Updated January 2, 2021

Pinterest Marketing Strategy for Meaningful Results: How to Pin on Pinterest Strategically in 2021

One of the tactics businesses need to include in their Pinterest marketing strategy is how they plan to maximize the number of engagements on their pins. 

Lucy Matthews, Programs Partnership Manager outlined last year how to maximize your content distribution on Pinterest. It’s going to be a lot more work folks! 🙁 And guess what it changed at least three more times after that announcement! Ahh!

But here’s the thing folks. Pinterest is still worth the time and money you put into it because your content will get more engagement compared to other socials. One of the reasons is because pins have a longer shelf life.

On Pinterest getting more engagement means that you need to include these three elements before you save them on Pinterest:

1. Inject the right keywords in the right places. Have you mastered Pinterest SEO?
2. Your Pinterest image must be attention-grabbing. Did you know there are specific types of images for your type of business? 
3. The content has to meet the needs of your audience. Does it address their problems? Is it recent and relevant?

 

How to Beat the Recent Changes to the Pinterest Algorithm

I’m sure you know that Pinterest has an algorithm. Most social networks have them. That means there are specific activities you need to add to your Pinterest marketing strategy in order to make Pinterest’s algorithm continue to love you! 

Here are nine best practices you need to apply consistently & properly when repinning or when sharing new content:

1. Your goal as a business using Pinterest marketing strategy 101 is to pin your own content first. If you do not have enough content then you’ll want to repin other’s content that serves your target audience. Just make sure that content doesn’t directly compete with yours.
2. Pinterest users love content that is new, relevant, useful, helpful, and inspiring.  Does all your content meet that criteria?
3. Always schedule your pins. 
4. Schedule at least five images per day. 
5. Pin your own content first. This is especially important when you have new content. The moment you make your content live you need to share it because Pinterest prioritizes images that were created by the owner of the website that those pins link to. Pinterest loves fresh content. 
6. When pinning your own content save your pins to your most important board first because that pin also benefits from the SEO juice in your board title and board description.
7. Tailwind is the easiest tool to schedule your pins. When scheduling your pins on Tailwind go to “Publisher”. Next go to the top right corner where it says “Create New Pin”, click that and upload your image or video. Follow the prompt and fill in the rest of the required fields.  In the past I always said to schedule them on your secret boards. Well you can still do that BUT that would count as sharing to a board. See the next step so you know what I mean by that. In addition this will help you to stay disciplined so you’re not mindlessly pinning away without a clear pinning strategy. 
8. Only save your content to relevant boards (no more than 10) that are in keeping with the theme of the board. Basically you don’t want to share the same image to more than 10 boards. In addition, if you’re sharing a pin about Mother’s Day on a Valentine’s board that will actually hurt you more than help you. The images have to be in keeping with the theme of the board. If you think you can fool Pinterest you can’t. Pinterest knows what you’re doing. ☺
9. When scheduling the same image share it three to seven days apart versus scheduling them all on the same day. Think buffet. People following you want to see something different each time they come across your stuff. In fact, Pinterest has a feature in every pin where a user can report your image if they’ve seen your pin too many times. Yikes!

Best Practices for sharing the same pin to the same board:

You can save the same pin to the same board up to two times a year only.

Since Pinterest has gone public April 2019 it’s gotten a lot more difficult to get saves and clicks. Not only is there more competition on Pinterest but just like other social networks Pinterest is in it to make money. Their number one job is to please their investors. 

On the other hand Pinterest is also investing in tools and visual search technology to make it easy for Pinterest users to buy your stuff right on Pinterest. In fact, it’s these three verticals that are getting the most benefits: home decor, fashion, and makeup (cosmetics).

 

 

Pinterest Loves Fresh Content

What does fresh content really mean? Fresh content on Pinterest means two things: 

1. A new blog post or new product listing with a new image and the URL link that Pinterest has not seen in the past. 
2. A completely new image (with new text overlay and pin description) going to an old blog post. You cannot just change the text overlay and pin description, that doesn’t cut it as new content. 

If you are consistent with producing recent and relevant content you will get maximum exposure in the Home Feed and Search results.

 

Proof: My Re-pinning Strategy Works!

Have a look at the screenshots below. These are two separate Pinterest business profiles showing how our clients repins are trending high for the past 30 days. That’s right! Trending high baby. Many out there are not and are struggling.

6 Ways to Repin Old Content on Pinterest to Increase Pinterest Engagement

Here are the steps I want you to follow to get more saves and clicks. You will need a Tailwind account for this. Trust me it’s worth it! Try out my methods using Tailwind even for just a month to prove to yourself that my method works.

RULE: There is a specific rule for this method. Do not repin the same image to the same board where it was previously saved to. If you do it must be relevant to the audience today. If you have pinned this image more than two times in the last year you won’t get the results you want. Remember the rule I stated above under “Best Practices for sharing the same pin to the same board”? This is the same rule I’m talking about.

Okay so follow these steps when you’re ready to repin your old pins.

1. Your weekly Pinning schedule

On Tailwind set your daily schedule to 5 pins per day as shown below.

 

 

2. Pinterest analytics dashboard

• Go to your Pinterest analytics dashboard.
• Set your filters so that you see the results only from your own pins, not others. This way we know which boards are your most popular. Next, choose SAVES. 
• As you can see below my most popular board is my Pinterest Tips board as shown below. 
• You can also use Tailwind to check out similar analytics under their BOARD INSIGHTS.

 

 

3. Tailwind’s Pin Inspector

• Go to the TAILWIND PIN INSPECTOR and choose your most important board.
• Filter by date pinned for the last three months. So for example if are doing this for the month of February 2020 you will filter the dates from November 1 2019 to January 31, 2020. 
• Click “DATE PINNED” because you want to reschedule starting with the oldest pins.
• Next, you will only reschedule pins that did not get any repins. As you can see below the image in the post on Nov. 11, 2019 didn’t get any repins. So naturally I will reschedule that. But I will not reschedule the next image that was originally pinned Nov. 11, 2019 because that received two saves. 

 

 

4. Re-schedule the pin

Remember I said that Pinterest likes fresh content? With this particular strategy we will NOT change the image. We are simply going to give this image a fresh new title and a pin description with better keywords and of course hashtags.  

You don’t need to change every word, just a few here and there. By doing this you give your pins a chance at getting better results. For example, if you’re selling jewelry, craft your pin description to reflect the new season, event, or add styling tips you may not have mentioned in the previous pin. How is it relevant today? Think of the mindset of the Pinner. What is relevant to them today or maybe next week or month?

You’re thinking “Anna this will take a lot of time”. Well yes it’s time consuming but it’s worth it because of the results you’ll get.

If you’re not getting the results you thought you should have received that could mean two things. Your image either sucks or your content sucks. 

Always check spelling and that everything makes sense before you hit SCHEDULE. 

 

 

5. Fill in the next two weeks.

You will fill in your schedule with this method for the next two weeks. This is what it looks like inside Tailwind. As you can see I’ve started to fill them in. I have six days so far but you need to do it for two full weeks. 

Since you are looping 5 pins per day for 7 days you will need a total of 35 pins to fill in those time slots in your weekly pinning schedule. Do that for two weeks that means you need 70 pins.

HOT TIP: In order for this method to work all 70 pins have to be from 70 different blog posts. Each link must be different. You can’t have multiple images going to the same blog post. It is one image going to a unique post. This is a sound Pinterest marketing strategy.

Common Re-pinning Mistake

What some people do is they create multiple images per blog post and then share them all at the same time. That won’t work on Pinterest. You need to spread your pins out so Pinterest thinks they are new. You have to make it hard for their algorithm to detect what your strategy is:)

In fact Pinterest has suspended many accounts due to pinning excessively or pinning way too many duplicate images. Ouch!

6. Work on the next most popular boards

Once you’ve filled two weeks worth of repinning from Tailwind what do you pin next?

Obviously you will pin any new content you have first but if you don’t any, then you need to work on the re-publishing pins from your second most popular board.

Then you repeat the process.

REMEMBER that this new repinning strategy is in addition to what you are already doing. If your strategy includes repinning from other sources you would add that to my new repinning strategy.

 

 

 

 

Summary

Re-pinning is a must Pinterest marketing strategy for people doing business on Pinterest. It’s challenging to know when you’re audience is on Pinterest which is why you need to share your pins again. But as you can see there is a specific rule, method and time frame for how to get those pins exposed again. 

If you think Pinterest is right for your business and you’re ready to master it consider my Fast and Easy Pinterest Marketing Strategy Online Course designed for those who have an ecommerce site but have no blog. If you have a blog in your ecommerce site then you’ll need to take my Pinterest Marketing Strategy for Business online course.