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Are you using Pinterest as part of your traffic strategy? Need to know how to use Pinterest effectively? Do you even have a traffic strategy? Attracting the right type of traffic to your blog and there needs to be a synergy between all of your marketing. In this case study, I wanted to share how to effectively use Pinterest, group boards AND Tailwind for maximum effect.

  
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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 10 million profile views, and it has over 1.1 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.

 

Pinterest Group Boards Case Study:

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

how to use pinterest - analytics
How to use Pinterest; Stats June 2017
 

Since that time Pinterest appears to have removed the option to view those kinds of stats from your main feed. This 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!!!

 
April 2017 Pinterest Impressions
 
Pinterest Account growth infographic

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.

 
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  • 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 Tailwind 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.
 

Week of 13th August 2017:

Tailwind Tribes 6 month mark

How To Use Pinterest – The Group Board Strategy:

Do

  • 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 the chances of virality.

 

Also

  • 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 pin description checklist right here. Use SENTENCES and NEVER keyword stuff. EVER.
  • 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.
 

Do Not:

  • 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.
How to use Pinterest - and grow it fast

Remember that the best way to give pinners the variety they crave is to pin from a wide variety of blogs. Unless the group boards specifically say that you must only pin your content.

I may have mentioned this above, but it’s so important it bears repeating: Do not bombard the board or your feed – Use Tailwind to spread it over over the course of several weeks. I have done so in the name of testing, as I want to share the best advice and information with you. I’m not proud and it didn’t last.

 

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.

 
How to use pinterest - the most effective group board strategy
Claire
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