Pinterest Growth Strategies

[NSG]

I've been spending too much time bouncing between social platforms without much traction, and I want to focus on growing one channel.

What I am doing currently:

• Creating a minimum of 20 pins per post, with a mix of photos only, photos with text overlay and video pins.
• Using the built in scheduler in Pinterest (it only goes out two weeks).
• I've scheduled 3 each day for the last two months, plus random "real-time" uploads.
• Pinning other relevant content to existing boards (perhaps not enough).

I've come to realize 3 pins / day is not cutting it and I plan to increase it immediately.

1. Is it better to use the scheduler and pick various times of day for upload or go in manually and upload them all at once each day?

2. Is there any benefit to renaming the photos with keywords / descriptions of the images? Should the descriptions be unique or is the keyword + 1,2,3,4.. etc sufficient? (ie, delicious banana bread1, delicious banana bread2, delicious banana bread3...)

3. How much does the title / description of the pin need to vary when marketing the same post? For example, if I'm making a post about "a delicious banana bread recipe", can the description be the same for several pins? Or do I need 20 different titles and 20 different descriptions if I make 20 pins for one post? I wouldn't make every single pin description the same, but I also want to create a good user experience and rewriting ways to talk about a certain post can only go so far. I also want to avoid tripping any spam filters in the platform by reusing descriptions.

4. What is a reasonable amount of content to be pushing each day (consistently) to help grow faster?

5. Is there an optimal pin size? I've experimented with several different sizes and I haven't found any patterns that make sense.

6. Is it better to post 10 different pin topics per day vs 10 of all one topic? (ie, 10 posts per day on banana bread, or 10 posts of various breads, ie 1 pumpkin, 1 banana, etc.)

 

[Ryuzaki]

@NSG, I'm no Pinterest expert. I just didn't want to leave you hanging. I figure I can at least give you some context on what I'm doing.

I'm currently basically starting a serious push on Pinterest. These are my current stats before the push began (about 15 days ago):

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I have a little traction but I want to really push the outbound clicks up. However, I can't give a ton of time to this either. I have about 300 posts to try to get through at 3 a day, so it'll be a drip feed thing for a few months. Then a slower drip as I make it a part of my publishing routine.

What I've done is create a spreadsheet with all my posts, only the ones I quickly eye-balled that should possibly have pics that work for Pinterest. Then I have a column to track if I posted them or not yet. And I'm running through all the posts that are in similar categories and putting the pins in boards based on those categories.

For the past week, maybe, I've been using their Bulk Pin creation thing. When you go to create a pin, in the top left you can start adding more and more and then "select all" and edit all the info at once. I'm using this to publish anywhere from 12 to 20 pins at a time. I'm doing this 2 or 3 times a day.

I've read crap like "don't post more than 25 pins a day or you'll be banned for being a spammer." That's total nonsense. I'm sure there are people that LIVE on Pinterest who pin hundreds of things per day. So I'm ignoring that advice somewhat and going a bit harder. But not too hard since every pin does link back to my site (or what's the point?).

1. Is it better to use the scheduler and pick various times of day for upload or go in manually and upload them all at once each day?

I think it depends on if you're trying to be a marketer or if you're trying to game their algorithm. In both cases it's about exposure to the right people at the right time of day, so I'd publish when you think those users are active. I'm just dumping my pins on there when I have the time because life is short and I'm busy.

2. Is there any benefit to renaming the photos with keywords / descriptions of the images? Should the descriptions be unique or is the keyword + 1,2,3,4.. etc sufficient? (ie, delicious banana bread1, delicious banana bread2, delicious banana bread3...)

I'm not sure but because I'm just dragging images from my pages to the desktop, they're keeping the filenames which I've trained my image guy to use. So they are relevant. I'm assuming this is used by the Pinterest algorithm. Why wouldn't they use any piece of info they can get? If my images weren't already named that way, though, there's no way in hell I'd spend the time renaming them.

3. How much does the title / description of the pin need to vary when marketing the same post? For example, if I'm making a post about "a delicious banana bread recipe", can the description be the same for several pins? Or do I need 20 different titles and 20 different descriptions if I make 20 pins for one post?

I'm using the bulk pin tool and "selecting all" and they all get the same title, URL, description, and hashtags. I'm not going to write 60 different titles and descriptions a day. It's all about exposure and luck, I think. Just being exposed to people who run the right boards and being included on them. All that extra work isn't going to help with what's basically a numbers game to achieve the right luck.

I'm convinced most of the traffic is coming from boards. I don't even think being on the boards and collecting the right views, re-pins, and clicks really helps gain exposure. I think it's more like a newsfeed with freshness and once the pin ages the freshness decays and if it's not in a board, then bye-bye. I'm thinking of Pinterest's rankings more like a Twitter or Facebook feed than a Google ranking. A pin gets a week maybe in the limelight and is toast, and hopefully can trickle traffic from being on a board.

4. What is a reasonable amount of content to be pushing each day (consistently) to help grow faster?

No clue, but like I said, I'm not buying into the "25 posts a day max" F.U.D. Today I did 40 pins. I definitely don't want to find out what the true limit is by going too hard. But I'm certain teenage girls are doing hundreds a day and are fine.

5. Is there an optimal pin size? I've experimented with several different sizes and I haven't found any patterns that make sense.

My most successful pins aren't gigantic. That's all I can say. My current ones I'm sending out there aren't large either. Maybe 450px wide and not tall. At max they're about 450px high too.

6. Is it better to post 10 different pin topics per day vs 10 of all one topic? (ie, 10 posts per day on banana bread, or 10 posts of various breads, ie 1 pumpkin, 1 banana, etc.)

I don't think it matters unless you're trying to be a marketer to your following. If you're just trying to get exposure and board placements then I'd just pound them out in the order that is most convenient for you.

One final thing I want to mention is "listening to gurus". Pinterest gurus are out there and make up as much shit as SEO gurus. The whole "25 pins a day maximum" is nonsense, and I think this entire trend they started of taking a big tall picture and slapping your post title on it and your logo on it... I think that's all bunk.

I think Pinterest actively dislikes it and uses OCR (optical character recognition) tech to read the text and downgrade the visibility of those pins. Why would Pinterest want to promote a ton of pins by a ton of webmasters who's main goal is to siphon traffic away from Pinterest? Pinterest doesn't necessarily want to send users away from the platform, and while it can't be avoided in many cases, those stupid images are designed with the sole purpose of sending traffic away. I wouldn't promote them, and I'm guessing Pinterest holds them back (based on my own analytics of hundreds and hundreds of pins like that versus ones that are normal pictures).

 

[NSG]

@Ryuzaki This is amazing, thank you. It looks like I have some major tweaks to make in my work flow. I did not know a bulk editor existed, that alone will save a ton of work / time.

I'm thinking of Pinterest's rankings more like a Twitter or Facebook feed than a Google ranking.

This actually makes a lot of sense. I've been treating it more like Google (and thinking I might pull in some traffic from Google search as well with keyword variations.).

I'm going to give this a shot and see how it shakes out. I'll also experiment with additional pin sizes. Most of mine have been on the larger size. Thanks again.