make your pins available to your followers more quickly

Pinterest has made few major new updates recently, and those will affect to all Pinterest business accounts.

 

If you don’t have a business account yet, read my blog post and convert it to business account asap!

 

Your possibilities to make your pins to be seen to your followers are much better now than before.

 

Pinterest has partly went back to "the old system" where your followers can see your pins in real time on their feed (read more later in this post when I talk about the followers tab).

 

When you visit your Pinterest account you can surely notice the new Pinterest changes. Your account looks different than before and it has new functions, too.

 

Personally, I really like the new look and it also gives a bit more transparency. You can check what is the real reach of each Pinterest account by looking their monthly viewers number.

 

You’ll find your monthly viewers at the very top of your profile. Your monthly viewers are people who saw your pins on Pinterest in the last 30 days.

I’ve already found out that accounts that have millions of followers have lower reach than my account. I have “only” 680k followers but my reach is over 10 million people monthly. The number is actually over 19 million people now (in April, 2018).

 

Is that because I know how to optimize my content or because I curate interesting content? You can only guess...

 

New Pinterest updated look

 

So, your Pinterest profile has a new style look. Your header image is actually a dynamic cover image. You can change how it will look based on your preferences.

 

There’s a pencil image on the right-hand corner of your cover image where you can change what the cover features to other pinners. You can choose it to show your latest pins to all boards, your most recent pins to a specific board or your recent pins from your website.

 

I have chosen it to feature my latest pins to a specific board where I’ll pin all my pins from my website. That way I can keep the cover image on brand and show my most relevant pins to my followers and other Pinterest users.

 

There are endless possibilities to use that cover image for your business. You can show your products, services, trending items, sales etc.

 

How about creating a new board and pin all your upcoming Mother’s Day offers, inspirations and seasonal products into it. That’s pretty cool, like your own shop window where you'll put your most precious items!

 

Other new Pinterest functions to reach your followers

 

If you look at closely under your cover image you’ll find several tabs and few of them are completely new ones.

 

Overview tab: Here you will see all your latest pins and boards where your pins have been saved lately.

 

Activity tab: This shows all pins that other pinners have pinned from your website and linked accounts (Note! You can hide this function if you don’t like others to see it! You can still see it on your account).

 

A new function is also the following tab above your cover image. It means that you can see all the latest pins of the people that you follow on Pinterest. And of course, your followers will see all your latest pins.

This is like in the good ol' days on Pinterest. ;-)

Your Pinterest smart feed will continue to be as it is but now you (and other pinners) have a possibility also to check fresh pins only from the people that you follow on Pinterest. I really, really, really like that new function.

 

Basically, if you'd only want to see pins from people that you follow, click the followers tab. If you also would like to see Pinterest's recommendations for you, stick to your smart feed. Or use both ways to find pinnable content (which is my option as I want to use Pinterest in its full potential).

 

The more your followers engage with your pins, the more chances are that your pins are also shown to other people on Pinterest (i.e. on their smart feed, Pinterest recommendations, search results etc).

UPDATE 2018: THIS IS NOT RELEVANT ANYMORE!! PINTEREST CHANGED THIS BACK TO “NORMAL”

(The rumours that Pinterest will prioritise distribution of your first 5 pins you save to boards (starting at midnight UTC timezone) is actually true.

 

Those first 5 pins (it can be something else also than 5 pins. Pinterest didn't confirm that it's exactly 5 pins but around 5 pins!) will be shown primarily to your followers in real time.

 

TAKE ACTION: Make sure that you schedule your best 5 pins each day for the relevant boards. The pins should go to the boards starting for example from 0.05am UTC.

If you live in Finland, like I do, I have to schedule my 5 best pins to boards around 3am in Finnish time.)

 

Other important pinning tips that you should follow

 

Keep in mind to save your most relevant pins to your most relevant boards. If you save your pins to irrelevant boards it may hurt your pins’ reach.

 

Always start with pinning your fresh content (e.g. your new blog post) to your most important board which relates to that pin.

SUPER IMPORTANT!!

Pinterest will prioritise fresh content that links back to your confirmed website so always pin your own content to Pinterest right after you've created it!

 

Check also that all your pins have URLs as Pinterest is making an effort to diminish all pins with broken links. 

 

Be consistent on your pinning. Do not hit your pins to your boards all at once but pin consistently during the week to spread out your content.

 

For example on Monday 10 pins, Tuesday 8 pins, Wednesday 9 pins etc. Not just 50 pins on Sunday. You can definitely use pin scheduler to spread those pins out.

IMPORTANT! Manual pins are not prioritised over scheduled pins BUT you need to log in to your Pinterest account from time to time to show that you're active on the platform.