Pinterest Tips for Beginners

Whether you are a new blogger or someone who just wants to learn about Pinterest, I think you will find these tips helpful. It can be so overwhelming when you first get started with a new account on Pinterest.

The main takeaway I had, while learning about blogging, was that if I wanted to monetize my blog at some point, I needed to be active on multiple social media platforms. I didn’t start blogging with the intention to make money, but the thought of monetizing has always been in the back of my mind. However, even with all of my reading and studying, if there is a secret to “getting rich quick with blogging”, I haven’t found it. It takes a while to figure things out. And once you do, things will change again.

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I’m sharing a condensed version of how to use Pinterest in this post. If you are not familiar with  Pinterest,  it is an online bulletin board. This site has much more detailed information to navigate Pinterest.

Personally, I feel Pinterest is the best platform to get your blog noticed and to start building a following. Especially since I am most familiar with Pinterest and I have watched it grow through the years. If you are ready to increase your presence on Pinterest, these tips will get you started in the right direction.

If you are familiar with using Twitter and Instagram, be sure to use those too, in sharing your blog posts.

Beginner Pinterest Tips

I’ve been on Pinterest almost since the very beginning, back when it was by invitation only. Because of that, I have a huge following. When I started my blog last year, I wanted an account under my blog name. I could have linked it to my personal account, but I opted to keep it entirely separate. I decided to upgrade to a free business account, because then I would have access to the analytics. Another wonderful aspect of a business account, is that pins that you create, have a lot more information that is automatically included with the pin.

All of the red printing on the photos are my notes pointing out different elements.

When you click on a pin from the stream (below in second picture), it will open up to something like this picture. To open this to go to the website, click on the picture. If you want to save this to one of your boards you can save it from here, or from the website.

Basic Info

If you are starting with a new, or reasonably new Pinterest account, start adding Pins and creating Boards that fit your niche. When you click on the Save button (top right corner in picture above), a drop-down menu will show the boards you have. At the bottom of the list you have the option to create a new board.

Follow other Pinners to build your Stream. When you find an interesting Pin, repin it to an appropriate board. Create a new board, if necessary. When you follow someone, most everything they Pin shows up in your stream. That is why you want a good following! When you upload or pin something to your account, it usually shows up in ALL of your follower’s streams.

You have the option of following all of the boards of other pinners, or individual boards that are of interest to you.

Pnterest Boards & Keywords

A board is essentially a category or folder. I love creative board names and I have a bunch on my personal account. On my business page though, I want people who see them, to know exactly what the content is.

When you name your boards, keep them kind of content specific and use keywords. For example, a beef recipe should be on a board that has both “beef” and “recipe” in the name. Other keywords that came up, when I searched for “beef recipes”, were Ground, For Dinner, Easy, Cheap, Crockpot, Healthy, Steak, Roast, Cubed, Asian, Mexican, Stew, Shredded, Slow Cooker, Stir Fry, Casserole, Hamburger, Oven, etc. There are a number of combinations possible…Easy Beef Recipes would be good, as would Ground Beef Recipes.

Use keywords in the board descriptions, too. Keywords get you noticed on Pinterest and on Google. But don’t just load it up with nothing but keywords that don’t make sense. Using the example above, the description could start with “Quick & easy beef recipes for healthy family dinners.” Every single word in that sentence is a keyword…BUT they make sense in a sentence! Add more of your own words to the description, so that you have two or three sentences.

In the search below for Christmas, you could have a main board for Christmas, then sections for Christmas Crafts, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Gifts, etc

When I want to look up something I know I have pinned, instead of going through and looking at the pictures on a whole board, if I type in the search box what I want to find, and then click “you pins“, it will show just the pins I pinned with that name.

Setting Up Boards

If you are just starting out though, broad categories would be best. You can always edit the pins later and move to newer boards. I suggest you set up 10 – 12 boards right away.

BUT…don’t have empty boards! If you know you want a specific board, do a Pinterest search for pins to repin on your board. I would suggest you have at least 10 pins on a board before making it public. You can keep it secret until you have more pins.

Set up one board for only your blog content and have it the very first board people see when they come to your page.

Pinning & Repinning

Pinterest is NOT a Social Media site like Facebook, where interaction is encouraged. It’s more like a visual search engine. With that being said, do engage with other pinners by occasionally leaving comments and repinning their pins. Pinterest likes the engagement! You will find pinners that consistently have the same kind of content that you are interested in. When you do, follow them!

The standard practice for bloggers on Pinterest is to follow the 80/20 rule. Only upload or pin from your blog twice for every 8 pins of other content.  That could be once, or divide it in half and pin twice a day, then do that once every day, or once a day several times a week. Use keywords and hashtags on your uploaded blog pins. I try to pin other content four times to each one of my pins twice a day.

When you repin or pin content from other sites, you want to pin from sites that have good pictures and excellent information that will be of benefit to the Pinterest community. That also makes Pinterest (and Google) very happy, and your pins get shown more often in searches.

Pinterest also loves when pins are made from websites, so that new content is continually being introduced.

~~~It also adds to your credibility as a blogger!~~~

Also, make sure the site is legitimate and not redirected to a spam site.

Pinterest Etiquette

A lot of Pinterest account holders don’t like when people come in and repin a ton of their pins from a single board. If you find a board that you love, follow the board, then every couple of days, repin a few of their pins to your board and occasionally comment on their pins.

I pin my blog posts several times over a few days or weeks, but to different boards. The very first pin I do for a new post is to add it to my Haphazard Homemaker board. If it’s a Slowcooker recipe, the second time I pin it will be to my Slowcooker board. If I have an appropriate group board, I would pin the recipe a third time to the group board.

If your intention is to build your blog and following, bear in mind that you want your Pinterest account to look professional and business-like. Show your creativity, but don’t pin things or have boards that are inappropriate, or that will offend your followers.

Group Boards

I didn’t fully understand Group Boards until I started blogging, so when I was invited to join before, I usually  declined the invitations. I now know that Group Boards are a huge asset. If you are invited, check out the board, and if you feel like it’s a good fit for your pins, ACCEPT it! You DO have to follow that board, plus generally all of the creator’s boards.

Typically, when you are accepted to a group board, you can pin a certain number of your pins a day (usually 1 -3). In exchange, you have to repin a certain number of pins from the group board.

Group boards allow you to reach a wider audience outside of your followers. For example: If I only had 1,000 followers on my Pnterest account and I joined a board that had 1,000 followers, I have doubled my exposure. Then, for example 3 people, who are also on the group board and also have 1,000 followers on their personal accounts, share my pin from the group board, that’s exposure to another 3,000 people. In this example, that’s exposure to 4,000 new people, plus the ones that follow my account.

Most of the time, you have to do some research to find group boards, and you have to contact the creator to ask to join the group board. And sometimes you have to knock on a lot of doors to get accepted into ONE! Since they are also building their following, they usually don’t take pinners with a low number of Pinterest followers.

Save to Pinterest

Hope you learned from these tips. If you have any questions, just let me know!

Robin