
How do you get more followers on Pinterest?
I’m sure you’ve wondered.
With this guide, I’m going to go over all the things you can do to get more followers. I’m also going to let you know about my secret hack that literally explodes engagement!
Read on, or skip to my hack (if that’s what you came here for).
Why Pinterest?
When all eyes were focused on Instagram and Facebook, social media marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk, told people that what they should really be on the lookout for were two apps that were showing signs of changing the social media marketing game as we knew it.
The first was Snapchat, and the other was Pinterest.
Like other social media platforms Pinterest was first seen as an interesting way to share one’s interests and likes with others.
The platform quickly took off with the teenage to mid-twenty’s female demographic. But after a while certain parts of the smartphone using population were beginning to show interest in it as well.
When users “pin” articles, photos and videos to their board, they are not just showing their audience what they like, but also what they want to shop for.
The platform’s interface makes it easy for users to view other user’s boards and then re-pin the material to their own boards. It is estimated that content on Pinterest is 100 times easier to share than a tweet.
And, with over 70 million users now using Pinterest, that’s an incredible number of videos, pictures and ideas passing from person to person in a relatively short amount of time.
Pinterest Demographics
As previously mentioned, Pinterest users have grown beyond the early adopters and young female crowd (but make no mistake the wealthy young female sector comprising of about 25 million users, are the ones that are clearly pushing this platform forward).
These days everyone from 40+ year old moms to Fortune 500 companies have Pinterest accounts.
In fact, large corporations have found Pinterest so useful and successful in giving their clients new ideas that the platform has seen a significant increase in account creations from the likes of Exxon, Walmart and even Apple. There are currently more than 500,000 businesses that utilise a Pinterest account.
When presented with these facts and statisics it is no wonder why businesses of all kinds are starting to flock towards Pinterest, a platform with a built-in consumer base with a surplus amount of money.
The conversion rate is so favorable that businesses have basically started to set up shop in Pinterest, making it something more than a mere “nice-to-have”, but an essential part of the company’s sales and marketing strategy.
Why Your Business Needs Pinterest
A Pinterest Business account is quick and easy to setup.
It also gives companies a way to not only market to Pinterest users but it also gives them access to materials that will help maximise their reach, their presentation and their efficacy.
This can include everything from webinars to one or two page notes that an average user can refer to. Every social media platform has had their own unique reaction to the entry of businesses and enterprises into their space and Pinterest is no different.
Pinterest has taken a route which seeks to preserve and ensure a good user experience.
As a result, Pinterest offers different Terms of Service to business, these being stricter, clearly outlining what businesses can and cannot do.
For example, businesses can obviously promote their products and services, but they cannot artificially inflate their Pins by basically bribing users to do so, such as the case for contests or sweepstakes whereby a pin or re-pin is considered an entry.
Pinterest is also keen on making sure that the users don’t confuse any businesses with Pinterest itself, as such the company stipulates that any business can’t even remotely suggest to their users that they are in any way sponsored or endorsed by Pinterest.
How to Win at Pinterest
Getting your business’ Pinterest presence up and running is one thing, but creating popular and shareable content is a different undertaking altogether.
By studying Pinterest’s algorithms as well as trackable results, it is approximated that every pin a company’s content receives translates to about 78 cents in revenue, a conversion of 2 site visits, 6 page views, and ending with that content being re-pinned about 10 times.
Now extrapolate this data and apply it to the massive amount of Pinterest’s users, a figure that is growing by the hour, and the potential to generate a great deal of income and profits is indeed something to consider.
With dollar signs flashing before their eyes, many businesses ask the same question: Where do I begin?
The answer to this question is both simple and difficult. The two-word response is: the clients.
But, businesses must really take the time to know and understand their clients.
Only by getting this critical information are they able to craft content that can elicit such a visceral response.
Once the business has determined the mindset of their target demographic, it is then time to get more in depth with the platform itself.
Spending time using Pinterest and interacting with its users is a given. Getting to know the various categories and sub-categories would be akin to familiarising oneself with the various streets of a city.
It is much easier to determine the best route when one knows the subtle nuances of the different avenues.
Niche Down and Pick An Audience
When these umbrella or overlying characteristics have been established it is time to start niching down and getting to the nitty gritty.
Begin by tackling the question of which gender you will be marketing to.
Even though Pinterest is now part of the everyday social landscape and members of both genders use it, the platform is still dominated by women.
Most likely, this will be the demographic that most your marketing campaigns will be catering to.
Choose the two categories that resonate strongly with your target gender and see if you can tailor your marketing efforts to hit that specific target.
Be Smart with Your Choice of Images
One of the most undeniable features of Pinterest is that it is visually attractive for users.
Choosing high resolution and professionally tailored images, that not only show a product, a place, or an instruction but one that tells a story as well.
You are looking to make a visceral impact, and not just looking for a sale of an item.
There are a couple of dozen factors that can affect or comprise an “appealing” image. Here’s what I consider most important:
- Statistically speaking, images where no human face is seen has been shown to get up to 23% more re-pins.
- Crank the brightness the next time you post as lighter images are 20 times more likely to get re-pinned.
- Take note as well of the optimum pin size which is 735 x 1102 pixels.
- And finally, don’t sabotage your own efforts by creating a busy looking image that will more likely lose the users attention.
Keep it clean, crisp, fresh, and professional looking and they will likely come back for more.
Instructographics
Instructographics have been trending lately and have quickly become the second most popular category on the entire platform.
It can be thought of as an amalgamation of infographics and graphic design, and usually produces some very compelling content.
Instructographics have forgone the use of text-intensive marketing campaigns with simple, easy to follow, and more importantly, high-value information.
Research Other Types of Images
Competition is just a fact of life when it comes to business. No matter how unique or wildly successful your idea or gimmick may be – another person or business will inevitably come along to see if they can have a share of the pie.
Fortunately, the same freedom to browse, look and wonder that users enjoy about Pinterest, can also be used to research and compare with competitors. Find your biggest competitors (because chances are good that they will have a Pinterest account), then look at their boards and what their activities and engagements are like.
Learn from their successes and from their failures.
Several tools are now available to help businesses and users harvest data from Pinterest. Buzzsumo’s free Top Content search tool, for example, allows users to see their competitor’s top pins.
Optimise Your Pins
Once you know the lay of the land, it is time to look inwards and to ruthlessly optimise your pins.
Timing is everything and it is an excellent idea to start testing when your posts can make the biggest impacts.
You will need to run through various scenarios and posting times to find your sweet spot. This may take a week or two of testing to ensure that the testing cycle runs its course.
But the end product will yield results that will give significant insight into when the best times will be for you to post your content.
Then there’s the re-pins. Make it dead easy for your audience and other users to re-pin your content by adding a Pin-It button to your sites, videos and pictures outside of Pinterest. While you’re at it, add a Pinterest Follow button on your various sites and content as well. This should increase the amount of conversions and new followers on Pinterest. By simply taking these two actions you will be increasing the amount of Pinterest interaction and engagements.
To further increase your reach, connect your Pinterest account to other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Another way to reach out to people would be through a newsletter or email marketing. Simply add your Pinterest information, or better yet a direct link to your Pinterest page, and you will be funnelling more people into your Pinterest account.
If you have the time, patience and a bit of technical aptitude, you may want to engage in SEO exercises to further optimize your business’s Pinterest page. This will involve researching keywords, then changing pin titles, pin descriptions, pin image file names and the like. Users are often amazed at how such little changes can significantly affect their engagements.
My Secret Hack For More Followers
There are, of course, tools, services, software and bots, that can make the whole optimisation process that much easier.
It does have to be said, that since this is still a relatively new industry, the quality of many of these service providers will vary greatly. So be cautious.
Enter Pinterest bots!
A Pinterest bot can improve your reach and engagement on Pinterest. It has the potential to make life that much easier for you on Pinterest since it strives to automate almost all of the marketing work for you.
Update (Feb 2018): Right now I recommend Jarvee.
With these tools you can do everything from seeking out and harvesting appealing images, re-pinning, engaging other users to interact with your board, like and comment, and even follow other users.
If you’ve ever used an Instagram bot before, you will be familiar with the concept.
Pinterest Analytics
Pinterest is equipped with a lot of built in resources.
Everything from instructionals, to helpful articles are at your disposal. But perhaps the most valuable tool and resource afforded to businesses is Pinterest’s Analytics program.
From here you will be able to track and act upon the metrics that will help build traction, action, and engagement.
The Final Word
At the end of the day, Pinterest is still a social media platform. And in these environments, it is all about relationships.
No marketing technique, gimmick or strategy can ever outpace or overdeliver than developing, cultivating and nurturing relationships into the future.
While you may never see the face behind the keyboard on the other side of an interaction happening in cyberspace, there is still a real live person there. Focus for a bit on their needs, wants and desires, then see if you can deliver using your business.
Remember too that most (if not all) users on Pinterest are consumers. It is essential to know what they like to consume, how they like to consume it, when they like to consume it, and how often they want to consume it. Not all users are created equal, nor do they like all the same thing.
Expect to test your variables frequently, and to adjust just as much.
Gaining new followers is easier said than done in a world where the average user is literally being distracted by 3 or more different electronic stimuli at any given time.
However, you can gain more and better followers by merely engaging in real and lively conversations.
Help people without asking for anything back, and maybe next time they may be more receptive to your product, service, or what have you.
Engage in Pinterest-specific behaviors such as following other users’ boards and they may return the favor, or at the very least put you on their mental radar.
And finally, consider using a Pinterest Bot to automate as many actions as possible.