Pinterest 101 - getting started and getting the most out of it

Shop Talk Social Media
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SEO question

TBH, I don’t get much traffic from Pinterest (I don’t get much from FB either). So I can’t really say how well my pins are doing in driving organic views.

I know my SEO is rubbish - I have a lot of old pins that need clearing out or editing, and I need to add new ones that are better quality. Everything I’ve read recently suggests that Pinterest seems to be prioritising SEARCH - I’ll drop some more thoughts in a comment below.

Personally I don’t use paid ads anywhere - I used to follow Crafty-Maven (she advises a lot on Etsy SEO) and she persuaded me it’s a waste of money.

How often to pin - lots of different advice out there, but generally it’s “less often with good content” rather than “frequent poor quality”. This article says Pinterest themselves suggest once a week is fine How Often Should You Post on Pinterest? - EverywhereMarketer

This seems to be a bug in the system - been around for a while. Apparently it’s been reported to PInterest and they are trying to fix it, but it still seems to be happening. Suggestions online are to try editing/adding to your description text and resaving it.

And thanks for the tip on Canva - I shall give it a go.

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SEO

Following on from Susan’s questions about SEO

I am not an expert - this is stuff I have read as part of my plan to improve my Pinterest boards. And I havn’t put it into action yet - my boards are still a shocking mess :roll_eyes:. I will come back and update this as I find more - and feel free to reply to this comment to add your your thoughts too.

Apparently, Pinterest is a SEARCH function, and doesn’t work like many of the social media platforms. It allows people to search for things that interest them, and it shows things to people that it thinks they will like. It’s not exactly like Google, but it can be helpful to think of it like that.

It likes new fresh content, so while it’s good to keep the really good old pins that are getting good interaction (the “evergreens”), it’s good to clear out old pins and post new ones.

Engagement is still a factor - the number of likes, comments and re-pins (saves) is still good for telling Pinterest this is an “interesting pin worth promoting”, but the algorithm is also using the information within the pin to “put it in front of the right people”. And if it hits the right people, that increases the chance of likes, comments and saves. So its a circle, that builds the organic reach.

So you need good titles and descriptions that are rich with key search words and hashtags that tell Pinterest who to show this to. Ooh, and add alt text - that seems to get a boost in search.

The “key words” need to be right for the product - no good showing gardening equipment to someone interested in scuba diving as they won’t click on it. And even if it’s the right audience, you need a good title and really good images that persuade people to click to open.

Then back to the description again - don’t just stuff the box full of key words, but write in a natural way that makes people want to read AND click your product link.

On that last point, make sure you are not just posting “product-buy-me” pins, but mixing in other engaging content. This is an interesting read. What to Pin to Pinterest to Sell your Handmade Products - Made Urban

Hoping this is helpful, and not just me teaching you to suck eggs.

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Gosh, that’s all so helpful. I am sure I shall be spending hours getting this organised!
Thanks for doing all this work for those of us less familiar with finding our way around the internet!

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HELP! I created a business account on Firefox. Now my personal account on Chrome has disappeared. Is there a helpline for getting it back? Thanks

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Nancy @charlescottage Try this page Pinterest Help

or this Reactivate your account if you think you deactivated it by mistake

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Thanks - I’ve sent them an email and just hope they can reinstate the old account even if I lose the new business account. Bit of a disaster as I have thousands of pins on my long-standing personal account! Anyway, hope it will act as a warning to everyone else to be very very careful!!

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Hi Nancy @charlescottage When you say your personal account has disappeared in Chrome do you mean when you try and log into your personal account in Chrome you can’t as no record of you or do you use your personal account through a link in Chrome?
I use Chrome on my laptop and whichever account- either personal or business I was last logged into before closing window or shutting down laptop is the account that’s there when I next open Pinterest.
I’m not an expert but unless you converted your account to a business account or deactivated it then it ‘should’ still be there.
Having Pinterest open in Firefox I’m assuming it’s logged in to your business account? Have you tried logging out of your business account and logging in to your personal? (Arrow top right has a drop down menu with the log out option at the bottom)
Louise x

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Nancy @charlescottage - what is your personal account name? Assuming it’s an open one, we can try and search for it to see if it’s still there.

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Brilliant idea Sharon!

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thank you - it’s flights of fantasy. that would be such a help

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There are rather a lot with that name - can you describe the logo?

I can’t see one that’s obviously yours. Is that your profile name, or your account nickname. For example, in my personal account my profile is sharonlloyd3, but you see Sharon in bold at the top.

image

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I feel like I’m doing weekend work for the FBI…I’ve found this board!

What are the odds! From a Charles Cottage Studio instead of Design!

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You are so kind to take all this trouble and make me feel less alone. Didn’t know this one was still there! It’s a very old one. But interesting to know it still exists. The flights of fantasy board I’ve been adding to for about 5 years may have a logo like an artists palette made in felt. Not sure if I added a logo now.
Charles Cottage Studio is the name I put up for my new business email as it encompasses several ‘arms’ of the work I do. Charles Cottage Design is the name I put on Folksy.
I’m sorry to get you all involved in this - I did’t mean to tie up everyone’s time.

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No trouble at all Nancy @charlescottage and you’re successfully distracting me from the huge ironing pile I need to work my way through today so I’m perfectly happy with that!
I can’t find an account with Flights Of Fantasy as it’s name with a palette for a logo. I’ve checked those without a logo and none of them seem to be you. Sharon @TheOldButton may have more luck.
Have you tried the logging out of business account and logging into your personal?

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image
This is a very old account which I opened using Firefox and rarely look back at.
Later I opened an account for flights-of-fantasy using Chrome and I’ve been adding both open and secret boards on that for ages. I think the logo was a felt artists palette but now I can’t be sure any more!
The weird thing is that for about 8 years I also ran a pinterest board using Internet Explorer/Edge for the Surrey Guild. I was permanently logged into all three (on each different browser) and I never had any problems.
The flights-of-fantasy board disappeared when I opened the business account and even closing the Charles Cottage one I don’t get an option to get to the personal one.
It’s been lovely of you and Sharon to be so supportive, but I don’t want you wasting your time. I know you will have loads of your own admin to do as you are both so pro-active.
I think I have to give up on this and await feedback from pinterest themselves while keeping all my fingers and toes crossed in the meantime.
Have a good weekend both of you!

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This account I found but you said you had thousands of pins and this one doesn’t so I discounted it.
I have my personal open on the app on my phone and usually my business one open/logged in on my laptop and haven’t had any problems with having them both open.
I used Pinterest help only about a week ago and they got back to me within a few hours and solved my problem really quickly too so hopefully it won’t be too long for you to wait. It must be so frustrating for you.
Lou x

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OMG ladies - I have changed my password and re-logged into charles cottage studio (no logo, although I had added one!) and I now have all the boards that were on my flights of fantasy site. So it seems my old account has been converted/morphed into a new name (but without any of the work I uploaded to the new (charles cottage studio) board yesterday.
Hey-ho - a good lesson for anyone else converting to be super-vigilant!
I can’t thank you enough for making me feel less along while I managed to get all this sorted out - or sort of sorted! Now I need to add the ‘new stuff’ that’s not there and put away/hide any non-relevant boards…

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That’s great news Nancy. I’m so pleased you managed to sort it out. It sounds like you converted your personal to a business account. Perhaps it just takes a little time for everything to change to new name/account. So yes, a good lesson for anyone converting their account to give it a little time and double check before adding any new pins.

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Brilliant news Nancy @charlescottage, so glad you found it - even though it’s a combined converted one rather than 2 separate ones.

And no worries at all with us helping you out (although Louise @thestitchyroom did most of the work :laughing: - you really are a super sleuth) - it’s useful info for others who may have the same issue.

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Thanks for the link to the article, I’ve not read it fully yet but it looks helpful.

It’s a good point about mixing in other content rather than just ‘by-me’ which is what most of my pins are :joy:

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