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Hello again! Today’s post is a meaty one so I’m going to jump right in.
In my last blogging tips post I mentioned how important Pinterest is for long term success as a blogger, and that’s exactly what I want to break down for you guys today.
In terms of social media sites, Pinterest is definitely low on the list of “glamorous.” No one really cares about how many followers you have on Pinterest, and they definitely don’t care how engaged those followers are…
but I’m here to tell you that Pinterest is where it’s at.
Okay so, yes, Instagram is great for booking and creating sponsored content (more on that later), but sponsored content is typically a one and done kind of deal.
But what’s really great? Passive income. So you can take a break if you need to, go on vacation, take a sick day, etc.
and Pinterest is GREAT for passive income.
I would say probably 70% of my income as a blogger is passive… as in it continues to come in from posts I’ve written in the past.
and that’s what you want.
In the early days of blogging, whenever I realized the potential that Pinterest held for me, I was continually frustrated by the fact that all of the articles/videos on Pinterest strategy were not geared towards style blogs.
and there IS a very specific component to style blogging that doesn’t compute with Pinterest tricks for business blogs or mommy blogs, etc.
So today’s post is specifically geared towards people who have a style blog. If you are looking for more general Pinterest tips or you have a blog that is NOT style focused I suggest Carly’s tips from Blogging Like you Mean It.
Okay. Here are my top Pinterest tips for the Style Blogger:
1 –
Take good photos. There are a lot of people that tell you that phone photos are okay when it comes to taking photos for your blog, that’s TRUE but with some caveats. First, Pinterest is a different beast than Instagram. On Instagram you can totally get away with only taking mirror selfies to grow an audience. Not so on Pinterest unless you have some ultra cool mirror set up. Pinterest likes GOOD photos. People pin good photos. So your mirror selfie may perform well on Instagram, but if you are wanting to encourage people on Pinterest to click on your photo and then click through to your website you have to create eye catching photos that are good quality. What kind of equipment you use will depend on your specific situation, but I live in the land of the Midwest which means homes without a lot of windows, and dark days 3/4 of the year. Phone photos just don’t seem to work out for me so I have a DSLR that’s really good at capturing good photos in low light.
Shop my Camera:
However if you have a well lit home or you live in a mild climate where you can get outside every day, phone photos should be totally fine. An example of someone who takes excellent phone photos is Aïda of Basics Touch. The point is, quality photos are what matter… the equipment is dependent.
2 –
Pinterest captions and titles matter. You want people to move past just pinning your photo. You want them to actually click through your photo and arrive at your website. And this is easier/more complicated than you may think. First of all, you need to get good at doing a little market research. As in, what seasonal content are people on Pinterest pinning? You want to pick a few of those topics that resonate with you and your audience (what topics have brought you good views in the past… understanding Google Analytics to come in a future post!) and post them about 6-8 weeks before they start trending. There are a couple of places where you can go to figure out Pinterest trends but I always look at Pinterest’s own tool.
So for example, summer dresses is a trend that will really hit its peak towards the beginning of June, and as I love summer dresses (and my analytics show me you do too!), I am planning a summer dress roundup for the beginning of May. That way by the time that summer dresses are trending on Pinterest, my post will have been pinned to Pinterest with enough time for it to pick up some steam. Make sense? You’ll want to check Pinterest trends quarterly so you can plan out content accordingly. And I just want to mention that this doesn’t mean your content is disingenuous or forced. Just choose a few trends that resonate and are things you are genuinely interested in.
so now to creating captions and titles that grab an audience. For non style bloggers, the images really do the heavy lifting in this area. It’s easy to get people to click through an image when the sole source of an image is to tell you to click through! For style bloggers though it can feel like you are just constantly putting your outfit photos out there and crossing your fingers someone clicks on them (hence the reason good quality photos are important). But there are some things you can do:
First, if you have a self hosted WordPress website (which I 100% recommend, but more on that later), then you need to download the Tasty Pins plugin. It creates a customizable field that allows you to optimize every image you share to Pinterest (or anyone else shares from your site).
But here are some basic rule of thumb strategies for optimizing images:
you need to tell Pinterest what it’s looking at. Here is an example from this recent photo I shared:
here’s how I tell Pinterest what it’s looking at/why People should click through:
Pinterest title: 1 Outfit Base, 3 Ways. How to maximize your closet
note: see how I’m giving people an incentive to click through? I’m offering them insight on how to maximize their closet. In other words, I’m providing a solution to a problem they might have (more on this later).
Pinterest caption:
Karin Emily Style | 1 Outfit Base, 3 Ways. How to maximize your closet. #blackstraightlegjeans #graphictee #blackchunkysandals
so let’s break that down:
Karin Emily Style so that if people search for my outfits specifically Pinterest will know it’s a photo of me. The title so that if anyone is searching for this topic Pinterest will include this in the results, and the very specific hashtags so that Pinterest knows what’s in the image so they can suggest this image to Pinners pinning similar content.
3 –
Okay so now that we know WHAT to tell Pinterest, where do we send our Pins?
Enter Tailwind.
you can do this step without Tailwind, but I highly recommend the software if you want to save tons of time. Basically, you select the boards you want to pin it to, and Tailwind will pin them at optimal intervals. So I can schedule one pin to be pinned for me over the next month at spaced out intervals. So great!
the rule of thumb is to pin to no more than 10 boards, and to pin to the most relevant boards first. I space out my intervals to 3 days apart.
I pin to 2-3 of my own boards and 7-8 group boards. So for the example above I would schedule Tailwind to pin to Karin Emily Style first, Warm Weather Style second, Everlane denim third, and then 7 additional style group boards.
and what are group boards? Basically they are boards with lots of contributors all pinning similar content. So you pin content from the board that other contributors are pinning and other contributors pin your content increasing your chance of exposure.
now to be honest, I’m not sure how effective group boards are anymore in the current Instagram algorithm, however as long as I’m keeping the boards I’m pinning to at the 10 board limit and as long as they fit the niche of the pin I figure it doesn’t hurt.
you can find boards by searching for style or fashion group boards in the search bar and then you usually have to follow the creator of the board and send them a message asking for them to add you.
4 –
Finally: how do you grow on Pinterest? In my experience Pinterest is pretty to easy to grow at, but it’s slow growth over time… basically? You just have to use it! I’ve heard that you don’t need to or you shouldn’t be pinning other people’s content anymore, but I find that I grow my account much more quickly when I engage the platform like a regular user. With that said, I’ve mostly ever used Pinterest for style inspiration and the occasional recipe so I do think there is something to using the platform in a very niche way. So if you are a style blogger, pin lots of style content that fits your aesthetic so that when you put your own similar content out there, your followers will be more likely to be interested in it.
5 –
Finally? Make sure you are directing people to posts that you’re monetizing. You don’t want traffic just to have traffic, you want to be using affiliate links (more on that later) so you are earning revenue on their link clicks. And Pinterest users tend to have a high conversion rate because they are clicking through typically to see specifically where a specific item is from. Don’t waste that interest!
oh and don’t forget to go back and update links in old posts! I go through seasonally and update links in high traffic posts. And this is where the passive income comes in because I have posts that still make quite a lot of money even though they are several years old.
WOW. That was long. So much info to talk about, but I’m pretty sure I covered everything! But let me know if I missed something or if you have questions in the comments below. Pinterest seems daunting at first, but it’s definitely an easy rhythm once you get it going.
definitely look into Tailwind, look into Tasty Pins, and look into perhaps getting a nicer camera if you have a similar lighting situation to mine.
okay! I’ll leave you there for now. Make sure you subscribe to my newsletter so you can be notified as soon as the next post in this series is up! I’m debating doing Instagram or Affiliate links next. Let me know in the comments if you have a preference on what I do next!
Until next time,
Karin
Thanks for sharing useful information for us.
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