With so many users starting to grace the social platform that is Pinterest, the constant question that nags at everyone is how to grow your Pinterest following. If you weren’t aware of this already, Pinterest is one of the leading visual social platforms, along with big players like Instagram. With over 175 million Monthly Active Users and over 50 billion Pinterest Pins, there’s really no denying the powerful reach that this latest social platform has.
Going back to the big question on how to grow your Pinterest following, there’s honestly no real “process” in doing so. Most people just experiment, trying to avoid buying their followers. A lot of people tried using their other social platforms as means to invite followers to their Pinterest feed. Would you believe that this little trick actually works?
So wondering how these people did it, we decided to collect some data and give you the 5 strategies to grow your Pinterest following, with a bit of trial and error along the way of course.
#1 Grow Your Pinterest Following by Making Your Account Easy to Find
When we say easy to find, we mean it. If you can get people to find your account with just the use of one word, then, by all means, that’s what should be happening. Make things easier, when it comes to your brand’s name, make things as self-explanatory as possible to grow your Pinterest following.
You can practice this by using keywords when you fill in the brief description on your Pinterest home page. Though there is only space for about 200 words, it doesn’t hold you back as long as you capture the branding of your company. Take the time to verify your website, include links to your other social platforms so that you get that advantage on increased visibility.
Using your current social networks is a great way to grow your Pinterest following. The followings you already have on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter provide a great leverage. You can try providing real incentives. Think of creative ways that would encourage others to join you on the new platform. Remember that the social media game is one of “clever tactics”.
#2 Take Personal Care of Your Pinterest Boards
Give an adequate amount of time for your boards, go through them and give them descriptions. A good way to grow your Pinterest following is to use keywords that make sense to each board. Take into consideration the kinds of searches that will lead people to your boards. Work out what times of the day are busy times on Pinterest, this will help you in generating more traffic.
You should also practice categorizing them, into different categories on the Pinterest feed. This is one reason you can sometimes find such random posts in certain category feeds. You should also practice this to give your boards flare and a sense of uniform, this will really help you grow your Pinterest following. Give your boards beauty by having an aesthetic flow throughout the entire profile.
If you’re branding with something techy, and your boards are all about recipes or the latest fashion; you are most likely going to make your followers confuse and lose their interest. It’s wisest to dedicate your boards to the industry your brand operates around. This will serve you two ultimate purposes. One is for the brand itself and to promote the interest of a variety of followers. Two is to keep these great results for your business and to stay focused on quality and useful, interesting content.
#3 Make the Most Out of Your Pins
If your content is a constant show up on the platform searches, it will help followers recognize you as a trusted source. It should be one of your goals to make your content easy to share on the Pinterest platform so that you can grow your Pinterest following. You can practice this by making sure you have a minimum of one pinnable image in a post. This also means ONLY pinning quality images, because these are the ones more likely to get repinned.
Make sure to have a proper description with each of your pins on your boards. You don’t necessarily have to go crazy overthinking about it, sometimes a single keyword that can be searched will do. Call it as it is, be direct so that your followers have the least time finding it. This also makes it handy for if you ever need to find it again in a sea of pins. Also, practice pinning only the things that you actually like for the brand. People will only catch on if you’re consistent, this is a big help to grow your Pinterest following. Let your boards and pins speak for the brand, this will make everything easier to maintain in the long run.
You can add a “Pin It” button to your website to get more traffic from your site to your Pinterest account. This will help people connect and share more of your content. A little tip is that content on Pinterest is still searchable even after months of having been posted. So pinning your content will definitely help increase the span of your followers significantly.
#4 Your Content is a Big Deal
It’s probably now time to master your skills in curating seasonal content. One way to grow your Pinterest following is having a seasonal board because let’s face it, you’ll want to be sharing trending information.
If it’s a holiday people will be searching for posts exactly about that. September is notorious for Halloween gimmicks, people start searching for costumes, décor ideas just like in December for Christmas people start going after new recipes and table set-ups. Take the kill on these times, have your board full of content related to a brand at the same time related to what people are looking for. Use these kinds of trends to inspire branding and marketing strategies. Maybe it’s time for a new layout or profile change? Followers just might end up following all of your boards.
It’s also a good idea to start thinking about user-generated content. It’s a little-known fact that it is “35% more memorable and 50% more trustworthy” than most types of content. This means that you should give importance to the role it could play in helping you grow your Pinterest Following.
You can create a collaborative board to allow your followers to post photos of how they choose to interact with your brand’s products and services. This will help you make the most out of user-generated content. If you encourage this kind of collaboration, you’ll be practicing how you engage with your brand and your followers. It’s sure to be a hit.
#5 Its All About Building the Brand
This probably doesn’t need to be said, but it is important to remember that your use for Pinterest should be all about building the brand. This is why you need to dedicate your boards to relate with both what you as a marketer and your brand do. Have boards about products, have ones about services, you can also have ones about motivational messages related to the brand and possibly upcoming campaigns. You have to be able to put personality into whatever it is your marketing on the platform, this is what really will help you grow your Pinterest following.
So don’t forget to engage with your followers. It’s a common thing that most people don’t use Pinterest to engage with other people, however, you should take the time to check out other people’s pins. Maybe leave genuine comments for those loyal followers. Give out interesting tips if they happen to ask, and take notice of your following. This is the ultimate thing that can lead to people wanting to follow along with your pins.
Pinterest isn’t a social platform used to communicate with other people. That is why there’s Instagram and Twitter for instances when we want to mingle with people. However, liking other people’s pins, leaving genuine comments about their pins are useful and interesting to make people take notice of you. This could eventually lead to someone who might be interested in your pins and even follows you.
Look into who is pinning around what you pin on your blog. These are the people who actually show interest in your brand and the content you post. These are the perfect candidates for the kind of following that you want.
Wrapping it up
With these strategies in mind, the last thing you should probably give importance to is to stay active. This goes the same for any social platform you work with. You should always be updating your boards and posting fresh content. You don’t necessarily have to make it time-consuming.
Just remember that it boils down to the more content you can generate, the more boards you’ll have; the more boards you have, the more content there is available for pinning and repining by your followers for people’s searches.
Jason says
I own a small magazine brand and was on the lookout for more Pinterest followers. My Instagram had more followers and I actually thought it was foolish to promote my Pinterest through Instagram posts but it actually worked!
Sophie says
The emphasis on the use of keywords and making your Pinterest easy to find sounds very common but it goes a long way in getting increased pinterest followers
Logan says
Agreed
Hawkins says
“Asking yourself what people are likely to search and then including those probable keywords on your board”. Great tip. It helps a great deal
Logan says
Thank you
Nihad says
Honestly speaking, I never really gave aesthetics much thought when it came to Pinterest. But for every single person out there who is reading this article, and reads my comment, trust me, this is very important
Logan says
agreed
Heather says
You have hit the nail on its head. We generally don’t leave useful comments etc on other people’s pins because we don’t want to promote them. And in the process, we miss out on opportunities that could get us noticed.
David says
Well compiled and well written. Very helpful indeed. #5 really gave me a lot of good insights as i was ignoring most of the aspects mentioned in there.
Logan says
Thanks for the compliment
Christina says
The tips mentioned here are very simple but in my experience, overlooked more often than not. Application of these strategies will get you more followers. I can vouch for it now. I loved reading this article. Thumbs up
Logan says
Thanks for the compliment
Montell says
Thanks for sharing, awesome stuff! I love the idea to use your existing social media profiles on other platforms to grow your new social media profile. It’s free and it will reach exactly the right audience that can help you to gain some social proof and then gain new followers.
Goran says
I really love Pinterest and all related to this social platform because it’s so great and with so many possibilities. Thanks for giving so many space to the Pinterest marketing strategies and forsharing with us.
Jon-Paul Alvarez says
Worst thing you can do is to create pin with bad quality image! This is the first impression that will get people interested in your content. Since it’s very easy to find even free images online, you should invest time in this.
Rae says
Right, take some time to discover people who are pinning the same stuff as you are, and engage with their content, get noticed by them. These are definitely your potential followers! Good read, thanks!
Alicia says
Pinterest is the most overlooked social platform, but it’s so powerful and simple. It has everything that we need for serious business and for running great marketing campaigns.
Robinson says
I love it, great stuff and advises, I love Pinterest, I love Jarvee, I love the Jarvee team, so, I love everyone 🙂