Tips from the Pinterest, In the Making Event:
Last week, I hopped on a jet plane to San Francisco for Pinterest’s In the Making event. This was the first year they hosted this conference for content creators on the platform, and what I learned about the Pinterest surprised me.
I love Pinterest, but I’m certainly no expert. Sure, I’ve read a ton of great guides in the past that advised me to start scheduling pins on Tailwind and repin other bloggers’ content via Tailwind Tribes. I have BoardBooster to help me clean up boards. I’ve had a few pins go viral. But I never really felt like an expert on Pinterest, and I’ve never felt inclined to sit down and write an entire blog post about it. I’m still far from mastering this platform, however, after attending the In the Making event, I feel a lot more comfortable using it!
After attending the In the Making conference and seeing the power that Pinterest has, I’d highly advise everyone to stop sleeping on Pinterest and start investing time in the platform. Exhibit A: I have a business account on Pinterest, and my content currently reaches 1.1 million unique visitors per month. If you think that’s a lot of traffic, I have some blog friends that have triple or quadruple the monthly viewers I have. Could I ever reach 1.1 million unique viewers/month with Instagram’s crappy algorithm? Absolutely not.
Exhibit B? Pinterest ads are incredible, and I would highly advise any influencer marketing agency to purchase one with any extra budget they may have. I’ve had blog posts of mine boosted on Facebook and Instagram, and have received subpar results. One influencer marketing agency group I work with ran a Pinterest ad for this blog post, and after being live for two months, it is now one of my top 5 highest viewed blog posts of all time.
Pinterest Isn’t A Social Media Platform
You’re going to think I’m crazy for saying this: but I repeatedly heard throughout the In the Making conference that Pinterest isn’t a social media platform. Pinterest is a place people go for ideas. Outfit ideas. Recipes. Travel inspiration. DIY projects. Pinterest is, in a way, more of an aspirational search engine. You only pin things you like and enjoy, and you’re not getting the FOMO that you would while browsing on Instagram.
Pinterest is, in a sense, a visual search engine. That’s why it’s important to jam pack your pins with keywords so that people can discover your content.
Text Overlays are King; Vertical Images are Queen
First things first: most of us know already that vertical pins are more eye-catching than horizontal pins. However, I finally learned what the perfect pin ratio is: you want to create pins that have a 2:3 aspect ratio. The ideal pin size for Pinterest is an image that is a max of 600×1200 px.
Another thing that makes a pin stand out? A simple text overlay. I think I was overthinking my text overlays in the past, but something simple does the trick. The key is to write a captivating headline about your blog post. Tip: make a secret board of pins that have text overlays that you enjoy. You can try out different headlines and different types of designs to see what kinds of graphics perform well and come up with your own overlay template.
Group Boards are Dying
This one came as a shock to me: group boards aren’t as effective as they used to be. But when I took the time to think about it…it made sense.
Back in 2015, when I was on a group board, I could easily make something go viral just by pinning to this group board. Nowadays, I don’t even see half the content that’s pinned on a group board on my home page, and a lot of the boards I’m on have become oversaturated.
What’s a better option than group boards? Tailwind Tribes. In a Tribe, you upload your own content to a group, and others will repin your content onto their boards, and vice versa. Usually, for every Tribe you join, for every pin you upload on the Tribe, you should pin another user’s content onto your boards.
Hashtags are your Friend
Put this under “things I had no clue about:” You could always add hashtags to Pinterest pins. However, those hashtags weren’t always searchable. Fast forward to 2018. You can now search and discover content with hashtags.
In a Q&A panel, I learned that you should ideally be using 1-3 hashtags per pin. If you use Tailwind, it can provide you with hashtag suggestions. When picking out hashtags, think about things that people are searching. A super specific campaign hashtag might not get many search queries. However, something simple like #whitejeans or #denimjacket would likely get more hits.
Shop the Look is a Gamechanger
Did you know that ShopStyle is an official Pinterest partner? I have to admit, I’ve been on the ShopStyle platform for years, but have only used it sparingly.
If you’re a style blogger looking to monetize their OOTDs, I would look into ShopStyle’s “Shop the Look” tool. With this tool, people can shop your outfit right on Instagram — and ShopStyle’s technology will alert you if any of the products you’ve tagged in your look sell out, so you can go back and tag your look with similar items for users to shop. How cool is that?
