To start this post, I want to give you an idea of journey. I first signed up for Pinterest way back when it was in beta testing. I had a bunch of random boards. But I was hunting for my first apartment at the time. So the bulk of what I saved (and what got saved/repinned) was home stuff.

I loved using Pinterest to save inspirational stuff. And I never really thought about using it as a business tool. I’m sure this sounds pretty familiar to a lot of you.

But as has happened with many a social media site, I started to feel sort of burned out on Pinterest. I stopped using it for awhile and then just intermittently after that. Once the algorithm change happened, I was just totally done (I still don’t like that part of it, but what can you do…)

I tried off and on to use Pinterest to share my own blog content when I was posting DIY stuff. I didn’t get a whole lot of traffic though. Then I just decided to give it up altogether. I kept my account, because I had to use it for a group board for one of my jobs. But that was it.

So the start of my updated Pinterest story starts just a couple of months ago. We’ll say February 2016. I decided to give Pinterest another chance to share my own blog content, helpful finds from other blogs, and to find awesome content for myself. I said to myself that I’d give it a couple months and if I didn’t get awesome results or fall back in love with Pinterest that I would give it up again. (Spoiler alert: I’m sticking with it).

So I wanted to share some of the things I’ve done over the past couple of months to grow my presence on Pinterest – to gain followers, clicks, traffic, and all that other good stuff. I wanted to share what worked and what hasn’t (at least so far) in a super honest way. So lets get started.

Pinterest Activity #1: Cleaning up my boards

Like I said, I started off with an existing Pinterest account. So I had a lot of pins and boards already. And not all of them were necessarily or relevant to the new direction I wanted to take. I decided to keep my home decor board because I still liked a lot of the stuff in it and a lot of it had a lot of repins/comments, which are important due to Pinterest’s algorithm. So I just went through and deleted some of the pins in that board and then I got rid of the rest of my boards and started over.

I don’t know specifically what kind of impact this had on my growth. But since a lot of my pins had little to no interaction, I can only assume that it helped. And it just made the whole experience feel better and more organized on a personal level. So if you’ve given up on Pinterest and are considering going back, I would totally recommend a major pin purge before starting over.

Pinterest Activity #2: Pinning every day

This is by far the most important thing I did to grow my Pinterest presence. I had to work on making Pinterest into an actual habit. But if you don’t pin stuff, no one is going to repin from your boards or follow you. I did create a lot of my own pins. But the bulk of my pinning came from just browsing within Pinterest and repinning relevant content.

Basically, I just downloaded the Pinterest app on my iPad and set aside a few minutes every day when I sat down for lunch and then in the evenings when I sat down to watch some TV before going to bed. I know there are all kinds of scheduling programs and stuff that you can use to make sure you have a steady stream of content going out. And I’m sure they’re great – especially if you have a crazy schedule and can only pin irregularly. But this system is working for me so far. I might try some of those programs in the future and share in an upcoming post.

Pinterest Activity #3: Setting up a board for my own blog posts

Since one of the main reasons I wanted to get back into Pinterest was to share my own content, I had to set up a place to do that. So after I got rid of my other boards, I set up one that’s just for stuff from my blog, then boards for each of the major categories – business, blogging, social media, creativity, etc.

But having one board just for blog stuff made it really easy for me to get on a regular sharing schedule. And it also gave me more opportunities for repinning from that board (but I’ll get more into that later in the post).

Pinterest Activity #4: Creating pinnable blog images

When I started pinning my own stuff, I just shared the main (usually square) image from the top of each blog post. But these weren’t super effective. When I looked at the stuff that I saw and liked on Pinterest, I noticed that basically everything included the post title or some kind of text that described the pin. And basically everything was a vertical image (turns out, Pinterest’s algorithm also likes this type of image – I had so much to learn!)

So I went through my recent posts and just put together super simple images that were tall and included the post title. I still wasn’t getting a huge response to my own content at this point (and I still am playing around with the actual design elements) but this did give my pins a little more visibility and helped me organize my boards even better.

Pinterest Activity #5: Describing all my boards

Ah, keywords! I always hated talking about/using keywords because it seemed like a fake/icky thing to do – almost like tricking people?? But the thing about keywords (that I have to keep reminding myself about) is that they only work if they’re ACTUALLY relevant. So there’s nothing disingenuous about using them. You’re just telling people what they’re really going to see if they click your links.

So basically what I did is just described every board (and my main profile – including my name on Pinterest) with a sentence or two about the kind of stuff people would find if they followed. This is so important for SEO stuff! Right away I started seeing more followers to my individual boards. And all I did was quickly describe each board in a super honest way.

Pinterest Activity #6: Repinning my own content

Okay, so after setting up my own board just for stuff from my blog, I would pin each post there. Then, I repinned all of that stuff to any other of my Pinterest boards where they would be relevant.

The first benefit of this is that it made sharing my own stuff more that once way, way easier. But it also has an impact on the algorithm because Pinterest is more likely to show pins from boards that get a lot of engagement. I wouldn’t say that I’m getting A LOT more visibility just from this activity. But I think it’s worthwhile when combined with the other stuff on this list. And again, it’s just easier than creating brand new pins every time you want to share.

Pinterest Activity #7: Adding lifestyle boards

So when I started off, I basically just had boards that related to my blog content (and the aforementioned home decor board). But then I decided that I wanted to save more fun stuff on Pinterest.

So I set up more boards for stuff like fashion, food, photography, and most importantly – cocktails. These boards were fun for me and they got a lot of interaction from people, which after awhile started to sort of rub off on my blog related boards. I noticed a few of the people who followed my cocktails board liking stuff from my blogging board. Worlds colliding! (Note: I’m not saying that you should start public boards that are TOTALLY unrelated to your content. But since I’m going for creative businessy type stuff, all of my “lifestyle” type boards could be relevant or at least interesting to my target audience).

Pinterest Activity #8: Regularly deleting pins

I had no idea when I started this Pinterest experiment just how much the algorithm changes affected literally everything. There’s tons of stuff to learn about it. But if I had to boil it all down, I’d say that your goal should be to have the majority of your pins showing some kind of engagement at any given time. So if you have a bunch of pins with no engagement, what’s the easiest way to get back to the proper ratio? Delete those pins.

I waited until I had a respectable amount of pins on each board before going through the older pins and deleting stuff that had no repins. But once I did this, I noticed that the stuff I did pin was just a bit more likely to get engagement. Plus, I don’t know about you, but my feed shows me a lot of the same stuff over and over again. So once I delete stuff that I’ve already pinned, it gives me a chance to try again and maybe get more interaction the second time around.

Pinterest Activity #9: Signing up for a business account

It somehow slipped my mind when starting this experiment that there was even such a thing as a Pinterest business account. So I just signed up for one like a month ago. The benefits of doing this include access to analytics, the ability to set up rich pins, and increased visibility for your account (when someone pins your stuff there’s a little guy that pops up with a link to follow you).

So once I did this (which was super easy, by the way – just google Pinterest business account and you’ll find how to do it), I did notice that I started to get more followers. I also got to see how many repins I was getting, and I got to set up rich pins. More on that in the next section.

Pinterest Activity #11: Setting up rich pins

Hey! It’s the next section! So here’s where I tell you about rich pins. Rich pins are basically pins that automatically come with more info than regular pins. So if you pin something from my blog (go ahead… I’ll wait right here) there’s a headline and a little snippet of the post that shows up with each photo. That’s good because 1. it makes it easier for people to pin from your site – ain’t nobody got time to type all that out. And 2. keywords.

I don’t have specific results to share just from using rich pins, because I set those up on the same day as I signed up for a business account. But I think it’s safe to say that it’s worthwhile if you’re looking to grow Pinterest traffic. I’m not very tech savvy, so I’m not the right person to tell you how to do this. But I used the Yoast SEO plugin to set it up and it was so easy! Melyssa has a great tutorial for that .

Pinterest Activity #12: Changing up my blog images

Since I’m still pretty new into my current niche and brand design, I decided after about a month into it to go through and change some of the images on my blog. This gave me another opportunity to pin my own content, which meant even more visibility and (I think) better looking pins.

I’ll still probably do even more updating in the future. But I do think it’s a worthwhile exercise to go through and change up your images (and posts) from time to time just to remind people of old content that’s still useful, without it looking stale.

Pinterest Activity #13: Branding my boards

Here’s the first activity I did that I’m not sure was actually worth it (for me, anyway). Before you jump down my throat – I’ll clarify. I do think that it’s totally worth it to have your board covers reflect your overall aesthetic. You know, try to use your brand colors as much as possible. Include other design elements you really like. That way, when people visit your profile they can immediately get an idea of what kind of stuff you pin.

However, I actually created specific board covers for each of my boards with the name of each one and photos I took specifically for that purpose. It’s not that I noticed any negative effects from this. But I just didn’t really see any positive ones (so far) and it was pretty time consuming. I’m thinking about experimenting with a few different types of Pinterest branding so I’ll share that with you in a future post.

Pinterest Activity #14: Joining group boards

Aside from pinning regularly, this is probably the most important thing you can do on Pinterest to grow your traffic and following. Joining group boards increases the visibility of your pins and just lets you connect with more people.

To find group boards that are relevant to you, take a look at the ones that other people in your niche are pinning to. Then follow the board (and probably the board’s creator) and see if there’s a way to contact them in the group description. Make sure that they’re actually relevant to you and your content, of course. Bonus points if the pins in the board get a lot of repins. And don’t just pin your own stuff. That’s a good rule of thumb for Pinterest in general.

To summarize: Basically, the last few months have changed my opinions of Pinterest. I now think it’s totally worth it. It took me a little while to get back into it and really make it a habit. But I think it’s a great resource for both finding inspiration and sharing content.

I started out with just over 700 Pinterest followers when I began this little experiment. And I now have over 1,000. I know that’s not a huge number or anything, but I think it’s decent growth for just a couple of months. I’m also starting to get regular traffic from Pinterest. And most importantly – I think it’s fun and inspiring!

If you want my tl;dr version for the most important things you can do on Pinterest, I’d say that the best things you can do to grow your presence are: pinning every day, sharing/resharing your own stuff, and joining group boards. I think that basically everything in the list above is worth your time. But those are the things I have seen the best results from so far.

So what are your thoughts on Pinterest? I’d love to hear if you have any other tips or resources to share. Oh yeah – and let’s if we haven’t already!