dscienceinc
Social Media is an uphill battle. Kevan Lee and the team at Buffer have even said they are failing at social media. They lost half of the organic traffic. It’s not their fault though, and definitely not yours.
The average tweet lasts 24 minutes according to science and the team at MeetEdgar. The average Facebook post last less than an hour and only reaches 3-20% of your total Facebook business page likes.
With everyone competing to be heard, the attention of our customers is fleeting. What are social media managers supposed to do when our clients ask us to drive traffic?
“Obi-pinterest-kenobi you’re our only hope.”
Pinterest is the answer to this question, and the solution to your referral traffic.
Pinterest’s referral traffic can be up to 60%-80% for top blogs. Pinterest is an extreme traffic generating engine (with the proper effort put in of course).
Seriously the results are amazing, and I will show you exactly what to do, in a second.
First thing’s first.
Is your Pinterest driving traffic now?
Before I made it a priority to turn Pinterest into a traffic driving machine, our Pinterest account was a hot mess. The only engagement we had was on boards that didn’t make sense for our business or audience.
We converted Emelina’s personal account into a business account. There were tons of pin’s about makeup, hair, fashion and the usual Pinterest balarky.
Housekeeping and pruning are just as important as “pinning.”
If you’re not gaining any traction in Pinterest, chances are you need to do some serious housekeeping. For example, did you know hashtags don’t index in the Pinterest algorithm?
That pretty much means there’s no point in using hashtags on the platform.
We design this quote by Maya Angelou a long time ago.
If you don’t like something change it
When we posted it, the description had #quote #motivation #quoteoftheday #inspiration. The pin had zero engagement. Just 12 hours after removing the hashtags there were 6 repins. This was instant proof that this worked!
Go through every pin, in every board and delete all your hashtags in the descriptions.
As you are exploring your old pin’s, delete any pins that have dead links, zero engagement, or don’t make sense to the boards.
Yes I know this is a ton of work but, “there is no shortcut to hard hard work.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Understand the Pinterest Algorithms for Search and Discovery
Pinterest is amazing when it comes to being a visual search engine. Personally, if I were Google— I would be shaking in my boots a little. I believe in the next 18-24 months, Pinterst will take a large chunk out of Google’s visual search engine traffic.
Your Pinterest page is actually comprised of multiple separate algorithms that work in conjunction with one another. One algorithm is for your overall profile. The other is for the pin’s you create, and yet another for your boards, and so on.
Your Pinterest page algorithm determines how far each pin reaches organically. If you have an inactive page, dead links, low engagement, etc. you will receive less distribution. This is why the housekeeping and pruning is so important.
It increases your overall score and pushes your content even further.
Your Pinterest board algorithm is mostly comprised of keywords and engagement. The right keywords in the board descriptions, the title, and lots of engagement gets you loads more exposure.
Your Pinterest Pin Algorithms are calculated using your overall Pinterest algorithm (the board algorithm AND the individual pin).
For example, if you wish to achieve maximum distribution—you must have a great overall Pinterest algorithm, a board with lots of engagement and virility, and have an amazing native pin (or many!).
Pinterest Board Strategy
The first row of Pinterest boards are your prime real estate. They are the equivalent to playing Monopoly and owning all the blue and green spots.
The very first board you should make is a dedicated board for original content. If a user wants to follow you, but not all your boards, they should easily be able to determine what’s original to you.
No need to make boards dedicated to various topics just to fit your content into it. Create one or more boards that hold your blog content. Like this board. >>>(<a data-pin-do=”embedBoard” data-pin-board-width=”400″ data-pin-scale-height=”240″ data-pin-scale-width=”80″ href=”https://www.pinterest.com/dscienceinc/dscience-blog-posts/”></a>)<<<
If you have enough original content, you can split up into two or more boards around your niche. Keep those boards in the top row. This is where the majority of your effort will be.
The only time you don’t want your original content in the top row is when a holiday is approaching. If you have a “4th of July board,” bring that to the top row at the end of June and pin like crazy. This creates a lot of relevant timely content that is native to the culture of Pinterest.
Leave Group Boards
Yep I said it. Not all of them, but take a good hard look at the group boards. I use Tailwindapp to monitor my group boards and determine what boards make the most sense for me to be in.
I understand why you might want to be in a group board with 10,000 contributors. If you pin in that board, there is a much higher chance that it will get repined.
Group boards that have many contributors are marked as a “high candidate for spam.” They see all the members as potential spammers. Now, being in one group board with 10,000 members might not be bad.
Here is the key: If the content in the board is great, then by all means stay in it.
Pinterest is focused on user experience. They want to create the best experience for their users and therefore anything that distracts from this chief goal will be punished ( by not being shown to other users).
If a board has 10,000 contributors spamming the heck out of the board, flee it like a sinking ship.
Think about what would work best for your followers, being in group boards that ONLY pin high quality content.
Increase Your Engagement and Virility
The reason I didn’t put the time and energy up front in Pinterest, is the same reason you didn’t. It takes a lot of hard work, a long time, and I wasn’t sure if the results would come. Don’t get me wrong though, I did jump in.
I tried initially, but I fizzled because the ROI just wasn’t there for me. I didn’t understand what I needed to do until more recently. When I started using the tools the way they were intended, my engagement and traffic skyrocketed.
Want to know the secret to jump-starting your traffic and engagement?
If you have followed my advice so far then all your original content should be in one or two boards.
After that, sign up to the tool Tailwindapp. Don’t worry it is free.
Under the sidebar, click on the “board insights” page. Here you can see two very important scores: virility and engagement.
The more of each of these scores the better.
They push your content further.
If you followed my advice, your scores should be already shooting through the roof. If you want to push it even further take a look at Pinterest’s new promoted pins. For a few dollars a day, I have generated thousands of repin’s, clicks, and likes to my brands page.
In the end, Pinterest can be an amazing source of consistent traffic to your blog. The key is to make sure you take the time to learn the native culture of Pinterest. Spend time every day working on your pinterest account. And finally using the amazing tools available like Tailwindapp, and promoted pins to increase your reach.
