I’m not going to lie, despite being known for teaching Pinterest strategy, I’ve been neglecting my Pinterest account something fierce over the last year or so. The truth is, all the changes to the platform had me feeling super frustrated. I was sick of jumping on the app and having my feed filled with flashing videos and frustrated that none of my new content was getting any views.
But recently I changed my tune. This was brought on by a few factors. Unlike Instagram, video seems to have calmed down a bit on Pinterest and my feed is once again filled with pretty pictures. And I found a way to create Idea Pins (more on those in a second) that feels good to me and uses the kind of content I actually want to create (hello, still images).
Since I’ve been spending so much time on Pinterest again, I thought I’d share two things that are working on Pinterest right now:
#1: Idea Pins
Even though my main feed isn’t quite as saturated with Idea Pins as it was last year, there’s no denying that Pinterest is still pushing Idea Pins, and if you want your content to get viewed, you need to be making them.
If you aren’t familiar with them, Idea Pins are essentially Pinterest’s version of Instagram Stories (in fact, when they first rolled them out, they were called Story Pins). What makes them different than regular pins (besides the fact that you can add text, stickers, music, and more) is that they don’t link back to anywhere specific, just to your Pinterest profile.
I’ll admit that this feature turned me off of Idea Pins, because the beauty of Pinterest is that it lets you link directly to your site. But Pinterest added an option where you can tag Product Pins inside your Idea Pins, which means you can still direct people (albeit in a round about way) back to your site. (And I heard a rumor that Pinterest is beta testing letting Idea Pins link directly to your website, which will be even better!)
And now that I’ve started creating Idea Pins, there’s no denying they are getting significantly more views than my standard pins. So if you haven’t been creating Idea Pins, now is the the time to start.
#2: Context
If you have spent any time on Pinterest lately, you may have noticed that if you save or engage with a pin about a certain topic, your feed is suddenly filled with even more pins related to that topic. That’s context. And while context has always been important on Pinterest, it’s even more important now that rather than showing you pins from people you follow, the Pinterest algorithm is solely focused on showing you things that it thinks you want to see.
And what this means for you if you’re trying to get other people to see your pins is that you NEED to pin them onto boards with similar and related content from other people. By telling Pinterest (through your own pinning strategy) what your content is related to, you’ll greatly increase the odds that someone interested in that topic will see your pins too.
Numbers matter here too. I find that you get the most traction when pinning to boards that have at least several hundred pins on them! So choose a few boards that are the best fit for your products or content and start pinning as many related images to them as possible. Over time, this should help your content get seen by more people.
There’s a lot more nuance around both Idea Pins and context than I can easily talk about in a blog post, which is why I created three new training videos for my class Practical Pinning: a more detailed deep dive into what’s working on Pinterest in 2022, a tutorial on how I create video Idea Pins from still images in Canva, and a tutorial on tagging Idea Pins with product stickers.
These videos are available exclusively to members of my online mentorship, Artists and Profit Makers, and inside my course Practical Pinning. If you are a current A&PM member, you can access these videos inside the training area. And if you purchased Practical Pinning in 2020 or later, you have access to these videos now inside the classroom at learn.meganauman.com.
And if you want access to these videos, plus my full Pinterest strategy, click here to learn more about Practical Pinning, or click here to join Artists & Profit Makers, where you get access to Practical Pinning plus so many other incredible trainings! (A&PM really is the best deal!)