called BS on those quick tips to 1 million visitors!! This post is amazing, can’t wait to read more on your site.
Thanks Tracy! I’m glad my honesty appeals to you!
Awesome post! I love how thorough you are with everything!
Thanks Teya!
How do you find group boards to join? And Great tips! I will definitely be trying this week.
Hi Ashli, I wrote a whole post about group boards actually! Find it here: https://www.theyellowbirdhouse.com/pinterest-group-boards-comprehensive-guide/
Wow, nice share, I have been struggling with Pinterest and every bit of information counts in helping me to grow my traffic.
I’m so glad you found the info helpful!
Hi Laura, thanks for writing this post. A great way to remind myself that I only need 10 minutes to be consistent with my Pinterest marketing strategy.
I love Tailwind Tribes. It helps me become more engaging to other Pinterest followers.
Valerie
You’re so welcome! You’re right, Pinterest does not have to be a huge time suck to be effective!
Hi Laura
I love this strategy! I’m a newbie currently in that stage of deciding just how much I can do for free without having to pay for extras like TailWind and your strategy sounds like a pretty good place to start. Thanks!
I’m so glad my Pinterest strategy resonated with you! 🙂
Wow! I’ve never heard this pinning strategy before! Looks very doable and practical for a stay-at-home mom who’s trying to grow a blog like me. I’ll definitely try this method for at least 60 days. Thank you so much for sharing this Laura! 🙂
Hello, thanks for the article, I am going to try it, but I have one query…. where do I find the pinterest basics how-to? I have not yet worked out how to ask to join a group board, but have set up a business account. Some information seems to be really hard to find and I cannot afford to pay someone to tell me everything. Please assist if you can, I would greatly appreciate it.
I read this whole thing waiting for the sales pitch! How many times are you promised some winning pinterest strategy only to find you have to buy it? Argh!
Anyway, this seems really helpful and I’m going to give it a go before I invest in yet another Pinterest course promising the world haha xx
Thank you so much for this post. Of all posts on Pinterest regarding tips and advice, I find yours are the most comprehensive and the most helpful.
I am beginning to join Pinterest Group Board. Wish me luck!
Thank you for this great article, I have read so many that do not give any useful or helpful information. Like you and many others I have an Etsy Shop and have been frustrated with how to market and get views. I have been a Pinterest user but have not used for pinning for my shop yet. After reading your article I have a few questions, I hope you can help me.
1. In this article you said that once you create your pin to save it to one of your relevant boards, then you can pin it to other boards. My question is can you pin to the main feed on Pinterest or does Pinterest use their algorithms to decide which pins make the feed?
2. Etsy has a quick pin link to pin your items to Pinterest. Should I use this link or make my own pins (ie.PicMonkey), I am concerned with the photo dimensions that you recommend and not getting seen due to incorrect sizing of my photos.
3. You said you should have a board for Etsy listings (which I need to make) Do you need to resize all the photos in PicMonkey for this board for best results?
Any feedback you can give me would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Diana
I have tailwind and used for a while, but even that was overwhelming to me. I am slightly concerned about the follow/unfollow aspect. I don’t want other bloggers to get upset or think I’m playing games…but I want to give your strategy a try. I have to do something to get traffic to my blog and hopefully finally make some money!
Thank you for a helpful post!
There are “follow/unfollow” schemes out there that are designed to game the system and build followers in a very sketchy way. This is not one of them 🙂 This is simply cleaning up your following tab and making it more useful to you over time.
Thank you for all the info!! I found your blog today and honestly I couldn’t tell you where I found it from, but probably Pinterest. Sharing this with a friend because it is SO helpful!! Thanks!!
I’m so glad you found my post helpful, thanks for stopping by and sharing!
Thank you. Just to be clear….you only post 8-10 pins from your blog and then 20-30 pins that come from another source? I have never heard of pinning so much content from another blog.
Hi Colleen, Yes that’s correct. Many people abide by the 80/20 rule. 20% of the content you share is your own and 80% is other people’s. I don’t measure quite that precisely, but I think it’s good to share a big variety of content. That way you don’t come across as spammy or overly self-promoting. 🙂
Dear goodness! I have been paying someone to do this for me because I thought it was such a time suck, even though I knew it drove traffic to my blog. Your strategy has already saved me money because I CAN devote 10 minutes a day to do this. Thank you so much.
This was so very helpful. I’ve resenting invested in tailwind and I was asking myself “How can make this repinning a bit more effecient?” I love the little tip about using your following page. It had helped me loads in the past five minutes! Thank you for sharing.
Sending my love xx
Thanks for such a great post Laura. I found I got caught up in the Pinterest rabbit whole so easily. This strategy simplifies things so much and I love how super simple it is. I’m interested to know if you use Tailwind Tribes as well and how do you incorporate them into your strategy.
I’m so glad you love my Pinterest strategy! I do use Tailwind Tribes, they can really help you increase your reach. If you use Tailwind, I definitely recommend using tribes too. But not all tribes are created equal. It’s a good idea to assess the performance of a tribe every now and again to see if it’s worth your efforts. If a tribe isn’t performing well for me, I leave it to make room for another. I only have the basic Tailwind plan that allows for 10 tribes, so I want to make sure they’re good ones! I’ll add my new pins to them at the same time I’m scheduling pins to all my boards. I only add my own content to tribes, not anyone else’s. But I make sure to follow the rules and re-pin others!
Have you tracked how many of that 30% Pinterest Traffic has turned into a sale in your Etsy store? I would be really interested to know the conversion numbers specifically from Pinterest traffic to your store. There is a lot of traffic vanity metric floating around, and not much conversion stats from that traffic.
Have you been able to track your Pinterest conversions from your Pinterest marketing ? It is easy to do. You just create a Pinterest affiliate link for your store and use that link in all your pins to see which converts into a sale.
Great post, thanks for sharing.
Hi Pam, No I haven’t tracked exactly where my sales come from. I probably should. But I find it really easy to get stuck in the rabbit hole of stats. Lol. I tend not to worry too much about really specific analytics as long as my sales are remaining constant. Great tip though, thanks! I’ll give it a try if I decide to dive deeper into studying my analytics. 🙂
Hi Thank you so much for sharing this strategy. The problem arises when you have only a few posts and even if you create extra pins for the same post, the repin rate may not be so good. I found this great resource on how you can use Google Analytics to manual pin at times when your audience is most active.
You’re so welcome! I totally understand too, it’s hard when you don’t have a lot of posts to pin from. To start with you may only be pinning 10% of your own content and 90% of other people’s content. Over time those percentages change as your blog grows.
I started out that way too. But what I found was that creating a few options for each blog post I do is a great way to get more mileage out of what I am doing. I blog twice a week. I was trying to do more but found it overwhelming. Do you have a blogging schedule? A good balance is 80% other peoples things and 20% yours. It will increase as you go like she said.
How often are you pinning your own content? I have read that when you pin your own content too often it appears spammy to Pinterest.
Thanks so much for the strategy. Right now I can’t afford investing more money so it was good to see this CAN be done manually.
You’re so welcome! Some people swear by manual pinning, others swear by using a scheduler. Whatever works for YOU is the best Pinterest strategy!
Love this idea, Laura! Thank you for sharing—appreciate your transparency! I’m forever trying to get better at Pinterest—can’t wait to try this!
It’s a constant work in progress for all of us! Thanks for stopping by!
I love that you’re so open about finding what works for each person and their business. I personally only schedule 5-8 pins a day because it’s too taxing for me to pin up to 40, my growth may be slower for it, but I am growing. So I call that a win. Thanks!
If your strategy is working for you, then that’s totally a win! The key is in not allowing these kinds of tasks to become overwhelming, otherwise we’ll burn out. 🙂
i have felt like a failure this week, so i am going to try this. thank you 🙂
Don’t feel like a failure, Pinterest isn’t worth it! Some weeks we’re totally on the ball, other weeks not so much. That’s life!
These are great tips. As a new blogger, I am trying to learn every tip and trick I can. As a Mom, I need to find ways to save as much time as I can!! I love this article and I am definitely going to start implementing this strategy on my page. Also repinning this for my fellow bloggers! Excited to see more of your content!
I’m so glad you found my Pinterest strategy helpful. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I agree with everything in this! I was spending over an hour a week scheduling, and I kind of discovered this strategy by mistake. I thought I was just bad at scheduling because I was not getting great results and it was taking me too long. Thanks for helping me know I’m not crazy!
Meanwhile, I always try to write how-tos that actually teach something.
Nope, you’re not crazy! I have read lots of great how-to articles too, they are out there! Thanks for reading!
This is probably one of the most helpful features I’ve run across regarding Pinterest strategy. As a new blogger, I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels trying to figure Pinterest out (and it’s been a HUGE time suck). I’m going to try your method for 60 days because it is totally DOABLE!! And making sure I repin this one for my fellow blogger friends. Thanks, Laura!
Please let me know how it goes! Thanks so much for sharing!
Laura, your first few paragraphs about the how-to posts that don’t tell you how to do anything had me chuckling 🙂 This pinterest strategy is helpful for those of us who aren’t using tailwind. I have also found I get decent engagement if I pin from people who are following me as well. A good 50/50 mix works although I probably still manage to pin from “following” if I do it this way. This gives me an opportunity to scroll through my followers to see if there are any interesting profiles to follow that I may have missed.
Sounds like you’ve got a great handle on your Pinterest strategy! 🙂