We’re talking Pinterest today! I’ve seen a lot of questions on social media from people asking just how do you use Pinterest. Now, I’m not an expert and I’m not one of these bloggers who have got over 1 million views in a month. I mean, do these people spend their entire lives on Pinterest?! Nevertheless, since getting Pinterest, I have learnt more about the platform and how to grow on it. I’m sharing some tips on how to realistically increase Pinterest views, benefitting your blog and Pinterest account, that don’t require a lot of time or effort. You don’t have to pay for a Tailwind subscription either!

Just like other social media

First things first, just like any other social media, you need to have a strong presence on Pinterest in order to grow your account. I used to go on Pinterest once in a blue moon as something to do when I was bored and wondered why my account was at a standstill.

You need to be active everyday on Pinterest for it to be worthwhile.

The same goes for engagement. Like Twitter or Instagram, people aren’t going to be interested if you’re constantly pinning your own posts and not supporting anyone else. Go and give your favourite bloggers a follow. Repin others’ work to increase their reach. Find blog posts through Pinterest to help boost people’s traffic. With Pinterest, you really do get back what you give.

Visual Search Engine

While all of the above is true, Pinterest has an added dimension in that it is also a visual search engine. You’d create an SEO-friendly blog post, and the same goes for pins. Hashtags and professional, eye-catching images are important.

What are monthly unique viewers?

On Pinterest, monthly unique viewers are the number of people that your pins reach every month. This could be either your own personal pins or repins. Therefore, these views are not indicative of blog traffic. They don’t represent engagement with your personal pins and clicks through to your blog, but rather how many times anything you’ve ever pinned has been seen.

I see posts saying that your monthly unique viewers is not important because they don’t focus on your pins linking to your website, whereas the average monthly engaged number does.

However, it gives an indication as to how many people you reach, which is useful. It shows how many people your own pins have the potential to reach, which is worth knowing.

As Pinterest is so visual, people often scroll down their feed pinning images without clicking into your account and following you because Pinterest tailors your feed so you’re always seeing pins suited to you.

The monthly unique views are therefore a better measure of how you are performing.

Tailwind and why you don’t need it

Tailwind is a pin scheduling platform. However, after the first 100 pins, you have to start paying. If you’re like me and totally broke, I don’t think it’s worth the money, not when you can grow your account without it.

Tailwind can be good for Tailwind Tribes, which are like group boards and they are free even if you’ve used your 100 pins. However, I’ve never really used them as I have developed a routine and use a lot of Pinterest group boards.

How to Increase Pinterest Views

Goodness I can ramble! Now we’ve got the background info covered, time for the action plan! Here are easy steps to take to increase those views.

1. Pin regularly. I have pinning sessions around meal times and pin around 10 each time. I then will pin around 5 pins mid-morning, mid-afternoon and just before bed if I have time. On average, I’d say 40-50 pins a day is realistic for me.
2. Vary where you pin from. Pin from both your home feed and following feed. That way, you are supporting the people you follow and also discovering new accounts and increasing the number of people that see you’ve saved their pin, which in turn leads to more views of your profile.
3. Create a blog post pin. When you publish a new post, create a pin for it. You can easily make one in Canva and there are lots of templates to choose from.
4. Add pinnable images to your blog post. The beauty of going self-hosted on WordPress is that you can download plugins. I use the JQuery Pin It Button for Images plugin which allows people to easily pin images from my posts. Your pin then shows up on more accounts increasing views.
5. Group boards. Group boards allow you to share your content with other bloggers. Most have rules such as 1:1 pinning so it’s likely your pin could get shared and increase your views.

That’s it for now. I could go on, but we’ll save that for another post. Do you have any advice to increase Pinterest views? Are you a Tailwind fan? Let me know your thoughts.

Megan x

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