How I Grew My Pinterest to 6 Million

I have been using Pinterest for about 8 years. It’s my favorite social media platform because it’s based on visual images but lets you link to a blog or website. That’s so perfect for bloggers!

Pinterest demographics also match up to my audience. Pinterest users are largely female and control the household budget. These users include teachers, librarians, and moms who are my core audience.

From Omnicore:

• 71% of Pinterest users are actually Females.
• Men account for only 7% of total pins on Pinterest.
• 40% of US dads use Pinterest.
• 50%+ Pinners live outside the US.
• 34% of Users aged 18-29 in the US uses Pinterest.
• 42% US women adults  use Pinterest.
• 80% of US mothers who use the internet use Pinterest.
• 1 out of 2 US millennials use Pinterest every month.
• The median age of a Pinterest user is 40, however, the majority of active pinners are below 40.
• Half of Pinterest users earn $50K or greater per year, with 10 percent of Pinteresting households making greater than $125K.

With 139,000 followers, Pinterest was also my largest social media platform. But last December, my Pinterest stats were bad. Pinterest tracks viewers and impressions. Because users can share pins, it’s possible to get a wider audience to your content beyond your actual followers.

Thus, I have 139,000 followers on Pinterest at the moment, but my audience is actually  2.8 million viewers. But last December, my stats were much lower. I had 150,000 followers at that time (yes, I lost 15,000 followers when Pinterest thought I was a spammer and put my account in the dog house for 48 hours), but only 170,000 impressions.

An example of a not-s0-great image that I created myself

I decided to invest in growing my Pinterest audience. I hired Nina Garcia, a blogger of Sleeping Should Be Easy, and also a graphic designer. We met through the blogosphere, and she guest posted for me years ago when she launched her book, Parenting With Purpose.

Nina created new images for my blog posts. She made 10 per week and also worked on my SEO. Each week, when I pinned those new images, I also updated each post. I did things like remove typos, update book images to a larger size, and make it more SEO friendly.

Slowly but surely, my Pinterest pins starting getting more looks. At the beginning of summer, I hit a milestone. I hit 1 million Pinterest impressions for the very first time!

To reach this milestone, I spent $250 for 40 images that Nina created for. This worked out to be 10 pins per week, more or less. I also spent 2-3 hours a week cleaning up my posts.

But then in August, my stats skyrocketed! My stats climbed from 5 million impressions to 6 million in just a few weeks. It was exhilarating!

So what are the secrets of growing a Pinterest following?

• You need great images sized as vertical rectangles. Think PORTRAIT not Landscape!
• It pays to pay for images. If everyone on Pinterest is using Canva and/or PicMonkey to create images — I used to use PicMonkey, it’s hard to stand out.
• Introduce new pins weekly. This is a volume game.
• I am not using a scheduling app like Tailwind for Pinterest though I do use Buffer to schedule tweets in Twitter and Buffer also can be used for scheduling Pinterest. I do know bloggers who use Tailwind and/or other scheduling apps and it works for them. I am already spending enough on monthly fees for blogging app which is why I am doing it manually.
• Share, share, share … I share my pin to other collaborative boards that I am a part of. This way Pinterest users who are not my followers can see my pins.
• Use brief but descriptive titles.
• Have the images show exactly what the content is all about.
• The blog content linked to the Pin must be good.
• There is seasonality to Pinterest which means that there might be highs and lows to your traffic patterns. My content revolves around education and diverse children’s books so I get the most traffic in late August and early September for back to school.
• Keep at it.

Thank you to everyone who follows me on Pinterest and special thanks to anyone who has ever shared my pins by repinning!

How about you? Do you use Pinterest? What do you like to pin?

p.s. Related posts:

My Blogging Journey at Year 7

10 Unexpected Gifts from Blogging for the Last Decade

Monthly Blogging Goals Check Up

Monthly Blogging Goals

3.6 Billion Social Media Share Impressions Multicultural Children’s Book Day

To examine any book more closely at Amazon, please click on image of book.

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Follow PragmaticMom’s board Multicultural Books for Kids on Pinterest.

Follow PragmaticMom’s board Children’s Book Activities on Pinterest.

My books:

Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World

• Junior Library Guild Gold selection
• Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
• Starred review from School Library Journal
• Chicago Library’s Best of the Best
• Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids

 Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me

Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me