Pinterest is probably one of the most popular social media platforms out there, with nearly half a billion monthly active users.
But even though it has billions of monthly pageviews, that doesn't mean it's too easy to make the most use of it.
It can be very confusing for beginners, so if you're new to Pinterest or just haven't been able to make any growth, read on!
We'll go over common Pinterest mistakes people make, learn how you can avoid them, and grow your Pinterest presence.
Pinterest is all about consistency, your presence on Pinterest and your activity on it should be consistent.
If you're a new blogger, it's common to feel like you have to put everything from your blog all at once for it to skyrocket. This is not true!
Whatever you do, Don't pin too much at once, or Don't pin too little.
Also, be consistent with posting times: The best way to stay consistent with posting times are by using scheduling tools such as tailwind which allow you to schedule out several day's worth of content in advance so that posts go live consistently throughout the week without having to think about it every week or even every day!
Next comes your pins design and blog content. You do not want to have similar-looking pin designs or the same content being pinned again and again.
What you want is for your pins and your blog content to be as varied not much but noticeably varied so that people don’t get bored by the same style over and over again.
Pinterest is a visual search engine, which means your images should be optimized for Pinterest.
Optimizing your images correctly will help them stand out in search results and increase engagement.
To make sure that a pin is optimized, test out longer or shorter designs to find the perfect aspect ratio for your audience while making sure that pins aren't cropped when being shared on Pinterest or other social media sites.
Next is to check that your targeted keywords are included in the pin title and description.
The same goes for your boards, optimize your boards by adding descriptions and keywords to board titles so they appear in search results.
Use relevant categories, not many but 2-3 for each board, while making sure there are no duplicate pins in any section of any board.
You’re probably thinking that hashtags are just a way to get more people to find your pins. And they are! But it’s more complicated than that.
If you don't use hashtags in your descriptions, Pinterest will do its best to understand what your pin is all about based on the words and phrases in your title and description.
This process of getting context out of your pin can be pretty accurate, but sometimes it's hard for Pinterest's algorithm to figure out exactly what you're talking about if there aren't enough clues in the text itself. And it may not pick up on all of the relevant keywords or phrases in your post.
So how do you make sure that Pinterest finds all of these great keywords? By using all possible ways to provide context which includes using hashtags!
A call-to-action is the message you want your pin's audience to take away from it. It should be clear, concise, and well-written.
For example: "Pin this image if you love this recipe." "Get started with Pinterest today!"
Having CTA is of utmost importance and if you are not doing this then you are missing a big chunk of your conversion goals.
Just imagine if you come across a pin with CTA "Download our in-depth guide for free now!", what will your next step be? obviously to check out that guide, right?
You can use a variety of words or phrases in your CTAs depending on what your goal is for the pin, so start doing this now!
This is another very common Pinterest mistake beginners do.
If you're not using analytics, you're leaving money on the table.
Pinterest analytics can help you know your audience and what they're looking for. Because it exactly shows you how many people have viewed which of your pins.
With this information in hand, you'll be able to tailor your content more specifically that resonates with your audience’s needs and interests.
And this very much impacts and guides your other strategies like what will be your next content or product, which pin designs work, what type of CTA’s to include in your pins, and so on and so forth
As I have mentioned before, pinning at the wrong time is a common mistake that can seriously hurt your Pinterest marketing strategy.
Many people pin during peak hours when many Pinterest users are online and they are more likely to see your pins.
However, most of these people aren't likely to follow you back or click on any of your links in the pin description because those might not be your ideal audience.
What you need is to find out when your ideal audience is most likely to be online and then pin at those specific times during the day.
This can be simply done by looking at your Google analytics to see when you are getting Pinterest traffic.
If you're going to use keywords in your description, don't go overboard.
The goal of using keywords is to make your pins organically searchable by others who are searching for that exact terms.
If you're putting a bunch of long-tail keywords in every single pin description, then no one will ever see them!
My rule is to make them not too short, not too specific, not too vague, or not too common.
Also, you want to make sure to get the wording right so that you hit your desired intent of the keyword.
Is it important that you complete your profile?
Complete in the sense that it should look authentic and professional and not like some spam account with a missing profile picture or description.
Your profile is the first place people will look at when they land on your pin. It's also the place where you can tell users a little about yourself so that they get to know who you are and why you're on Pinterest.
First comes your profile picture, If you don't have one, it will be hard for people to find you.
So make sure you have one and also it should be something that connects with your website, so that when someone clicks on your pins and lands on your website it should feel consistent.
Next comes the profile descriptions, here you show what you are and what you can do for your followers.
In “what you are” part should make you stand out among your competitors, and in “what you can do” should emphasize solving pain points that your audience is looking for.
Having mixed content is another common Pinterest mistake that can seriously disrupt your Pinterest action.
The basic idea is for example, if I'm running an account about blogging tips but also want to share posts about fashion trends, I'll create two separate boards: one for blogging tips and another for fashion trends.
The advanced version is that whatever you pin on your board determines the context of that particular board.
So for example, if in my “Blogging Tips” board I only have blogging-related pins and then I add any new pin to it that will send the signal to Pinterest that the new pin is blogging related and it will show up for people interested in blogging, which leads to a higher chance of getting engagement.
However, if your board contains mixed content then it will confuse Pinterest and Pinterest will show it to people with unrelated interests leading to lower engagement rates.
So make sure that all the pins in the boards are of the same topic.
Don’t create too many boards; keep them focused on one topic at a time so they're easy for viewers to navigate through quickly.
Your boards will be more effective if it's kept up-to-date and populated with content that's relevant to the topic at hand.
So there you have it, these common Pinterest mistakes so simple yet can seriously throw off your Pinterest game.
I hope these tips will help you better shape your Pinterest strategies and make the most use of them.