How I Increased Pinterest Traffic by 50% Overnight
Every social media platform has a few tricks you need to understand.
Pinterest has an audience of 445 million people who use the social media platform every month to find ideas and inspire their next purchase. Women make up more than 60 percent of the audience. A high percentage of the total audience is less than 35 years old.
It is a good demographic for selling things like consumer products, home improvements, and cooking tips. It is a little less attractive for a professional community that sells a couple of books and a workshop series for technically trained professionals. Still, I like Pinterest because of its visual format and its uniqueness.
Pinterest is Different
Pinterest admits that it is different. Pinterest promotes itself as a creative space for people and ideas without the pressure to be perfect. The focus is on ideas rather than engagement (likes) from other people on the platform.
It is my experience that their claims are true. In fact, I agree with the claim that it is the friendliest social media platform.
However, sharing and directing people to their preferences is part of any social media platform. You cannot take people out of something that is social. And there are a few tricks on Pinterest to make your work more seen and appreciated by others.
How Pinterest identifies Ideas for You
Pinterest provides “personal feeds” when you log onto the platform. Those feeds are the primary way people find their favorite ideas (‘Pins”).
Pinterest states that its algorithms look for keywords and visuals that people like. When people look closely at Pins they like, Pinterest displays similar Pins nearby in the home feed. Unlike most social media platforms, the keywords, in many ways, to a back seat to the visual aspects used by the algorithms.
Organize Pins into Well-Named Boards
Less obvious in the Pinterest discussions is a key point that states, “give boards clear and descriptive titles such as “Easy No-bake Dinners” to help with the search.” This is where this newbie was missing it.
Boards, Sections, and Pins
I was using Boards, but my focus was on the visual aspects first and getting right the keywords in the title and limited text available in each Pin. Remember, every social media platform has its own sets of keywords from platform users.
My traffic was good but not great. I was still missing something.
Almost by chance, I was talking to a Pinterest power user. She told me the secret:
- Boards are like the store names
- Sections are the areas or aisles in the store
- Pins are what you are looking to buy
I went back to my board names, simplified them, aligned them better with Pinterest keywords, and then BOOM! Overnight my traffic went up by 50% and has stayed there.
Pinterest is a Good Platform
I enjoy Pinterest. It is visual, friendly, and expressive. And Pinterest Pins are on the pellet forever, unlike other platforms where you have to dig for last year’s posts. There are tricks to every platform. People do like for other people to share their ideas and enjoy their work.
Founded by JD Solomon, Communicating with FINESSE is a not-for-profit community of technical professionals dedicated to being highly effective communicators and facilitators. Learn more about our publications, webinars, and workshops. Join the community for free.
