Happy New Year! Thought I’d start 2022 by sharing my new Pinterest strategy. I’ve built up my blog from scratch and learned the hard way through trial and error what really works across my social media platforms.

I like to share social media strategies once in a while on my blog, that have helped my blog stats to grow. Firstly, because I love what I do and I want to inspire others to start blogging too. Secondly, because I find it interesting, I have a diploma in social media marketing after all.

If you’re just starting out as a blogger, then this article is for you. I am very open and honest about my social media platforms. I have grown each one organically and so my progress can be consistently seen throughout the progression of my blog (so that you know it’s all honest).

Firstly, I wanted to mention that I have several posts on the social media platforms I am active on, so don’t forget to go check them out. I’ve written posts on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

Pinterest is all about the eye catching images

As I started the new year I just had to have a photoshoot with my baby girl Zowie. She is growing up so fast and as a photographer, creating sleek photographs with eye-catching details is an essential part of the business- a lot like creating images for Pinterest.

Pinterest is all about creating images that are perfectly designed. The ambition with Pinterest is to create an image that goes viral. If you can crack that, then your website stats will be off the charts.

Firstly though, I thought I’d break Pinterest down and simplify it because not everyone gets it. It can be a little bit confusing at first.

Pinterest put simply is a search engine. It looks and feels like a social media platform (and has some social media features) but really it’s like Google, but instead of text explaining articles, you get images.

So when you type something into the search bar, like ‘pink hats’ for example- you get a bunch of images of pink hats. But all of those images are linked to something- whether it’s blog posts, products or web pages.

Now as a blogger, Pinterest is going to be important. It’s a site that can really make your blog, so it’s important to understand how to use it.

However, there have been some changes made recently that are important, so I’m going to explain them, and also explain how I’ve changed my strategy for website stats on Pinterest.

But first some photos from the little photoshoot I mentioned earlier …

Changes to Pinterest

So I’ve had my Pinterest account for 11 years. It’s one of my favourite platforms, it’s up there with Instagram. However, using it for pleasure and business is very different.

First up, you’ll need to set up a business account. This is important if you want to set up advertising, for example, monitor stats and have a clear view of your most popular pins.

Stats can be a little daunting at first, but they’re really quite useful. For example, you can view your age demographic, countries, popular pins, popular boards etc. There are plenty of YouTube videos out there explaining stats (in fact note to self, I should make one on my YouTube channel- add me here, for blogging tips)

Anyway, over the 11 years of having Pinterest, things have changed quite a lot. Gone are the days of having to promote other peoples content more than yours. Actually, self-promotion is now favoured.

I know, I was sceptical about it too- but after having a meeting with Pinterest about advertising, I asked if this was correct– and it was!

As Pinterest has moved into the world of advertising to keep the shareholders happy, they’ve decided to ditch the promotion of other peoples content- as that’s not good for business.

You’re now actually favoured to promote your own content. A whopping 90% of your content vs 10% promotion of other peoples content.

Something else that’s changed is the rise of affiliate sales, advertising products and sales made directly via Pinterest.

This means that paying for advertising is kind of essential now and there’s a lot more competition, big business vs little blogs, so if you want to stand out you’ve gotta work hard.

Pinterest recommends certain things that will help your pins to succeed, such as putting your logo in the top right corner, the size of the pins and less text with clear images, that make you want to click on them. But as for strategies, in terms of pinning they kind of leave you in the dark. So here’s mine…

My new Pinterest strategy

So I decided to set my personal account up as a business account when I started my blog in September 2020, since then I’ve been designing pins, pinning my photography, paying for advertising and pinning a lot of others people’s content.

After finding out the bombshell that I no longer had to post other content, I decided to set up a brand new account where I only posted my blog content. A mixture of photography and pin designs.

I kept the same strategy with my personal account, as I use Pinterest for a lot of my inspiration creatively. I kept pinning eye-catching images and included my own content every now and again, whilst running ads for my top blog posts.

My new account was quite easy to build, as I had pinned a lot of content on my previous account so this gave me a little head start. I aimed for 15 pins a day and stayed consistent. Consistency is the best trick to building all social media platforms btw- it just requires a lot of dedication.

As for the 10% of other peoples content, I added my personal account and pinned stuff from my blog on there. A little cheeky I know, but I figured this would give me maximum results.

I also created a shared board with my main account to increase traffic and put my business handle in my main account profile bio.

I also realised that creating one blog pin for each post was nowhere near enough so I started to experiment with multiple designs.

What I will say is that I’m still in the infancy stage of my strategy but have noticed good results so far with my website stats doubling.

As it’s the start of a New Year, I am going to be ambitious this year. My social media platforms are going to be my new goals. I am determined, and can’t wait to update this post in 6 months time with my results and findings.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Soph.

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