Ok, guys. It is no secret that Pinterest is a blogger’s BFF. I’ve been preaching about Pinterest basically since day one and that’s because it is a massively effective platform where bloggers can see major traffic. Personally, I found out about the wonders of Pinterest by accident.

I’d been using it since I started blogging because I was told that’s what I needed to do. And then about six months in I had a pin go viral. Now I’m not talking baby viral, I’m talking the real deal. I went from getting 500 views a day to over 30,000. All from Pinterest.

Now this spike only lasted around a week, but my eyes were opened to the powers of Pinterest.

At that point I started diving in and taking things seriously. I pored over every Pinterest resource I could find, I pinned like a mad woman, and I learned what worked and what didn’t. And now, because there is plenty of Pinterest love to go around, I am going to be sharing my best Pinterest secrets with you.

THE BASICS.

Before we dive into the advanced stuff, lets start laying down the basics. If you’re here, I’m guessing you’re a blogger or business owner, which means you have a website. Great!

• First things first, apply for rich pins. This step is non-negotiable and do not pass go without doing this first. Rich pins initially seem like they are complicated to set up, but it’s actually a piece of cake. Here is an awesome resource y’all can use if you want to be walked through the process!
• Now fill out your profile, this shouldn’t be hard! Add a branded image of yourself (hopefully the one that you’re using across all social media!) and fill out who you are and what you’re doing. Here is mine, if you’re feeling stuck:
  
• Delete your unused boards. This is another important step! You only want to have boards that you are active on and that help build your brand. If you won’t be using them, either delete them or make them private! You might lose a handful of followers doing this, but they weren’t your audience, anyways!
• Organize your boards. Group them together by topic, and put your most popular topics first. Despite you reading my business site, my college lifestyle blog is still more popular so you’ll find my college boards before anything else!

ADVANCED STEPS.

Following the tips above are going to already give your account a boost, but there is still a lot that you can do from there. From the content you pin to the time of day you pin it – everything you do can either help or hurt your brand.

THE PINS.

So it’s important that you are pinning quality pins to your boards. You only want to pin pins that you think are going to get a lot of engagement, or else pinterest is going to think you are boring and your pin won’t show up in the smart feed. I’ll get further into detail about “good” pins below!

Make the vertical, for goodness sakes! 

Whenever I see a blogger pin a horizontal image, my heart hurts for them a little bit. In most cases it’s a beautiful image that looks incredible on their blog but it gets lost on Pinterest.

Pinterest is a visual platform, but it’s also a platform people mindlessly scroll through. You want to take up as much Pinterest real estate as possible in order to catch attention!

Only pin helpful pins. 

Sometimes when I’m pinning I’m tempted to just pin every relevant thing I see throwing caution to the wind. Don’t do that. Now when I’m pinning I try to pin from trusted users (Melyssa, Olyvia, Regina, Sarah, etc.) or I’ll check where the pin leads before pinning. I want my followers to trust that I’m only pinning gold so that they are more likely to engage!

Brand your pins.

You know how all of the graphics here look pretty much the same? No, I’m not lacking creativity, rather I’m creating a brand. I want people to look at my pins and say, ‘Hmm, that Morgan Timm must have pinned this. The last pin of hers I clicked took me to a super helpful post. I’ll click this one, too.’ There is a lot of value in branding yourself, and one of the biggest benefits is that it builds trust.

ALL ABOUT PINNING.

Pin on brand! 

One of the most important things you can do is niche down your account. If you’re blogging about food but pinning about fashion, and workouts, and motivation, and food; your audience is going to be confuse. Above I mentioned deleting irrelevant boards or making them private.

Pin to group boards!

Group boards on Pinterest are amazing. They allow you to share audiences and get a ton of new eyes on your content. You can find group boards by searching the niche you’re looking to pin to, hitting “boards,” and then looking for boards with the group symbol. Click that board and in the description it should mention how to join!

If you want to join my blogging board, leave a comment below with your email address!

Pin a lot.

And I mean a ton. At least 25 pins per day, but more is better. Two weeks ago I was pinning 15 pins a day and gaining about 5 followers a day, last week I bumped up to 25 pins per day and started gaining about 20 followers a day.

Yesterday I set out to pin 50 and gained 23 followers but I’ll have better data after a few days of it!

Save time using a looper.

50 pins a day?!?! Yes, I know that’s a lot, but it took me very little time. I have Board Booster* pin 25 pins a day for me, and I found the additional 25 myself. Board booster looks through your boards for you and repins content to your boards to refresh old pins (hello consistent traffic!) and keep boards active. You can do all of the pinning yourself, but chances are your time would be more beneficial elsewhere!

Make a board for your blog. 

And pin all pins there first. After you pin to your blog’s board, go and repin the original pin (don’t keep repinning straight from your blog!) to all other relevant boards and group boards that you are a part of. You want high repin rates on your blog’s board so more people will follow and see all of your new posts!

GO FORTH, YOU PINTEREST ROCKSTAR, YOU.

Once you get everything set up and fall into your rhythm, you get a fantastic return for the time invested. I’d say I spend about 10 minutes on Pinterest a day, and get thousands of views daily thanks to that small amount of time I put into it. As always, if I missed anything share your wealth in the comments! There is enough room on the internet for everyone to be successful!