Pinterest is a visual discovery and social media platform that lets users explore, save, and share images and videos as pins. This platform excels at driving web traffic and fostering brand growth.
Impressively, compared to Facebook, Pinterest sends out 33% more traffic to eCommerce websites, making it a potential tool for digital marketing.
Moreover, with shopping being a top priority for 48% of Pinterest users, the social media platform displays a significant opportunity for businesses to showcase their products and services.
However, a common challenge persists: how to get followers on Pinterest?
Understanding how the users and the algorithm work is crucial for brands and bloggers to go big on Pinterest and harness the platform’s full power. Followers are not just potential customers; they can help you amplify your content through repins and likes, boosting your visibility and influence.
In this guide, we’ll discuss 11 practical strategies to attract more followers and drive engagement and sales.
Let’s get started!
How to Get More Followers on Pinterest – 12 Tips for 2024
Following on Pinterest depends exclusively on the blogger posting frequently. Not just posting all kinds of content, but content that is good, gets views, and is relevant to whatever the niche is that the blogger has selected for themselves. Of course, there are several more ways to get followers on Pinterest.
So, without any further ado, let’s discuss them.
1. Post Regularly
First and foremost, post!
Consistency is the key to maintaining visibility and engagement and helping your content reach new users. By regularly posting fresh content, you keep your feed updated, stay top-of-mind for your followers, and encourage more likes, comments, and repins.
This engagement signals the Pinterest algorithm that your content is valuable, improving its visibility in search results and feed recommendations.
The key to staying consistent is to plan a content calendar to organize your posting schedule. The content calendar allows you to thoroughly review what posts have been posted and what are in the queue.
Experts recommend around 10 Pins a day. While the numbers can significantly vary based on your goals, industry, and available resources, this is the baseline number one should aim for.
A notable example of a business that has successfully mastered the art of regularly posting on Pinterest is Etsy – a global online marketplace for handmade and vintage products.
Etsy’s posting approach reflects its digital marketing strategy, aimed at driving traffic back to its website and increasing sales.
Regular posting brings in new followers and retains the existing ones. However, to stay regular, you need a proper plan backed by a scheduling tool.
SocialPilot lets you visualize your Pinterest posting plan on a social media calendar and execute it effortlessly with powerful scheduling. Create and Schedule pins for multiple Pinterest accounts from a single dashboard and see them spread across the calendar to get the big picture. Let SocialPilot take care of manual tasks while you focus on consistently trying new ideas.
2. Post Quality Content
Regular posting should be your first step, but to get noticed and compete with established pinners, you need to put out quality content. In this crowded space, high-quality visuals and well-crafted descriptions can make users stop scrolling and engage with your posts.
Humans have a cognitive bias towards things that look better. A consistent streak of quality content makes your brand appear more credible and reliable. It also improves the chances of getting your content shared.
A big misconception in Pinterest blogging circles is that you cannot use stock images.
The truth is you can use stock images or other content of the likeness, but quality plays a big role in using those.
Like it did for Joy Cho, also known as Oh Joy! A designer and blogger, she uses her creative art and quality photography skills to amass a whopping 13 million followers and 4.4 million monthly views. Her secret?
Her posts are not just visually appealing; she takes extra care to ensure her camera gear is the best in the biz, her post-production quality doesn’t waver, and her posts look like works of art. This is exactly what should be the goal: good, quality content that attracts.
3. Pin Your Stuff, Repin Others’ Stuff
One of the more technical or rather Pinterest-specific tips you can get to increase your followers is using the Pin feature almost indiscriminately.
Of course, you would want to stick to your niche or whatever keyword it is you’re targeting, but try to Pin your own stuff. When you do so, try to Pin other people’s blogs or posts too.
If you see a board that is relevant to your niche, try Pinning or saving it as well to build a stream of content that is available to you within the application. This activity ensures that your followers see you interacting with other people’s posts, which gives other people a reason to follow you if they find your content appealing.
#FollowforFollow, is what Pinterest is all about.
4. Follow Competitors’ followers
This might sound a bit weird but bear with us over this because it’s quite the logical point that, once you understand, can allow you to have even more followers.
Suppose you post on the tech niche and have a blog about the latest news and whatnot. Tech being a hot niche, there’s got to be a rival blog that does the exact same thing. Your goal here would be to attract their followers as well, right?
You can start by following them (the followers of your competitor). When they see that they have been followed by a tech blog they have shown interest in, and the content there is good, they will follow you as well. This is among many strategies that you can use to increase your followers on Pinterest.
5. Use the Right Hashtags
In this world of blogging and microblogging, sites like Twitter, Facebook, and many others (including Pinterest) use hashtags to pigeonhole content under one banner.
With terabytes upon terabytes of data and content being produced every day, you actually need something that sorts all this content, and hashtags are one of the most intuitive ways of doing so.
By including a word or a phrase after the hash, you can ensure that your content is included in a specific stream of content that is being searched for, driving more people toward your content.
And this is pretty convenient; just a few words, and now you’re on a global bandwagon. No wonder why they are so prevalent and go viral so often.
Use our hashtag strategy guide to find whatever hashtag is trending that month or week, use it to increase your followers by including it in your pins.
6. Use Infographics to Your Advantage
The fact that digital marketing is on the rise, whereas conventional marketing is regressing, shows that people are in with what’s new and easy and out with the old and boring.
And infographics are what are hot right now.
Who doesn’t want to watch a well-colored picture that usually delivers tedious and uninteresting information in a way that a person would actually want to see it?
Well, that is exactly what an infographic is, and you can use it to make sure that the content you post, or the pictures that you post that would otherwise be dull and not get interacted with, get a lot of response, which in turn means more followers for your blog.
7. Pay Attention to SEO
The name of the game today is search engine optimization. We lean on Google for a lot of things.
So, it would be imperative to have the world’s most used browser fine-tuned so that your content comes out on top; that is like the marketing gold bonanza.
And SEO helps you do exactly that with the help of keywords.
So, a good strategy to drive traffic to your content and increase your follower list would be to include keywords (niche-specific and popular) in your pin name, board name, pin description, and profile bio.
8. Using Tools to Boost Visibility for Your Pinterest Board
We’ve touched on this before. By using tools, your overall experience of Pinterest can change considerably, and you can better use the resources Pinterest has for your brand to gain more followers.
There are many popular tools, starting with SocialPilot, a powerful social media scheduling platform that lets you create and schedule pins in advance. Posting frequently is imperative, and SocialPilot makes it very easy for that.
Secondly, you will also need to invest in some good designing software like Adobe Photoshop or Canva.
Lastly, also look into some plug-ins that can help you with social media postings and hashtag/ keyword posting. These go a long way into making your followers’ list explode, essentially.
9. Post Creative and Original Content
You would often come across posts that look repetitive and unoriginal.
What’s your first reaction?
You ignore it and scroll to the new post.
Like you, other pinners do the same. In order to position your brand as a thought leader, you need to unleash your creativity. Creative and original content makes your content memorable and more likely to attract attention from new audiences and foster a strong bond.
Social media algorithms, including Pinterest, favor content that improves interaction and satisfaction.
Follow trends and add a unique twist that aligns with your brand. You could showcase your products or services in unexpected ways or merge current trends with timeless concepts. Create content that tells a story, whether it’s how your brand got started, customer testimonials, or real-life scenarios of your products.
Engage your audience with UGC and creative captions, and experiment with formats and different media types, such as videos, infographics, guides, and more, to keep them surprised.
Actively seek feedback from your fans to understand what resonates with them and why.
A compelling example of a brand that mastered this art is Ben & Jerry’s. Known globally for their ice cream, they create visually captivating and thematic content that resonates with the seasons and holidays.
10. Use Pinterest ‘Sections’
Sections is a new feature from Pinterest that allows further categorization of boards.
Essentially called ‘boards within boards,’ this feature allows Pinners to save their favorite ideas into a single board and organize them in sections. When one board has hundreds of ponds, it becomes hard for followers and even you to find what you want.
But Sections make it easy for users to discover and interact with your content, ultimately driving your follower growth.
11. Introduce Your Other Social Accounts
Chances are, if you are on Pinterest with a substantial following, you will also have active pages or accounts on other popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and others.
To further increase your followers, you can start linking your other platforms on each and every post that you do, which promotes a sense of ‘being certified’ for people who come for your posts or to your board.
By linking all these accounts, you can also drive traffic towards those accounts, which equates to a win-win because followers or even new members accessing those links are likely to follow those channels as well.
12. Use Pinterest for Business
If you intend to monetize your blog or can pay to drive more traffic, consider using ‘Pinterest for Business’, which includes in it a feature called Rich Pins.
With four kinds of pins available in that category (app, article, product, and recipe), you can link your website and other relevant information to your pin or post, which is displayed accordingly.
Plus, there’s the additional benefit that since you’re essentially paying for it, Pinterest’s algorithm actually favors Rich Pins and ranks them higher, so you stand to gain much more than just followers.
Turn Pinterest Visitors Into Followers
Remember, building a loyal following on Pinterest takes time and consistent effort, but the rewards are always considerable. By implementing the strategies discussed and tailoring them to your unique niche, you can attract a highly engaged audience.
Put these tips into action, watch your Pinterest follower count grow, and turn your presence into a powerful traffic-driving machine!
