Q&A FRIDAY
Every Friday I answer questions about how to best use Pinterest for business. This week’s question comes from Debi Stangeland, (she teaches people how to blog):
I’d like to hear about how to optimize Pinterest for small bloggers. It’s such an important platform for even the smallest blogger but a lot of the info is geared toward big. Big bloggers, big accounts, big followings. Some insight into steady growth and how long it can take would be great.
I love this question because there always seems to be the assumption that bigger grows faster, which is not always true. Even if you’re small, you can achieve big growth with a few simple action steps.
Images
It’s all about the images. This is the biggest factor in growth. When you’re a small blogger you’re most likely running on a small budget and having to bootstrap most elements yourself. Taking your own pictures or creating your own images may save you money but if you’re not good then it might be worth investing money in your top 20 posts that receive Pinterest traffic by hiring out.
If you just can’t swing it in the budget, pick a template, font, and design. Stick with it. Branded photos make a huge impact. Next week I’ll be sharing data from bloggers who have used the same branded images for a year and grown leaps and bounds over 2015.
Evaluating Growth
Lately it seems Pinterest is funneling people more into following interests rather than people. (pinterest.com/explore/”enter your term here”) For this reason, I would not depend on follower numbers to give you an accurate reflection of growth. Page views are way more important.
For example, one of our accounts with over 25k followers grew by a mere 650 followers in November but her page views went from 48k to 85k! I’ll take traffic any day over the follower number. This is why it’s SO important for you to understand your Google analytics and finding out what pins are driving traffic to your site.
How Long
I know the waiting game is super hard but consistency will pay off here. Keep pinning the best of what you have mixed in with new posts. Stay the course, don’t get distracted and you will start to get traction. To assign a timeline for growth is impossible. Each account is unique and growth depends on many factors — scheduling tool, how many times per day pinned, dedicated readers, etc. Focus in on who your target is and keeping aiming there.
Keep calm and keep pinning!
