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pinterest mistakes

6 Pinterest Mistakes You Do Not Want To Make If You Want A Big Audience

December 8, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

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Pinterest is a unique social network in its design and usability. Many brands such as Nordstrom Rack have accumulated millions of followers that, as a combined force, make pins from these brands go viral. There are marketers who are utilizing Pinterest as well, and I can testify that Pinterest is a great way to promote your content.

Although I do not use Pinterest as often as Twitter, I have been able to accumulate over 15,000 followers. Pinterest users love to share other people’s content because the social network turns sharing other people’s pins into a reward. Many Pinterest users want to have boards with numerous pins. The Pinterest board with 100 pins looks way better than the Pinterest board with only 1 pin. Having more pins on their boards allows users to create a more enticing account for potential followers.

Pinning valuable content will allow your pins to spread farther on Pinterest, but there are mistakes that may prevent you from growing the big audience needed to go viral and build an authority on Pinterest. If you want to have a big audience on Pinterest, these are the six mistakes that you must avoid.

 

#1: Surfing on Pinterest

The double-edged sword fact about Pinterest is that it is highly addictive. The advantage of the double-edged sword is that if you have a large audience, some of those people will scroll through your entire boards and repin everything in sight. This means more exposure for you, and in some cases, more traffic for your blog as well. The disadvantage is that Pinterest can eat away a giant chunk of your time. The Pinterest memes on the web that say things like, “I’ll be on Pinterest for a few minutes hours” are popular for a reason.

Pinterest has millions of users that could benefit from your content which means with great power comes great responsibility. If you strive to grow a big audience on Pinterest, you must spend a bulk of your time on Pinterest sending pins instead of looking through other people’s pins.

 

#2: Pinning numerous pins in a row

Pinning frequency is an interesting topic of discussion. When you are a newbie, it is important to fill your boards with pins. However, once you have enough boards filled with pins and an audience, you need to pin smarter. If you send out more than three pins in one minute, you are pinning too much at one time.

Pinterest users who surf see their updates on a timeline, similar to Twitter, Facebook, and most of the other social networks as well. The only difference is that Pinterest users see their timeline in the form of large pictures that take up more space on the screen than a tweet.

I recently went on Pinterest to see how pins appear on my feed. Here is what I saw

  1. Two pictures and their descriptions
  2. Half of an infographic
  3. Half of two pictures and no text

I was startled to realize that I only saw five pins on my feed, and I couldn’t even see everything that three of those five pins contained. On Twitter, I typically see five tweets from start to finish. Many Pinterest users like Pinterest because of the variety it has. If you send out 10 pins in 1 minute, there is no variety. It’s all you, and that results in some people clicking the unfollow button.

While pinning constantly in a short period of time is initially a great way to get more pins on your board, it will annoy your audience. A good fix to the problem is to create a secret board and add 100 pins or more to that board before publishing it. That way, you don’t have to annoy your followers with 100 pins in a few minutes.

 

#3: Not taking the time to craft an effective bio

Your bio is one of the most important components on any social network or blog. It is the make or break point of your authority. People will not know anything about you until they read your bio. Sure, having pins available related to your niche does help, but since Pinterest is all about variety, you may have some boards related to your niche and some boards that have nothing to do about your niche.

An effective bio allows people to know who you are, and this clarity makes people feel more confident when they click the follow button. In your bio, it is important for you to list your expertise, accomplishments, and hobbies. I let people know that I am a digital marketing expert, but I also let people know I am a runner.

Letting people know about my expertise, accomplishments, and hobbies allows me to be compatible with more people. The more people you are similar to, whether the similarities are small or huge, the more people are going to follow you. We like to follow and listen to people who are similar to us.

 

#4: Not verifying your blog on Pinterest

Including your blog’s link in your Pinterest bio and verifying it on Pinterest is one of the easiest ways to get a backlink for your blog. In addition to providing a backlink, verifying your blog also gives you the checkmark that allows you to stand out from the crowd. The checkmark combined with a large audience will let people know that you are a big deal. You are verified which means you must be important.

Just as we like to follow and listen to the people who we are similar to, we also like to follow and listen to important people. Even if you have iPhones, iPads, and Macs galore, wouldn’t it be nice to meet Bill Gates. He is important, wealthy, and smart–and those are the types of people who many people enjoy listening about.

Although the checkmark may not give you Bill Gates status, it lets people know you are important. It lets people know you are worth following. It lets people know you are a valuable person in your niche.

 

#5: Having too many boards with not enough pins

The value of a Pinterest board is not just in the value of the pins. It is also in the quantity. The typical Pinterest user will not browse through a Pinterest board with five valuable pins as much as a Pinterest board with 500 valuable pins.

The more pins your boards have, the more someone will scroll through your board. Some of these people will repin as many pins on one of your boards as possible. Some individuals have repinned hundreds of pins from one of my boards.

Your boards need to have more pins, but it is also important to avoid annoying your followers. That is why I mentioned that pinning numerous pins in a row is a mistake before mentioning this mistake. You don’t want to send out 500 pins in 30 minutes at the cost of losing a good chunk of your followers.

 

#6: Not Having A Variety Of Boards

Pinterest is all about the variety. If someone searches for food on Pinterest (by the way, food pictures on Pinterest happen to be very popular), that person will see fruits, vegetables, meat, recipes, and more. When other people search for vacation destinations, they will find pictures on the beach, mountains, cities, and other places as well.

The great thing about Pinterest is that you can still let people know your expertise while pinning content related to both food and vacation destinations. Pinning content related to these two topics will result in your pins and boards related to those two topics appearing on Pinterest’s search engine.

When you are pinning about a variety of topics, you can easily let people know your expertise by putting all of the boards related to your expertise on top of your other boards. However, pinning about all of these topics will allow you to reach out to more people and grow your audience.

Some people may be skeptical because not all of these followers are necessarily targeted followers. Someone who only followed me because of my Pinterest board with cool bookshelves may not be as interested in my digital marketing articles. Growing your audience through this method has three major benefits:

  1. You get better social proof
  2. They are real followers
  3. Most important of them all: You need a big audience to rapidly spread on Pinterest, and growing this type of audience will give you the leverage you need to reach out to more people. Some of the people you reach out to through this method may end up being targeted users.

Having a variety of boards will ensure that you get more followers, but you also need to make sure these boards are heavily populated with pins. My recommendation is to make sure that a majority of the boards on your account has under 20 pins. None should have under ten.

 

In Conclusion

Pinterest is a powerful social network that is highly addictive. Pinterest has the power to grab attention. As long as you are the one pinning content that grabs attention and not surfing, you will have the much needed time to implement the other methods and grow your audience.

Like any other social network or any blog on the web, it takes time to grow a Pinterest audience. It may take you a year to reach 5,000 followers, but each time you reach a certain milestone, it will be easier to achieve the same milestone quicker. If it took you 100 days to get your first 1,000 followers, it may only take you 90 days to get your next 1,000 followers. The reason it gets quicker each time is because you are learning new things about growing your audience and implementing them along the way.

Which tip was your favorite? Do you have any additional tips for the people who strive to grow a big audience on Pinterest?

Filed Under: Pinterest Tagged With: pinterest mistakes, pinterest tips

10 Pinterest Mistakes That You Need To Avoid

July 12, 2014 by Marc Guberti 6 Comments

Pinterest is the fastest growing website on the web, and there are over 70 million users on the social network. As Pinterest continues to grow, it becomes more important to avoid making mistakes on Pinterest. Sure, no one is perfect, but there are common mistakes people are making on Pinterest that you need to avoid. These are the 10 Pinterest mistakes that you need to avoid.

  1. Pinning on one board. The difference between Pinterest and other social networks is that Pinterest allows you to categories your content and organize that content on various boards. If you pin on one board, you are losing out on what makes Pinterest unique.
  2. Only pinning about your business. There are a plethora of topics that you can pin about. Do not limit yourself to your business. Pin about some arts and crafts, food, clothing, shoes, or anything you want to pin about.
  3. Not commenting on other pins. Only 1% of the average pinner’s time is actually spent commenting on other people’s pins. That means even if a pin goes viral, few people will comment on that pin. If you are one of the first people to comment on those pins, you will get extra spotlight, and possibly, more followers.
  4. Not repinning or liking other people’s pins. When you like and repin other people’s pins, those people will be grateful that you helped to spread their content. Some of these people will decide to follow you and engage with your pins in return. Since you have the power to repin other people’s pins onto your boards, you can also create more boards and have all of your repinned pins from a certain category go on that board.
  5. Not interacting with the followers you have. Comments are rare, but when they come, you need to interact with those followers. Leaving a comment below someone else’s comment will encourage a conversation to develop. The longer the conversation goes, the more likely that person is to visit your blog, subscribe to your blog, and eventually buy one of your products.
  6. Not following your followers on their other social networks. There are many Pinterest users who also display their Twitter and Facebook accounts in their bio (in the form of tiny icons). Clicking on those icons will allow you to get to those social networks where you can follow your Pinterest followers on their other social networks. If people are following you on Pinterest, and you follow those people on their other social networks, those people will be more than likely to follow you back.
  7. Not pinning videos. Videos are a great way to increase engagement, but few people pin videos on Pinterest. People can watch videos without leaving Pinterest, so if you have a board with all of your videos on it, your followers can watch all of those videos without leaving Pinterest. When all of the videos are done, you get extra views, and your followers may decide to take a look at your other boards.
  8. Not having group boards. If you decide to take the week off from Pinterest, your boards will be left inactive, and engagement will slowly go away. However, if you have group boards, you can rely on individuals to update your group boards. As your group board gets more contributors, it may eventually be able to get updated once every hour without you logging in.
  9. Worrying about how many times you pin. People do not mind that you pin too many times as long as what you pin is valuable. If you read 7 books written by the same author in two weeks, and you were given an 8th book by the same author to read again in two days, chances are you would read that book. You like the author enough since the books provide value and decide to read the 8th book.
  10. Getting trapped on Pinterest. Pinterest is a great tool to get more traffic and exposure because it is a very addictive social network. Although Pinterest is an addictive social network, there are other things that you need to do as well. You need to grow your presence on your other social networks and focus on the methods you use to bring in your income. Don’t let 10 minutes on Pinterest turn into a few hours.

There are many mistakes that can be made on Pinterest, but these are the 10 biggest ones. By avoiding these mistakes, you will have a better experience on Pinterest and be able to optimize it effectively.

What are your thoughts on these Pinterest mistakes? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

Filed Under: Pinterest, Social Media Tagged With: common pinterest mistakes, pinterest mistakes, pinterest mistakes to avoid

5 Pinterest Mistakes To Avoid (Part 3)

March 1, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

A very long time ago, I wrote Part 1. A little further back, I wrote Part 2. This is Part 3 which contains 5 more mistakes that you need to avoid on Pinterest. Although Pinterest is not the largest social network out there, it has grown at a rate faster than all of the other social networks. If you want to optimize on Pinterest’s constantly growing platform, avoid these 5 mistakes:

  1. Not taking advantage of a powerful social network. The biggest mistake you can make is ignoring Pinterest. Pinterest has the potential to dramatically increase your blog’s traffic, and the average pin have been proven to get more engagement than the average tweet.
  2. Not paying attention to analytics. Although there are no free Pinterest analytics tools that offer as much information as TwitterCounter, there are plenty of free Pinterest analytics tools out there. I commonly use Tailwind to see my statistics based on my change in follower count and pin count. Other features become accessible through upgrades.
  3. Only pinning the same thing once. When a board has hundreds of repins, your followers are less likely to scroll all the way down to the first pin. I pin my blog posts more than once, and that results in an increase in traffic.
  4. Not liking a lot of pins. When someone sees that you have liked thousands of pins, they will realize that you are a very active user on Pinterest. In addition, you can like pins to organize all of the pins that you want to repin. By using this method, some people unlike the pins after they repin them. This prevents hundreds of repins clogging up your followers’ timelines.
  5. Not having multiple boards with 100+ pins. When multiple boards have over 100 pins, your followers will have more pins to look at. It is better to have 10 boards with 100 pins each than it is to have 100 boards with 10 pins each. Quality beats quantity, but when you can combine them both together, you will get more engagement on Pinterest.

These are 5 mistakes that too many people make on Pinterest. However, there are other mistakes that people make on Pinterest as well. You can go back to Part 1 and Part 2 in order to see 10 additional mistakes that people make on Pinterest.

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: common pinterest mistakes, pinterest mistakes, pinterest tips, pinterest tips and tricks

5 Pinterest Mistakes To Avoid

September 14, 2013 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

There are millions of users on Pinterest, but since Pinterest is the newest social network of them all, it is easy to make mistakes. Pinterest is different from other social networks based on the way Pinterest was designed to work. Here are 5 Pinterest mistakes that you need to avoid:

  1. Don’t be afraid of sending out a lot of pins in one blast. If you can send out 50 pins in 20 minutes and then send 10 more for the rest of the day, that’s okay. On Twitter and other social networks, posting 50 times in 20 minutes and then only posting 10 more times throughout the day would annoy followers. It doesn’t annoy Pinterest followers as much. In addition, the more pins you have, the more likely you are to get thousands of followers. Almost every user with over a million followers also has over a thousand pins. Some of them are approaching 100,000 pins.
  2. Don’t pin exclusively about your business. It’s okay to pin about different things as well. I don’t only pin posts from my blog, but instead, I pin about baseball, 3D printing, Legos, and a lot of other things as well.
  3. A big mistake is to make your blog unpinnable. If you are using Pinterest, you have to start adding pictures to your blogs and a Pin It button. My traffic has gone up by 200% just by adding pictures to my blog and a Pin It button. Pinterest has taken the web by storm, and if you want your blog posts to be shared more, make sure people can easily share them on Pinterest.
  4. Make sure you like a lot of pins. The people who have liked thousands of pins also have millions of followers. Liking a lot of pins will help you towards getting more followers.
  5. If you pin a lot in one blast, people make the mistake of pinning from the same board the entire time. If you have a board about tips for your niche, and you send out 50 pins about tips for that niche, chances are some of those tips are going to be repeats. If one of your followers doesn’t like that niche, they may unfollow that particular board. Make sure you send out 5 pins from one board, 5 pins from another board, and so on until you reach your desired number of pins.

 

For more tips on Pinterest, you can subscribe to this blog to get free access to the Mastering Pinterest Video Tutorial.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: business, business tip, pinterest, pinterest mistakes, pinterest mistakes to avoid, pinterest tips

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I am a business freelance writer who writes for individuals, small businesses, and corporations. My content will help drive engagement and sales to your business. I have produced content for several companies, including…

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  • Westchester Business Journal
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