8 Things You Need to STOP Doing on Pinterest

Does it ever feel like your marketing to-do list grows longer every day?

Are you running out of time to get everything done?

Did you know that there are certain strategies you might be using that aren’t necessarily hurting your Pinterest marketing…but that are just a big old waste of time?

In our most recent episode of Tailwind’s Marketing Unleashed, Alisa Meredith and I talked about 8 Pinterest strategies you should stop using today – and the one strategy you should use in their place.

But first…2 new Pinterest features

But before we dive in, I wanted to share some breaking Pinterest news! Pinterest has just introduced two new features: browsable catalogs alongside pins and personalized shopping ideas in the feed.

Browsable catalogs appear under pins, allowing users to look through other relevant products from brands. There’s a “More from [brand]” button under pins, allowing users to look through a catalog of similar products. If someone clicks on a product, they’ll be taken to the retailer’s website where they can purchase the product.

Pinterest has also introduced personalized shopping ideas at top of the home feed. These products are chosen based on what you’ve been pinning, and also link to browsable catalogs.

These features are both aimed at increasing sales on the platform. Pinterest is really pushing the fact that people spend more money on their platform than on any other social media network.

However, it’s important to note that you might not see those sales immediately. According to research from Neustar, 75% of sales from Pinterest come at least one week after people see ads. So, you won’t necessarily see ROI right away, but you will see it.

So, don’t give up too soon!

Now let’s dive in to the meat of this post. Following are 8 strategies you should stop doing today, and the ONE you should be doing instead.

1 Stop creating board cover images.

Save time by using a default cover image – like your latest pins

Let’s be honest here: people aren’t going on Pinterest to look at cover images or profiles. They don’t see a beautiful cover image and think, “Man, I have to follow them”. Rather, they’re using Search, looking for content on a particular topic.

Now, we’re not saying you can’t create board cover images! If you enjoy creating them, go for it.

But, think of it this way: you can spend your time updating your cover image, making sure it’s the right size…OR you could spend that time making new pins for some evergreen content that might go viral.

Which one is a better return on your investment?

2. Stop sharing the same pin to the same board over and over again.

This is a habit some people have gotten into it; and it’s not only super time-consuming, it actually doesn’t work!

Here’s what they do: they share the same pin to the same board over and over again, often every single day. It’s kind of like when people used to do keyword stuffing to rank in Google. This kind of behavior used to work on Pinterest, but it doesn’t anymore.

Alisa noted that some people even have these intricate spreadsheets where they keep track of everything they’ve pinned, and what they need to pin again and again. But she recommends instead focusing on fresh content – for instance, writing a new blog post and creating a pin to go along with it, or making a new pin for a piece of evergreen content.

3. Stop repinning your own pins.

Repinning versus using SmartLoop…there’s a difference! Use SmartLoop to schedule pins for optimal times during the year

Some people think that by repinning their own pins from within Pinterest, they’ll get a boost in rankings. This isn’t the case.

It’s true that Pinterest looks to see which pins are getting closeups, clicks and saves. But they’re also smart enough to notice if you’re the one clicking and repinning your own posts!

If you actually want to save a pin to a different board, don’t do it from within Pinterest. Instead, go to your website and save a fresh version of it.

If you see a pin and want to pin it to another board, you can also do this using Tailwind’s SmartLoop feature. When you use SmartLoop (or actually when you use Tailwind at all), nothing is actually a repin – it’s a brand-new pin.

SmartLoop is not about posting the same pins to the same boards, again and again. Rather, it’s about scheduling pins for when they make the most sense.

For instance, if you have some pins that do well during the holiday season, you can use SmartLoop to make sure you don’t forget to pin them during that time each year.

Alisa loves the analytics you get with SmartLoop. She recommends looking at them every month or so to see repin averages for different loops. This is a great way to see what’s not working anymore…because you don’t want to keep repinning things that aren’t engaging.

4. Stop changing other people’s pin descriptions.

This is something that used to be popular years ago, and is now coming back with a vengeance.

I’m not referring here to changing a description to make it more relevant. For instance, Alisa noted that if someone pins something about Tailwind, she might edit the description to include relevant keywords.

Instead, here’s what I’m talking about: people are increasingly editing descriptions to give themselves credit.

For instance, it would be like if I changed a pin description to say, “Pinned by @JeffSieh. Check out my website at www.manlypinteresttips.com”. Basically, it’s trying to give myself a little boost just for sharing someone else’s pin (like I’m doing them this big favor).

Don’t do this! Alisa called this bad etiquette, and I’d take it a step further and say this is just plain spammy.

5. Stop adding hashtags to old pins.

Some people add hashtags to old pins in an attempt to make their pins look newer.

However, Alisa notes that the hashtag feed is actually chronological – based on when the actual pin was created – not when a hashtag was added.

For instance, if you saved a pin 6 months ago and now go in and add a hashtag, Pinterest isn’t going to suddenly say, “Oh! A new pin! Let’s put it in the 2^nd spot”.

Unfortunately, that ship has sailed folks. There’s no point in adding hashtags simply to make your pins look newer.

Make sure to add hashtags to your new pins, of course. And if you really want to add a hashtag to an older pin, just save it again with the hashtag in the description. You’re much better off doing it this way!

6. Stop changing your own pin descriptions.

It used to be that you could pin the same image with the same URL, change the description, and Pinterest would think you had a brand-new pin. Your pin would then appear in different searches for different keywords, and it was like everything old was new again…simply because you had changed the description.

This isn’t the case anymore. According to Alisa, the definition of a pin is now the image and URL combination – so even if you completely change the description, the pin is the same.

Of course, if you want to change a description, go right ahead. Just won’t do it because you want the pin to appear brand new again.

7. Stop deleting pins.

Just say no to deleting!

Of course, if you have pins that no longer make sense on a board or something, go ahead and delete them.

What I’m talking about here is deleting pins or boards simply to make your account look more active, so Pinterest thinks of your account as “fresh”.

One reason Alisa noted you shouldn’t do this is that you never know when a particular pin will take off. She’s had pins that take off months after she first pins them; and if she had deleted that pin a week in, she would have missed out on all that traffic.

8. Using cutesy names and spaces in your board titles. 

So, here’s an example of this phenomenon: instead of naming your board “BBQ Recipes”, you might name it “B B Q R E C I P E S”, just because it looks kind of cool.

But while this might be fun for you, Pinterest isn’t going to be able to read that. They look for actual words, so you’re wasting your keywords if you do this.

It’s much better to focus on using relevant keywords in your titles…things that people are searching for. Alisa noted that it’s all about the relevance of the keywords you use, and where you use them: the text on the image, the title of the image, the description of the pin, and the board title and description.

So…what should you do instead?

This whole post has focused on things you shouldn’t do. Many of these things won’t necessarily hurt you, but what they do is waste your time – time you could spend doing things that actually work.

Instead of repinning your own pins, or changing your descriptions, or messing around with your cover image, Alisa recommends spending that time creating a new image every single day.

If there’s one thing that actually works to drastically increase your results on Pinterest, it’s this. It doesn’t have to be a brand-new blog post or product listing, just give them a new image. They will love you for it!

Bonus: Tailwind tip

I just wanted to end this post by including this tip that Sarah Grove, member of the Tailwind Customer Success team, shared with us on the show.

She noted that sometimes you might see different numbers in your Tailwind analytics than in your Pinterest analytics.

What’s up with that?

It all comes down to how Pinterest and Tailwind each define a “pin”. As noted earlier in this post, Pinterest defines a pin as any combo of an image and URL. So, if you share a pin to one of your boards and 9 people repin it, you’ll see stats for all 10 instances of that pin – meaning you’ll see the total number of repins, impressions, and clicks for all 10 of those pins.

In Tailwind, we offer slightly different analytics. We give you the all-time engagements for the pins you saved. The numbers are not aggregated with other instances of that same pin (image and URL combination). So, you can see how just that ONE pin you pinned is working – since the day you saved it.

I hope this helps clarify why your numbers might be slightly different on Pinterest and Tailwind!

Have any questions about this post, or about how to use Tailwind for your Pinterest marketing?

As always, feel free to shoot me an email or comment with your question below.