Image: Design Soda

.

So I’m not naturally a Gwenyth Paltrow type full of self modesty and gushing sentiment overwhelmed at the arrival of an award. Luckily for me not too many have arrived in my life (unless we’re counting the household award for faultless ability to consume inordinate amounts of jelly beans whilst pretending to work, that one I comfortably hold the lifetime achievement for). As you may, or may not, have noticed, I was pretty thrilled this month when Pinterest UK announced the winners of the first ever Pinterest Interiors Awards and my name was on the list. To have been shortlisted in a couple of categories and had rooms of my home looked at by an illustrious judging panel that included Matthew Williamson, Kelly Hoppen & Michelle Ogendehin was pretty surreal in itself, but scooping one was more than lovely. I have long held love for Pinterest, it was my first all consuming platform for interiors and is still my number one place for inspiration, the first place I type to find anything as a visual starting point. Unlike other social platforms, Pinterest feels like me-time, an evolving archive that contains everything from my favourite glossy magazine spreads, to places I want to take Ted on days out to, via the best method for removing grout stains in bathrooms or a pair of shoes I’m thinking of buying. So to win an award from such a long time love was a pretty big deal for me.

.

Image: Design Soda

.

Despite a pretty grotty week on the health front (the less said about which the better) I trotted off to the awards ceremony last Friday, room swaying from illness, determined to collect my award (which btw was mighty heavy) at the very beautiful (and of course completely pin-able) Bourne & Hollingsworth in Clerkenwell. The pin which won was of my living room from last summers makeover post and it won the People’s Choice award for the Birmingham region, which I’m told means it was the most saved image in that region, many thanks Midlands 🙂 Quite genuinely, hooray for that, I don’t mind telling you that I find cutting through on many social platforms a bit of a laborious chore and the pay off isn’t always equal to the effort. But over a million people see my pins each month and many shots of my home have now been pinned tens of thousands of times which is pretty swell in itself but it also, of course, brings a healthy boost of traffic through to my blog each month. So I feel with Pinterest i’m getting somewhere, and I’ve had this post in draft for a while so I thought today it would be quite fitting to share my tips on what I’ve found most useful in getting your shots noticed on Pinterest.

.

Images: Design Soda

.

The beauty of Pinterest is that unlike other social platforms it’s not driven by number of followers which means it’s a level playing field that we can all get pins noticed through, and conversely more followers rarely means more pins! Phew, no number chasing here then! This is not a comprehensive list and if you are serious about your strategy I would highly recommend giving Jen Stanbrooks free Pinsight course a go. I did last year and Jen is a brilliant coach explaining the mechanics of Pinterest in an approachable, friendly and easy to understand way. These tips that follow are the five solid points that I have found most useful. 

.

Image: Design Soda

Five Tips for Pinterest

1.     First up, and completely essential if you are a business owner or blogger, you need to switch to a business account in your profile. This will give you access to analytics so that you can see what people are pinning and what is popular. BUT more importantly, once Pinterest has verified that your website is yours it will enable rich pins on anything pinned from your site. Not only do rich pins stand out more on the feed (pins with titles in Bold are rich pins) but the pin also contains more information, some of this you may be able to see as a byline or opening quote from an article, but there is also lots of information behind the pin that you can’t see which Pinterest gathers from the meta data on your site making your pin more searchable. Pinterest drags all kinds of data signposts from your site here with rich pins so your reach will be wider whilst also more relevant. Did I also mention that Pinterest values rich pins higher in their ranking system putting you higher up on the algorithm. A bit of a no-brainer really.

.

2.     Vertical images are king on Pinterest. With 80% of people accessing Pinterest from their mobile phones it makes sense that the most successful pins are those that can be viewed best within its ratio, more screen real estate means more attention so try to post shots in portrait to take advantage of this. 

.

3.     I used to binge-pin (yes it’s a term, or if it isn’t, it should be) in chunks at the weekend, this makes sense in our busy lives but it isn’t the best strategy for Pinterest. Firstly, with this single hit strategy you are limiting your audience and missing all the numerous times of day that people are switching on around the world. Secondly if you mass pin all at once your content will feel spammy to the people that do follow you and no-one wants that. Ideally you need to be pinning evenly throughout a 24 hr period. I use a pin scheduler, currently Tailwind, which still allows me to binge pin the things I love privately but safely stores my binges for me in an orderly queue posting on my behalf whilst I’m asleep.

.

4.     Share pins from both your own site and other places you find inspirational. No-one wants a friend who only self promotes. Similarly, Pinterest values community members who are sharing reciprocally. Make sure that you have a good balance between your own original content and pins from other relevant sources, ideally you should be pinning far more from others sites and boards than from your own.

.

5.     Apply to be a part of group boards within your niche, if accepted this will significantly increase your reach. You can search for relevant boards on Pin Groupie. These boards, with multiple posters, naturally have a larger audience than your account alone.  If you are using a scheduler like Tailwind, then Tribes are a similar way of doing this. If you are a blog or a business, apply to join the Pinterest Community, here you will get news and projections on hot topics alongside a chance to feature in Pinterest’s favoured board topics that month.

.

Image: Pinterest

That’s it! I haven’t covered everything I’ve picked up over the last 10 months, but these are the simple tweaks that made a big difference for me. If you have any golden rules, I’d love to hear them. I’m off to grab some belated fizz now that I’m back to full health. Feel free to join me over on Pinterest sometime xx

.