Pinterest is so many things to so many people. It’s a source of inspiration. A visual notepad. An excellent way to procrastinate on a rainy afternoon. Your ideal party planning tool.
A treasure trove of ideas. The list is endless… The point is, lots of people use Pinterest for lots of things and increasingly, Pinterest is becoming more and more relevant to our daily lives.
Whenever I want to find new and exciting recipes to try out (or just want to spend hours looking at delicious food) – it’s my first stop! I also try to use it for DIY tips but I just end up back in food again.
I really love food. Eating it. Looking at it. Smelling it. Talking about it. Okay, I’m digressing again…
So Pinterest is probably our biggest social media tool (http://www.pinterest.com/hloblog/) and a significant source of traffic onto Hand Luggage Only (which kinda surprised me initially) but being an avid Pinterest user, I just wanted to share a few tried and test tips to help you grow your Pinterest boards and followers.
1.) Pin Frequently: Pinterest is one of the few social media tools out there (in fact the only one I can think of) where oversharing is actually a really good thing. It’s unique that way. If you said to put 100 posts on Facebook – even your other half would probably de-friend you for oversharing – same goes for twitter however on Pinterest, pinning often is very good! Pinning often not only helps get your pins noticed more and more but it increases the chances of other people who share similar interests as you being able to find your boards and join in your shared obsession. (Slight word of caution: Do not repin the same picture over and over again in the same board. It should go without saying but I have seen this a few times and it is almost guaranteed to annoy your followers)
2.) Start a group board (or participate in one): Pinterest is social media after all and social media is nothing if not social. Group boards are a way of not only sharing stuff that you like but also finding out what stuff people with the same interests as you are sharing within a clearly defined context (i.e. your group). You can start conversations and build deeper more meaningful (online) friendships with a member of your group and
3.) Don’t only pin stuff from your blog or website: While there is nothing wrong whatsoever with pinning things from your website (I would even go as far as saying – you can and perhaps even should pin every image on your website), your Pinterest boards will be rather boring and people will disengage if all the stuff on your boards is only stuff that’s related to you. Perhaps dedicate a specific board to your website or perhaps pepper your board with more personal pins amidst the ones from other sources – the choice is yours but whatever you do, try to find a good balance between your stuff and pins from other websites.
4.) Try to look for good quality pins: I know I am guilty of this sometimes but there’s nothing quite as frustrating as looking at a preview thumbnail of a pin and getting all excited about it and then clicking on it only for it to not expand and stay at exactly the same size as the preview thumbnail. The whole point of sharing an image is for people to at least be able to glean some detail from it and so if it’s too small or too hazy, it’s not really of much use and can put people off checking out some of the other (perhaps even more interesting stuff on your blog).
5.) Engage with other people’s pins: Leave a comment if you like something. Repin it if you want to. Click like if you can’t think of a specific comment to leave. What this does, is that it not only makes you truly a part of a community and hence involved in conversation) but it also helps draw people to your boards. As long as you’re not spamming people, leaving a comments helps create a natural curiousity about yourself to the pinner and they are then more likely to click onto your boards to find out more about you. If you’re have followed the tips above and impress the pinner visiting your boards, you are more likely to gain another new (and engaged) Pinterest follower. (Please don’t spam with comments. 🙂 Not that you would of course but spam comments are frustrating everywhere, not just on Pinterest)
Also – really important here – check out your analytics on Pinterest. Head over to analytics.pinterest.com to see your personalised dashboard showing you all you need to know about your Pinterest boards!
Check Out The Very Best Of Great Britain!
