9 easy ways to get Pinterest to work for you.... And 1 that’s a tad more difficult but worth trying anyway!

When I was a kid we tore pages out of magazines and pinned them - much to our parent’s horror - all over our bedrooms.   Luckily for mums and walls today there’s Pinterest and recently I went along to one of their workshops.  

Here the lovely Lizzie gave us this rather fabulous pen and a few fascinating facts.  Like what you say? oh I am glad you asked:

1. There are hardly any new pins added to Pinterest.  It's honestly a stupidly low number that Lizzie didn’t clarify, which is odd as I pin new stuff most of the time.  Maybe its just me that does this though...
2. Pinterest is not a social media site and we’ll have you whipped with a riding crop for thinking it so*.  It’s a visual discovery tool, who knew eh? 
3. Pins may not always show up straight away usually because of something they are doing behind the scenes.  Lizzie advised best thing to do is pop a mini chill pill here.  Not seeing your pin that second does not mean it’s not there.  Do not repin the same image 15 times with increased frenzy. 
4. Follower count doesn’t represent success - hoorah for me and my 87 followers.  Supposedly it's click throughs’ that matter.... ah.  Anyway onto the reason we're all here:

Easy tips that anyone can do.

1. Remember the three C’s. Consistently Create Content – Don’t bother with boards that you don’t update regularly.  Spamming like a crack addict once a month then going silent will just frustrate your followers, apparently.
2. Join group boards.  This is supposed to be great for getting your blog out there.  You can do this by emailing the creator of the board though if it’s a popular one try to be patient, they may not be able to add you all that quickly.  Once in, be sure to follow their rules and don’t just pin links to your posts.  It needs to be things that the other members will find interesting too, savvy?
3. Integrate your blog post pins with other boards, don’t just have a blog board (oops! One I need to rectify there). 
4. Create Local Boards.  If you’re the go to person for hats in Haverhill or shoes in Surrey get a board started that gives people the best info on your area of expertise.  Anyone heading that way will follow you for inspiration and if they don’t they’ll have me to answer to – I’m very frightening.* 
5. Titles – Be specific with your board names.  Annoying for me as I’m a lover of odd cryptic lingo but apparently it’s a no-no for the rest of the pinner population. 
6. Descriptions – Be Authentic.  If something inspires you, write why and what you intend to do about it/wear with it/cook with it etc.  One thing to avoid is #hashtags as they’re just not helpful on Pinterest.  You’ll get your wrist slapped by pro pinners and they’ll probably point and laugh at you at parties.*
7. Pin from the source. I know first-hand that it’s annoying as all shit to find the perfect gift only to click on it and be taken to..... a bigger image of the same picture. Feck all use to anyone that is!  If it's a new pin at the very least add the link in the description.
8. Move Seasonal Boards to the top of your page before that season.  You can do this by clicking and dragging them around depending on what time of the year it is.  So around September shove gift ideas and Christmas stuff on the first line of your profile.  Come 26th Dec push the festivities to the bottom and get health and fitness up there instead. 
   
9. Get a business account.  It’s free and means you can check your stats. I’ve just done this and it’s relatively easy.  The first page does seem to suggest that you should confirm your website which shows you how all of your content is doing on Pinterest.  I’m sure if you’re not a massive techno numpty it's relatively easy but personally I found the process stupidly annoying.  The advice pinterest gave me was to look on YouTube which is where I found this video.
   
   While it’s fair enough to say "DIY lazy pinner" it is a shame that Pinterest do not have the manpower to give us the information straight from the horse’s mouth (not calling you a horse Lizzie).

The not at all horse-like Lizzie

A trickier tip that you may already do but I’m still getting to grips with

Use rich pins.  These give your followers much more information, are more popular and therefore get repined more frequently.  Rich recipe pins will show details of ingredients and cooking times, while rich product pins advise where to purchase and how many of said product are in stock.  They’ll also include links to your blog, which is helpful no? There are six to choose from:

App

Movie

Recipe

Article

Product

Place

The catch is you can only pick one type for your account.  If you pick articles you can’t also pick recipes, so choose wisely little grasshopper.   Also getting these are more than a little tricky, pinterest do give ‘instructions’ but it seems you need some basic code skills, which I don’t have.

Seriously? This page may as well be in Hebrew for all the good it does me.

Wordpress bloggers have a number of handy YouTube videos and blogs or videos that should work but those of us working on blogger have a harder time ahead.  At the risk of putting the women’s lib movement back about 50 years, I’ll be conferring with my resident computer geek – i.e. the husband and get back to you on this one. 

Fingers crossed this helps you become a - Lord help me - ‘pinspiring’ pinner (can you eye roll yourself?).  When you do, tell everyone you learnt all you know from me and if you have any other tips do feel free to add them here.

*Completely Untrue