ELENA PETERS | MIDLIFE BLOGGER

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Every morning I wake up and check my stats. I am always amazed at how hard Pinterest has been working for me all night long, sending me new readers, subscribers and making me money while I sleep. I absolutely love this social media platform!

But still I find bloggers every day that have not been able to harness the power of Pinterest and are busy running around like chickens without heads, either wasting too much time on other platforms or implementing strategies on Pinterest that just don’t work. All because they still believe in the Pinterest myths below.

Let me tell you it is hurting your pageviews dramatically.

I began using Pinterest in 2015 and yes, it was much, much easier to get tons of views from Pinterest back then. But, even with all the algorithm changes, you can still drive traffic from Pinterest.

Pinterest in 2020 consistently sends me oodles of refers and my followers continue to grow exponentially. I have never purchased followers or gone for the mass following strategies or follow threads.

People flock to me on Pinterest. On weekends, I can see increases by over a hundred a day. Think of what that kind of number could do for your impressions and ultimately your pageviews.

Are you holding on to any of these…

10 Pinterest Myths That Are Hurting Your Pageviews

 

1. Pinterest won’t work for my niche.

YES IT CAN. Sorry for shouting but I hear this one a lot. I know, I know. You go on there and you are flooded with recipes and crafts and fashion and you wonder where the heck do you fit in.

Here’s the thing, stop trying to shove your square butt into a round hole.

You don’t want to fit in. You want to stand out. And if you can do that, no matter what your niche is, you can really own it and drive traffic like crazy to your blog. The key to making Pinterest work for you is to find the right audience and/or to have them find you.

Standing out on Pinterest is different that any other social media platform. It is highly visual…but with a promise to give the viewer more. You have to entice them and make them want to see more. And you have to make them want to share how awesome you are with others.

There is no right and wrong on how to do that for any niche. What it is, is trial and error. Keep tweaking those pins, titles and descriptions till you have hit on the formula for you that makes people want to see what your pins are all about.

It all comes down to showing the value for your post with an image, a caption (title) and a promise of more (description).  It may take you a little longer depending on your niche, but when the right eyes are on your pins, magic happens.

With nearly half of all internet users in the U.S. having a Pinterest account and over 2 billion monthly searches on Pinterest, chances are very high that your avatar is on Pinterest right now.

2. I don’t have time for another social media platform.

Puhleeze. Yes, you do. Get off Facebook for awhile and you will have plenty of time. Unless of course, all of your chatting on FB is business related and making you a crap ton of money.

No? Then it is not a matter of time but a “I don’t want to, I don’t know how to do it, It doesn’t work for me, It stopped working for me.” attitude.

Honestly, I totally understand all of those sentiments but the payout on Pinterest is huge and once you learn the platform, it is by far the best rate of return for your time on your daily to do list. Trust me on this one. Especially if you learn to use pin templates to create new pins.

3. If I throw in a ton of hashtags/keywords in my descriptions, I will get ranked in searches.

K, this isn’t Twitter or Instagram so stop treating it like it is. Check out any high ranking pin on any given topic and you won’t see more than 3 hashtags or keywords in the descriptions.

Hashtags and keywords are important and do help with SEO but just like on any other social media platform, you have to be strategic. Use the right ones and don’t spam or overuse.

And when you create a brand new pin, it gives you the opportunity to use different hashtags and keywords. That will increase your chances of getting into the home feed and/or searches for multiple inquiries.

4. I can only pin my posts once to each board.

This is the number one strategy failure I hear over and over again. Do you share your post only once on other social media platforms? If you do, we seriously need to talk.

The chances that every follower sees your pin, tweet or Facebook post the first time you shared it is very, very low. You need to share your posts, multiple times on different days and at different times.

Remember that your new followers haven’t seen your old posts at all. If you do not recycle those posts back into your feed, you are missing out on huge traffic to some of your older posts.

Let me be really clear : You can pin the same post to the same board multiple times.

But, and here is the big butt in 2020, it has to be a brand new pin with a new title and a new description. Use an interval of at least 3 months before repinning and you are good to repeatedly pin that post to that board.

5. As long as I have a picture on my post, I can pin it.

I wish I had an example of the types of images I was trying to pin on Pinterest when I first started but I have hidden the evidence and removed any proof of my incompetence.

I don’t know how many times I must say this but you must use vertical images with a 2:3 side ratio to get noticed. Pinterest in 2020 recommends 1000px X 1500px.

And yes, quality counts. So if you are really bad at taking your own photos, either hire someone or use good stock photos. Make sure they are bright, clear and reflect the content of the post to the best of your ability.

Over 90% of Pinterest users are on their mobile devices. Think of that tiny screen and how you are going to get noticed. I always check out how my pins look on my phone. And yes, I have gone back and redone pins because they either looked like crap or the text on the image could not be read.

Always, always, check out how your pins look on mobile devices.

For more help with your pin images, check out these pin templates.

6. Pinning other bloggers’ pins only increases their traffic. There is no benefit to me.

If you are pinning content by other bloggers within your same niche, chances are that you have the same audience. You will attract the right readers by pinning content that is relevant to them.

You may send some traffic elsewhere but hopefully, those pinners will follow you and then you will get an opportunity to send your own personal pins into their feeds.

Your goal should always be to share great content, others and yours. That is how you begin to establish yourself as an expect in your niche. That is huge for establishing brand loyalty.

This strategy is especially important when you are a brand new user of Pinterest. Yes, I know, a lot of experts disagree with me and no longer think that pinning others’ content works anymore. But I find it works so I will continue to do it and recommend others to do it too.

7. If I pin more, I will get more traffic.

This is by far the worst strategy I have ever seen used.

New users to the Pinterest platform always get excited when they first see traffic being referred to their site. In an effort to maximize, they start to pin more and more. Unfortunately, that strategy rarely works.

It is all about engagement, just like any other social media platform.

If you continually pin with no repins, likes, comments or clicks, Pinterest will just push your future pins out of the home feed and searches, or worse, mark you as spam and block your account.

How much you should pin is different for everyone and it takes some trial and error on your part to figure it out.

In a nutshell, pay attention to your stats. Pin more until your traffic peaks. When you see a decline in refers, cut back on the amount you are pinning.

8. Pinterest is not a social media platform, it is a search engine.

Yes, Pinterest is a powerful search engine and regular people do use it to find new brands and products every single day.

But it is still a social media platform and if you do not use it as such, you are missing out on gaining traffic through engagement.

Pinterest does get a lot of spam comments on pins. You may have noticed that on your own pins.

If you look, you will probably find some great comments too though. And it is in your best interest to like and reply to those comments.

When I regularly do that, I find my pins get a boost of traffic.

So go check out your comments, delete the spam and respond to the genuine ones and you will be pleasantly surprised.

9. If I automate my pinning, I never have to go on Pinterest.

I would have to say that I have one of the most intensive automated pinning schedules you will ever see but I still go on Pinterest and manually pin directly to my boards everyday.

That Pinterest algorithm is one smart cookie. Believe me, it knows when you are using a third party to pin.

It is totally ok to use a scheduler to pin for you (everyone needs a vacation!) but for that extra boost and to prove you are a Pinterest love child, you need to go on the actual platform and pin too.

Show Pinterest that you are a human!

10. You have to pay to play.

I have never, ever promoted a pin.

And yet, I get thousands of refers from Pinterest to my blog every single day. That converts to cold hard cash for me. Yay!

Many other social media platforms have gone the way of pay to play, Facebook being the major offender.

But with Pinterest, you can still have great success without having to spend any money. Play by their rules, meaning fresh pins, no spamming and manual pinning, and you will drive traffic to your blog from Pinterest.

The true key to success with Pinterest is consistency. Create a solid pinning strategy, share content that readers want to see and grow your followers.

Day in, day out.

Once you hit on your magic formula, you will see an increase in your pin impressions which will ultimately drive traffic to your blog.

Anyone can do it. Really. All you have to do is let go of the Pinterest myths that are holding you back.

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