Are you using Pinterest as part of your traffic strategy? Do you even have a traffic strategy? If you don’t, I talk about how essential it is in this post that turns out to be my second income report about my first $3k month back in March 2017. You need to learn how to use Pinterest and Pinterest Group Boards effectively. Full stop (or Period. if you’re American).
Pinterest Group Boards Case Study:
How To Use Pinterest: How I Grew My Pinterest Engagement by 26,497,150% Basically, 26.5 MILLION PERCENT in 100 Days!
Every single month my Heart Handmade UK Pinterest account gets over 7.9 million profile views, and it has over 1 million followers. Within two months I generated over 545k views to StartACraftBlog Pinterest Profile. Which is awesome. Another amazing blogger who has seen great success on Pinterest is Nataly from Love and Paper Flowers who is featured in this case study. Nataly amassed over 60k profile views within two months (which is an insanely high number and our results are not comparable because I’m a Pinterest veteran) I had an advantage or two.
The Explosive Growth where engagement grew by over 26,497,150.00%. Holy Crap! That’s nutts!!! It’s so nuts that it made me swear. I told my computer to fudge off and stop lying to me. But I knew it was the truth, I worked hard on my Pinterest strategy, I just wasn’t expecting those results.
From Mid Feb 2017 – May 31 2017
Pinterest Stats as of June 22nd 2017
Since that time Pinterest appears to have removed the option to view those kinds of stats from your main feed, which is unfortunate if you don’t have a business account, which is likely to be the case if you don’t really know how to use Pinterest. The most recent analytics are from the analytics section of my Start A Craft Blog Pinterest account.
Impressions grew by almost 9000% which made me curious about the other metrics available to me. I decided to check on my engagement levels over 100 days and I was BLOWN away!!!
Tailwind Tribe Stats:
Tribes are basically like Pinterest group boards but they are housed on Tailwind and require you to repin one for every pin you add. Your pin number and share numbers are visible to everyone and you will be kicked out if you don’t play by the rules.
Get Your Free Tailwind Trial
Week of 13th August 2017:
Week of 13th June:
(was finishing my book this week and didn’t spend as much time submitting to Tribes)
The week before that:
The week before that:
In my first month on Pinterest, my daily impressions (eyes on my Pins) grew by 8,784%:
The main advantages that I had:
- I’ve been on Pinterest since before it was launched to the public (as heart handmade, but startacraftblog is a brand new account) so I already knew how to use Pinterest and then some.
- Was able to piggyback on heart handmade group boards within the same niche, although it didn’t help as much as you would think
- Used both Tailwind AND BoardBooster from the very beginning (you can get a free trial with Tailwind) as well as a manual pinning strategy. I’ve made my money back in Ad revenue alone within one month.
- Joined appropriate Tailwind tribes as soon as I found them and I never add the same thing to a lot of Tribes on the same day (keeping them in my drafts so I can go back and add them to other tribes at a later date).
- Don’t add other people’s content to Tribes. From Tribes, of course, you must share the same amount that you put in.
For more Traffic Advice, check out this post: 10 Awesome Ways To Generate Traffic To Your Posts
How To Use Pinterest – The Group Board Strategy:
- Follow the rules of any group board that you are a part of because they are all different, you should write them down. I get really frustrated when people pin recipes to my Crafts boards and it explicitly says “NO FOOD NO RECIPES” in the rules.
- Only Pin Tall pins (vertical)
- If you don’t have a business account and have Rich Pins enabled, do that right now, it’s FREE. http://business.pinterest.com
- Use a spreadsheet to track your boards and board rules.
- Use Tailwind and manual Pinning for maximum effect.
- Pin your most popular posts, regularly.
- Check the group board every few days to ensure that you aren’t adding too much content. If you are, that’s usually a sign of a poorly performing board so you can just leave it.
The most important thing that I don’t see many people actually doing is Pin FROM the group board – it makes the group board more visible within the Pinterest Platform, and it helps you as well as everyone else. If more people did it, group boards would perform even better and increase chances of virality.
- Run analytics and delete underperforming pins. (Tailwind is best for this) Some people will tell you that it isn’t necessary, but it actually boosts your stats within Pinterest which shows Pinterest that you are pretty popular and your content then becomes more visible within the platform.
- Leave boards that are not performing well for you. (You can find that info in Tailwind analytics)
- Add keyword heavy descriptions to each of your pins. You’re given 500 characters. Use them all! Check out the Guest Post that I wrote right here and download your viral pin checklist right here.
- Pin QUALITY content. Not just any old crap because your numbers are low.
Quality Content means:
- High-quality photos that match the style of that group board.
- Large, Portrait images. According to Canva, the perfect size is 735 pixels wide and 1102 pixels tall.
- A clear visual related to what the source post is about… a good example is a photo from your post with text on top.
DON’T:
- Ever flood the board! (I’m guilty of it in the past, every time I add a Pin to a group board I double check the board)
- Pin things that aren’t relevant
- Add landscape images (they won’t be seen)
- Pin things with broken links
It’s not a good idea to pin:
- A collage with way too many images.
- Make sure the page you pin from is of good quality. Not a Tumblr site.
- There can be exceptions to this rule; if blogs with original content are hosted there.
- The same photo again and again.
- Bad quality images; bad lighting, grainy, too dark, too light, etc. I’ve found that it can be difficult to see these things on your blog. You can be too close.
Do not bombard the board or your feed – Use Tailwind to spread it over over the course of several weeks.
So, If you’ve been asking “can Pinterest help my business?”
The answer is YES! Absolutely. You just need to make sure that you learn how to use Pinterest effectively. The best piece of advice that I have for you is to do most of the Pinning from your own website to group boards on a regular basis.
If all of this seems like too much for you to deal with and you’re insanely overwhelmed immediately, I can help you out.
Great activity on Pinterest! I’m so happy for you! I want your pins on my Pinterest Likes these board (oops, you’re already on, lol)
Hey Joleisa! thank you so much. lol. 😀
This is a great resource article! Thank you so much for sharing it!
Hi Sheryl, thank you so much for taking the time to comment 🙂 it’s very much appreciated xo
Thanks for these tips! I am still getting used to Tailwind and pinning to group boards. Like how often, which pins, etc. So much to learn when it comes to social media marketing!
Hi Kristin! Thank you so much for taking the time to comment.. I pin high quality pins (started around 50 pins per day) I installed the Tailwind chrome extension and if I see some great posts I will add it using the extension. You can also do a pinterest search and add a few results. It’s a whole new kind of education right?!
I will try out some of these tips!
that’s great news. Lots of luck!
Pinterest is such an amazing business tool! I’m so glad I’ve learned to maximize it’s potential!
Wow! So much detail! Thank you!
Very interesting! I just started my business Pinterest account. Ive been lost about the group board thing. I will have to check out tailwind.
Hey Amber! If you can join Facebook groups there are some dedicated to joining Pinterest group boards and Tailwind tribes 🙂 you can always google the type of blog niche you are in and add group boards. Like “Crafts Pinterest Group Board” “Sewing Pinterest group Board” “Crochet Pinterest group board”
Thanks for the helpful tips. Going to bookmark this.
Love your post. I nominated you “The Blogger Recognition Award 2017. find it here
https://luckysevenstar.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/the-blogger-recognition-award-2017/
Hey there Nilushi! Thank you so much 🙂 you’re so kind
Thank You 🙂
Thank you for the tips, I’ve just started with Pinterest and this was really helpful. I’ll look into Tailwind 🙂
wow thats cool thankyou very much i love to read your blog posts
Hey Shehroz! Thank you 🙂 Good luck with your Pinterest strategy
I have always seen such articles but they never really go in-depth with their Pinterest strategies or even dare to reveal their analytics. Thanks for the insight. Do you know any favorable Pinterest groups that you could suggest for me? I am also new to the concept of tribes on Tailwind. Any help as well? Thanks.
Hi Owen, sure, what Niche are you in?
it sounds like i need to use tribes more!
Super helpful information!! Thanks!!
Looking to work on this next. Thanks for the great tips! Pinning 🙂
Hi Christine, thank you for leaving a comment 🙂 and thank you for sharing! Good luck with your Pinterest strategies x
SO detailed and informative! Thank you so much for these tips – I’m only in one Tribe at the moment, but going to focus on finding more!
Hi Laura, I’m working on a Huuuuuage list for people to join group boards and tribes by niche because people are struggling to find them 🙂 I’m on it!
Group boards are soooo awesome! They definitely help increase traffic!
I really need to bite the bullet and just pay for Tailwind. I know it will exponentially increase my traffic.
Hey Ryan, it really will. You can still use tailwind tribes for free without a subscription. That could still grow your following and repins ?
Excellent article. I’ve been working on my Pinterest strategy and this was definitely helpful.
Thanks for shedding light on some pinterest questions I had! I keep seeing conflicting info about whether or not to delete under performing pins. 😛
Hi Laura, yes I saw similar conflicting info so I tested it myself and a week after deleting the under performing pins, my engagement reach metric on talwind had reached maximum (a great improvement on the week before)
Great information in this post. Just started using Pinterest for my personal blog so I found the suggested points very helpful. I will definitely try the things you are suggesting here to see if it helps me grow my blog. My blog friend tells me it will certainly help me get traffic to my blog.
Hi a James, yes a Pinterest has 3 Billion users and you have a much higher chance of your posts being seen on Pinterest than on google. So it’s a good idea to get started!
definitely working on getting my Pinterest account working for me.
This is why I love and use both Pinterest and Tailwind. With the right knowledge and strategy, you can amass a ton of traffic with minimal effort. That makes me happy. 🙂 Most of my page views come from Pinterest!
That’s also why I love using Canva to create my Pinterest blog post graphics – so simple and easy to use. Plus, it’s free. Holla’.
My Favorite Canva Tips to Improve Your Pinterest Blog Graphics
You are totally right! I love canva! Especially because it stores everything for you and you don’t have to have hundreds of image files on your computer or huge photoshop files. It is hands down.. the best social media image creator that is free. Woo!
That’s one of my favorite things about Canva, too! You can create templates and keep pictures on the site…makes my life so much easier, haha!
I am quite new to the Pintrest world, so I really appreciate you sharing all of these tips and tricks in such a thorough way. It is so helpful! I can’t wait to dig in to all of your suggestions 🙂 I’ve pinned for future reference!
Great tips!! Will have to try them out! Thanks!
Hey Vanessa, thank you for taking the time to comment and best of luck implementing the tips!
Pinterest is by far the. Ingest driving force behind my blog traffic. Love Tailwind and BoardBooster because I couldn’t do it on my own.!
Hi Claire,
Great tips on Pinterest, I’ve been using it to help me get more traffic to my blog. I’ve been using Pinterest for about 5 months and still not seeing a ton of traffic.
Pinterest traffic is slowly starting to gain traction on my blog. I thought I would spend this week trying to improve my Pinterest marketing strategies.
Seems like your post came at the right time. I am going to see if I can implement some of the tips to help me improve my Pinterest traffic.
I know that so many bloggers say that it can be a great way to get traffic to their blog.
Thanks for sharing these tips with us, have a great day 🙂
Susan
Hi Susan! Thank you for visiting 🙂 I have a 30 minute webinar that covers a lot of my tips and secret weapons when it comes to Pinterest and using Group Boards in my Blogger Library if you are interested 🙂
“Run analytics and delete underperforming pins. (Tailwind is best for this) Some people will tell you that it isn’t necessary, but it actually boosts your stats within Pinterest which shows Pinterest that you are pretty popular and your content then becomes more visible within the platform.”
Is this in reference to pins that I have made, or any pins at all? I do have rich pins.
In reference to all 🙂
Amazing post! Lots of great strategies I have not seen else where.
I am struggling with Pinterest, I have both Tailwind and Boardbooster. However I do not get your over 100k impressions, I get only 14k impressions. I have a few questions , I hope you can share your expertise opinions 🙂
1. How many pins do you schedule and manually pin a day? what is the ratio of yours and other people’s content that your are sharing?
2. Very interesting you mentioned delete not performing well pins. I have never seen that strategy before. Do you go through all pins that has less one 1 repin through tailwind to delete them? It would take a long time
3. Most of my group boards have virality score (repin/pin) of 1-3 on tailwind. Are they what you would classify as good boards?
Lots of questions 😛 Thank you for sharing your success and strategy with others
Hey Yuan! I know I replied to this via email for you but I finally got my system fixed!
1. 80/20 my stuff to other peoples. between 10-50 per day
2. Less than 10 repins, sometimes even more.
3. that’s a good score!
I am just getting started on pinterest, and trying to learn enough to get started. Trying to get on to job boards, and perhaps will start using tailwind.
Hey Vinil! Tailwind is an excellent way to get more blog traffic and increase your Pinterest presence, there’s a Pinterest webinar in the Blogger Library if you would like to watch it. With a guide to help you create Pins with the potential to go viral.
Thanks so much for the extra tips. Traffic from Pinterest continues to grow. I just wish it would go faster. Currently up to 14,000 clicks/month to my blog.
Hi Claire,
What a great blog. Thank you for all the tips.
I am new in blogging and applying Pinterest to grow the traffic is also new for me.
I will surely read and follow your advises.
Regards,
Anna
Hey Anna! That’s great news 🙂 if you need any help at all feel free to get in touch x
Great tips to master Pinterest. I have to say, I’m new at Pinterest and still don’t understand it very much but your post has given me a new insight. Will put your tips in practice.
Hi Magly! That’s awesome 🙂 I have a 5 day challenge and course that’s totally free.. but it tells you everything you want to know when starting out!
I am pretty new to blogging, and though I have used Pinterest quite a lot, It is mainly for personal use, not really sharing my blog stuff yet. I must confess I have never heard of Tailwind, so I am definitely going to look into that! 🙂 Have a great day and thanks for all the info 😀
Hi Joy!
Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment! Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your site and hopefully, all of your experience on the platform will help you 🙂
Claire
Hello! How do you tell if a Pinterest group board is underperforming? Should I look at Vitality on Tailwind?
Hi Kristin,
Yes that’s correct! You can arrange your boards by clicking the little arrows in the top menu and have the lowest performers appear at the top of your list.
I hope that helps!
The Pajama Affiliates are awesome!
I’ve never heard of them! I must check them out 🙂
You are my Pinterest guru. Blogging goals most definitely xx
Very helpful tips. I am currently working on my sites and learning the process of getting more views through Pinterest. I’ll bookmark it so that I may have a guide when I start on Tailwind.
I have a separate post that is a total guide that will definitely help you! 🙂 thank you for taking the time to leave a comment Sharon!
Wow! What amazing results you’ve had and it looks like your Pinterest strategy is a winner! Thanks so much for sharing!
It is so trusting and time consuming to learn how to really use Pinterest to grow my page views. I can’t wait to be where you are.
Applying to group boards takes foreeeevvvverrrrr and many of the quality ones are no longer accepting contributors. Will patience, I will apply on!
Thanks again!
Tati
Great tips! Thanks!
No problem! thank you for taking the time to leave a comment 🙂
Agree. Tailwind and Pinterest together have been huge for me. Always tweaking with it.
These are great notes! I’ve been trying to figure out how to optimize Pinterest more and find stats. Thank you for this!
Great post, it’s going to help a lot. thanks!