To Pin or Not to Pin? Pinterest – A Blogger’s Guide

Are you over on Pinterest? Have you even heard of it?! Well, I am, and I feel like I’m just starting to get the hang of it, so I thought I’d share my thoughts and findings so far, sharing To Pin or Not to Pin A Blogger’s Guide to Pinterest….

Blogger's Guide to Pinterest

I pin every post I write, onto my blog board. I’ve looked back on my first 6 months worth of posts. Once I take out the competitions and a couple of very popular pieces, the posts with the largest views are the ones that work well on Pinterest. Hmm, interesting.

So, in the last few weeks, I’ve really started to pay more attention and make more of an effort with Pinterest. I can see that it can keep on getting me traffic, and so seems to be a community well worth building, and I’m feeling quite happy and at home there. Now, I know I’ve a long way to go here, and there are plenty of bloggers with thousands more followers and experience than me over there, but I thought I’d share where I’m at with is so far…

Initially, for the first few months, my visits there were pretty sporadic. Over the last 2 months, I’ve made a conscious effort to pop over a handful of times each day, only for a few minutes (here’s where you have to be strong and keep it to just a few minutes), and I’ve pinned a couple of things. Little and often seems to be key, and not pinning loads onto the same board in one go, as it can make for a dull feed for others. This is easy if you have the app on your phone, so you can do it on the go! I then figured out, finally, that like Twitter, I need to follow a few folks and some may follow back. So, I’ve swung by some of my favourite blogs and looked for a Pinterest button (note here – some bloggers’ social icons don’t work – check yours!), and I’ve also followed people who have pinned the same thing as me – Pinterest tells you this each time you pin, which is rather helpful. So over the last few weeks, I’ve gone from a fairly static 202 followers to 427 and climbing. And yes, my blog referrals from Pinterest are also rising.

A few other key tips that I’ve discovered along the way:
– profiles with photos of yourself rather than logos do better
– do edit your profile information, including your blog address
– make it clear what your boards are about, and categorise them correctly
– check you’ve the best covers for each board, and position them according to popularity/importance. Potential new followers may only glance at your first few boards to make their decision
– make your own post images ‘pin worthy’ – a clear description of what they are about
– add a pin-it hover button to your blog to make it easy for people to pin your post and to serve as a prompt
– add Pinterest widgets and social buttons to your blog
– pin your own posts and include a description with your blog address
– when you pin, Pinterest tells you that ‘x’ has also pinned this, so go take a look at their boards and follow them as you may have common interests
– join in with Pinterest linky parties – many are in the US and I use this fab linky calendar. Helps to find great pinners to follow, too.

UPDATE: August 2014

– It’s worth getting a Pinterest business profile. In fact, if you use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog, and that blog makes you money, be it ads or sponsored content, you’re supposed to have a business account. Once you have one, and you verify your blog, you’ll have access to your analytics, which is very useful for understanding your traffic and popular Pins – that’s probably a whole other post right there!

– As long as you Pin fresh content, little and often, it’s worth repinning your own content periodically, too. I do stress, you’ll need to Pin other posts and pics, too, as people don’t want to just see a feed full of you repinning your own posts! I repin a handful of my posts every day, but then, I also pin a whole heap of other stuff, too! I repinned an old post last week, which didn’t get much interest a few months ago, but it’s been pinned 13 times in the last few days – random, but that’s how it works! You can really generate a lot of traffic from this, and do think about the posts you’re repinning. Pinterest tends to like how-tos, recipes, lists, inspiration and so on, so focus on those.

And as a blogger, interested in building your readership and page views, when you look at information like this, I’d ask can you afford not to Pin?

20140318-221452.jpg (infographic from http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/)

On a personal level, it’s just so handy! I find it especially useful for keeping all of my recipes in one place, gathering ideas for Project Garden, creating themes for my home makeover projects, finding inspiration for activities for the kids and I to do – the list is endless! And…it’s fun and pretty. Yep, that’s what I’m signing off with, folks. I’ve a ‘Rose Love‘ board, ‘Breathtaking Scenery’, ‘Makes Me Smile’, ‘My Childhood’, ‘Motivational Quotes‘ – and plenty, plenty more! It’s lovely over there….

And if you want to get started now, feel free to follow me and add this as your first pin! I’ve also got a bloggers board over there called Share the Blog Love, where you can add your own posts, along with those by fellow bloggers that you’ve enjoyed.

You may also enjoy How to Write a Brilliant About Me Page and my Top 20 Tips for Bloggers

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Visit The Reading Residence’s profile on Pinterest.

Brilliant blog posts on HonestMum.com

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67 thoughts on “To Pin or Not to Pin? Pinterest – A Blogger’s Guide”

    1. Glad it’s been useful. You’re probably just as I was a few weeks ago then, before I started thinking about it!

  1. Great post! I have got twitter sorted, I know how to use FB – with the help of Instagram to benefit my blog and next on my to do list is to dedicate some time to Pinterest. I pin all my posts but tend to do them in one go, I need to start doing it on a daily basis really and have a sort out of my boards – My Pinterest is a bit of a mess at the moment! x

    1. Glad you like it! Pinterest was one of the last ones I came to, too, but now I’m figuring it out, I love it! Hope my tips can help you start getting organised over there x

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  3. Adore Pinterest, seriously my online happy place and in a relatively short time, have a lot of followers and get a fair bit of traffic back, large, well shot images and mostly food, interiors and fashion I’ve personally found, work best for me. Thanks for linking up to #brillblogposts please do add my badge or link back. Thanks

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  9. Hi! I just came through your other post with sarah from boo roo and tigger too and i’m not sure if you have changed your pinterest board names since then as this post is a couple of months old but just to let you know they are all coming up as broken links within pinterest for me so you might need to check them again!
    Pinterest is my favourite social network, because it is the prettiest one and its so relaxing to just sit and pin pin pin all the pretty pictures 😀
    If you are looking for some more UK based pinterest linkys I run one on my blog running Tuesdays-Fridays together with 3 other lovely bloggers so do drop by if you fancy it!

    1. Thanks very much for the tip off – all fixed now! I do love it, so pretty! And yes, I’ll definitely pop by your linky, thanks 🙂

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  17. I’m still getting the hang of Pinterest too, I’ve just been offered the option to get a business account and I’m not sure if I should switch or not. Have you changed over? Do you know if there is a big difference between the two accounts?

    1. I have got a business account, yes. I believe that Pinterest likes you to have one if you use it as a blogger to drive traffic to your blog, that makes an income from the bog, such as ads or sponsored content. It looks the same, basically, but you have access to analytics which is very useful.

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  23. I just came across this post today thanks to YouBabyMeMummy. This is brilliant and just what I was looking for. I have recently been thinking about how best to get my blogging stuff onto Pinterest but didn’t have a clue so I shall be taking your tips on board. Thank you! x

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