The following is a guest post from Dannielle Cresp. Dannielle is a former web designer, constant dreamer and sometimes crazy adventurer. She is starting over and is on a mission to help people bring happiness (and fun) back into their homes with a dash of organisation and a sprinkle of their own awesome style on her blog Style for a Happy Home.
When Dannielle told me how rapidly she had grown her Pinterest followers, I ask her if she would share her strategy here at DMBA, and she happily agreed!
Thanks Dannielle!
I joined Pinterest in October of 2010, and had always used it for fun and giggled to myself about people who used it “strategically”. To me, it was a space online that I could have fun and just pin what I liked, there was nothing strategic about it.
But in May I had just made the decision to completely change my business and search for what I really wanted to be doing. I had thought about possibly taking up interior design or something to do with styling. I had just over 1000 followers at the time. I set myself a crazy goal to see if I could grow my Pinterest following to 2000. Since it had taken over two years to get to 1000, I thought this was a reasonably big goal.
There’s no real “rule” to growing a following (and I’m a bit of a skeptic when it comes to those kinds of rules), so I just thought I’d experiment. Not only did I grow it to 2000 (by the first week of July), two weeks later I was at 3000 and on the last day of July I passed the 4000 mark. I actually doubled my July 7 followers (2147) on August 7 (4294). Crazy! I didn’t buy any (if that’s even a thing you can do) and I only asked if people would follow me (through Twitter), when I was stuck at 1994 and wanted to get to 2000 before I went to bed one evening.
I guess you’re all asking “but how did you do it?” right? There was a fair bit of trial and error but here are the main things I did:
• I organized my boards into categories that are relatively narrow. I split the 4000 pins I had in “For the Home” into boards for each room type. It took 6 days, but my followers jumped after that. Make the board name clear, it can be a fun name, but make it easy for people to know what you’ll be pinning to it.
• I only pinned good quality images. This is a must. The good quality images are the ones that get repinned.
• I made sure that every pin had a proper description when I pinned it to my boards. This one is important. You don’t need to over think it. If it doesn’t say anything, at least call it a keyword that can be searched. If it’s a bedroom, call it “bedroom”. When it’s some kind of gift wrapping that’s what I call it. As you can now search your own pins, this is also handy if you want to find it again.
• I worked out what times of the day were busy times on Pinterest. I’m in Australia so I pin at around 10pm my time (which is 8am EDT – great for my North American followers) and also at 4pm my time (which is good for the Aussies and New Zealanders who are logging on in the early evening).
• I realized how great “People who pinned this also pinned:” is and started to use it to my advantage. When you click on an individual pin, you can scroll down and see what pins others (who have already pinned that pin) are also pinning. This gives you a whole heap of new pins that you may not have seen, if the people you’re following haven’t also pinned it. Look for your most repinned pins and look at what new pins that offers you.
• I repin everything and keep my “likes” for things I’ll pin later. I use the like section to keep pins I’d like to pin later (say it’s not a busy time on pinterest or I don’t like the description and want to change it before I repin – I use it a lot when I’m using Pinterest on my phone, as descriptions are easier to write on the computer).
• I only pin what I actually like. People will get to know your style and what you like if you’re consistent. Don’t pin things you don’t like because you think it will bring you followers, that’s just too much work. Let your Pinterest boards be just the pretty things that you like and it will be easier to maintain.
• I use Pinterest to “build my brand” by having boards that relate to what both me and my blog are all about. Think about having boards that relate to what you do. Think complimentary products rather than competitors (if that worries you). For example, I’m about Style for a Happy Home so I have boards for each area of the home plus: awesome party ideas, great gift wrapping, gift ideas, organize my world, etc – all related to what a happy home is made up of, for me. I also have boards for business and motivational quotes as they share a bit of my personality (and I am just a sucker for a good quote).
• When it comes to designing pinable images for my own blog (for which I have a board for them) I only use great images – even if I have to take the shot 100 times. I write the title of the post on the image – which makes it easy to see there’s something more than a photo and they should click through. I write the description for people who want to pin directly from my blog. (The Title field in WordPress is what will show in the Pinterest description if they use the Pin It button) This makes it easy on your pinners as they don’t have to think of something. I use the title of the post in that description and the name of my blog.
• I don’t link it with Facebook, or post to Twitter, because you would unfollow me if I posted 30 tweets all of pins in 20 minutes (and I would totally understand why!!). Sometimes I’ll post one if I want to share something in particular, but I figure that if you really wanted to see my pins, you’d follow me on Pinterest.
There’s no science to it, really. Most important of all is that you’re there. Some days I will only pin one or two things, and others it will be a pinning spree. If I feel like I’m pinning too much on one topic, I ‘like’ them and pin another day. It’s good to have those reserves when you don’t have much time to spend, but want to show you’re still there.
Also, make sure it’s fun and something you want to do. If you really don’t like it, you don’t have to do it. Pinterest is my online happy space and as a bonus I love how it brings new readers to my blog because they like what I pin. This experiment has exceeded all my expectations and I can’t wait to see what I learn next.
Thanks for having me, Megan!
Want more Pinterest inspiration? You can follow Dannielle on Pinterest here and Megan on Pinterest here!
Need more tips on growing your Pinterest following? Check out Part 2 of this series!
Want to turn those Pinterest followers into more traffic for your website? Check out Part 3 of this series!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tired of one sized fits all business advice that doesn’t really apply to artists and makers? Click here to get my exclusive Free Training: Market Like an Artist (or Maker)
And then what? What’s the point?
Brittany – Just like with any other social media, it’s about influence. As someone who creates content (like Dannielle does with her blog) or who creates products (like I do) having a larger Pinterest following means more people who will see when you promote your own work on Pinterest. (Something that is ok to do in moderation.)
Wow. This is possibly the best how to increase followers for Pinterest I’ve ever read. The increase isn’t a massive crazy amount that I don’t believe her, it’s real and doable. Thanks so much for this idea/tip. I have to spend some time recategorizing my boards, which is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while anyway.
Thanks, Ellie! I’m glad you found it helpful! I hope you enjoy reorganising your pinterest boards. 🙂
Wow, this is so helpful, thank you Dannielle {and Megan!}! I have only used Pinterest for fun up til now, and hadn’t really understood the potential. Since I love Pinterest it makes sense for me to leverage that a bit. I’ll definitely be putting some of your advice into action.
You’re so welcome, Tara! I hope it’s helpful for you!
Pingback:Master Link Bomb List | STEAL THIS PROCESS
Great suggestions. I have been working on building my pages and love the idea of narrowing the categories. Appreciate it.
Absolutely fantastic post. You have confirmed my intuition about Pinterest and I am so grateful! Every time I hear what others have to say about using Pinterest strategically for business I cringe. What you suggest feels completely aligned with authenticity. Many thanks to Megan for posting this.
I have been looking for more way to get the word out about being a Martha Stewart American Made Nominee and have gone as far as creating daily images to inspire votes. I am now going to create a board on Pinterest with those images. Thank you, thank you!
Wow, great tips! I’ve been slowly building my Pinterest accounts with good, solid pins to create a base of knowledge, but wasn’t sure where to take it from there. Now I’ve got some ideas, thanks!
Interesting! I’ll have to try this. I’ve never really “tried” to get Pinterest followers before – like you, this seemed kind of silly to me since I like to use Pinterest simply b/c it’s fun. However, organzing my boards would be good even if no one new ends up following me, so why not try it? 😉
How do you go from ‘liking’ a pin to pinning it? I’m sure this is an idiotic ?…but…are they stored somewhere that you can access them?
Thank you,
Jane
Hi Jane, Great Question! You have a likes page. You can access this by clicking your name and image on the top right of Pinterest and choosing the ‘Your Likes’ option. All your likes will be shown there. I hope that helps 🙂
This is a great set of tips, Dannielle, Thanks. I’m especially interested in your suggestion to add the title of a post to the image so that people see there’s something clickable associated with the image. What technique are you using to do that? Are you adding the post title to an image you use within the post and then pinning from the post to create the link? Or are you creating a separate image with the post title and pinning that – and if so, how do you make that image clickable to the blog post?
Thanks for this great info!
– Maria
Hi Maria!
I personally add the post title to my images in photoshop and then include them on my blog. I’ve done this since starting the blog so there’s a consistency there. But you can also create the separate image and upload it to pinterest and link back. This then requires you to Edit that pin after uploading and manually adding in the link back to your post. So it’s not as straightforward, but definitely an option.
I hope that helps!
Thanks, Danielle.
I see now on Style for a Happy Home how you did it. The added text on the images makes a lot of sense – I can see how it would increase engagement, even on the blog itself.
Thanks again for sharing such great info.
I’m intimidated by the thought of reorganizing my pinboards, and yet it would probably be a lot of worthwhile fun if I did. Thanks for this! 🙂
Pingback:Friday Link Bomb: 06.09.13 | STEAL THIS PROCESS
Pingback:Link Hype 9-6-13
Some days when I am on Pinterest I will pin twenty or more items in an hour or so and post them all to Twitter. I have found that this is a great way for me to build up Twitter followers.
Is there any number of hours that a person should be spending per week pinning on Pinterest?
Pingback:Places to Go, People to See :: September 7, 2013 « Esmé Weijun Wang
I love the idea of using ‘likes’ that way, I would never have thought of that! Going to have to get at this tonight. Have you played around with Rich Pins at all, for recipes or blog posts where there’s a product people could pin? I guess that has more to do with how you’re doing your website, but it shouldn’t be too hard to do on WP. Totally just curious if that would play into your ‘non-strategy’ (which is actually genius).
Great article. Thank you for sharing. I’ll have to experiment and reorganize my pinterest boards
Pingback:Artist As Brand The Art of Pinterest and Designing your MBA post HOW I GREW MY PINTEREST FOLLOWING FROM 1000 TO 4000+ IN 3 MONTHS
Great tips! Thanks for the insight. Just pinned it to a new board i’m starting. 🙂
What are your thoughts on using hash tags in descriptions? Yay or nay? Is Pinterest hash tag driven yet??
Thanks for sharing all these amazing tips. I’ll start practicing them ASAP. I Just have a question.. I have an account on pinterest with my name adrianafrancotm, my boards are all related to my bz as a wedding planner. I also have a blog that has a different name http://www.cafenovias.com but I pin things from my blog to my personal pinterest account. Should I create a different account with my blog’s name, and start moving this account better to have a bigger audience? I guess you can’t change an accounts name. Thanks for the advice!
Adriana,
You could set up a business account if you wanted to keep them separate, but you might like to keep them all together so people can see your personality as well as your business. I think people really like to get to know the person behind the business as well.
Hope that’s helpful.
Such a great article. I don’t spend much time on Pinterest, but I’m finding I am getting a good about of traffic to my online party shop through Pinterest. So I guess with a bit more time spent, there would be a lot more potential for me using Pinterest. Thanks heaps!
Re: “damn, I am pretty fuknicg incredible.”I know what you mean, and I know the feeling. I get that way after running a trail further than I thought I could. Or hitting a huge hill that makes you think, damn, I just ran all of that. The human body is incredible. And lately, it’s something that I’ve been cherishing a lot. It’s pretty amazing how much you can push yourself and how far your body can go if you train it to. Good luck on your ultra this month! You’re going to crush it!
Hi Dannielle, brilliant, inspiring article from you, thanks for that – splitting boards is a great idea! I was, however, quite surprised at how low the number you are following is on Pinterest (at 4th Nov’13 you have 10.5K followers but you’re only following 200 people!). I always thought following more people was key to any pinterest follower growth strategy – did you follow a lot of people when you started out?
Hi Chris,
I didn’t start out by following a lot of people. I haven’t really increased the number of people I’m following all that much since I started. I tend to choose the boards I follow and the people very selectively from the quality of the images that they repin. I have found that the key is that your pins (both from your own site and the ones you repin) are seen in search, on the main page and through the “pinners who have pinned this…” page. It appears from my research that this happens more often when you are more active and pin more pins regularly.
I hope that helps answer your question.
Hi Dannielle,
I came across this webpage more than a month ago and i bookmarked it along with another webpage on another site knowing that when i am ready to pay more attention to my pinterest account i will need the content of this article which i have found very helpful. I only returned to this article some 2 days ago and i have more than 200 additional following putting some the things i have learned into practice however one of the questions that i have always asked myself was the same question that chris asked because i have noticed some pinterest account with very high number of followers but very little following and wondered how they possible achieved it and i think you have provided the answer for me or at the very least some of the answers. Thank you.
Hi Dannielle. Great article and very helpful for a Pinterest newcomer. I realize I need to incorporate your “best practices” to better organize, and more. Thank you so much! One question: When renaming or splitting boards, what happens to the followers of a specific board? Do you lose them? Again, thanks for sharing your experience and expertise.
Hey Kay!
Whenever I rename my boards, I’ve not lost anyone. In reality, once they like the board, they will normally just see the pins you add to that board unless they purposely go to check out a specific board, and then they just see the new name, I think.
I have lost a couple when I delete a board in a reorg, though. When I do this, I always post something to FB and Twitter just to say “fyi – I’ve been reorganizing on Pinterest again. if you’ve repinned anything, it’s still there, just under another board. I do reorg’s periodically, so I always recommend you do a ‘follow all’ so you never miss anything”. I’ve had great response doing that, and normally get more followers.
Hey Dannielle,
Thank you for the suggestions! Unfortunately, my Pinterest boards is stagnant and doesn’t gain many new followers. I have done all of the following advice you have given above, is there something else I can improve on?
Hey Lisa –
Maybe I’m misunderstanding but it looks like your account has almost 18K followers. That’s pretty amazing!
I know the food category is huge and thus more competition to have your images come up in search, etc. The first thing I noticed is that most of your boards don’t have a description; it helps Pinterest search if you fill in all of your boards descriptions using some keywords.
Beyond that, have you looked at how often you’re getting repinned? I ask because I’ve noticed this strange trend on Pinterest of people following you and then once you follow them back (or not even) they immediately unfollow you. Seems really unproductive to me. Regardless, if lots of people are following but not repinning, I might look at the images that ARE getting repinned and seeing if you can find some similarity there as to why. One thing I do before I pin anything is that if it’s supposed to go to a link, I click through and check out hte link to be sure it’s not a fishy link. So my people can feel comfortable knowing that I’ve done my best to make sure it doesn’t take them to some weird porn site or something 😉
Hope these things help or at least give you some food for thought!
Enjoyed the article. I am just starting on Pinterest and it is very addictive. I’m already finding pins that I have already posted. I need to give it some time to gain more followers.
Thanks
Edward
Pingback:Friday Link Bomb 02.01.14 | STEAL THIS PROCESS
Pingback:How I Grew my Pinterest Followers (Part 2)
thank you to your tips it is ma by good.
Pingback:26 Years And Counting | How To Reorganise Your Pinterest Boards
– I LOVE pinterest!! It is so adcnitdig and my new favorite thing to do on the internet! I use it to remember fashion ideas, decorating, photography poses/inspiration, food.. More like what do I NOT use it for 😉 My pinterest name is hannahewing !!
Pingback:26 Years And Counting | Top Tips For Pinterest
Great summary – I have to stick to the best times for Pinterest vs random today … and try your approach to “like”
Going to try these tips. Thanks!
This is a great list – I have found my highest sources of traffic are from Pinterest, and I’ve followed all types of advice from “follow people relevant” and “ask people to sign up from other social media” which has grown me over 2k but this advice is what I needed to hear. Basically just stop worrying about numbers and worry more about content/organization of boards. Thanks!
Pingback:{Tipps & Tricks} Pinterest–so kriegst du mehr Follower | provinzkindchen test
Pingback:{Tipps & Tricks} Pinterest–so kriegst du mehr Follower - provinzkindchen testprovinzkindchen test
HI, Megan I got 1000 – 2600 in Just 3 days thanks for your tips and Tricks.. I added Lot of things in my board that’s don’t have any link to my niche.. But thanks to your tips I made it…
Best Regard,
Swathi
http://www.foodietummy.com
Finally a post that seems realistic and isn’t sponsored 🙂 Thanks so much. Looking to grow my board too. Slowly but surely!
https://uk.pinterest.com/hannahandfit/pins/
Pingback:Small Biz : 7 tips for using Pinterest effectively - tractorgirl.com.au