People try lots of different things as part of their Pinterest strategy and growth tactics. One of these things is pinning other people’s pins and content in an attempt to grow their Pinterest account. But this isn’t always the best idea! Let’s talk about why.
You’ve probably heard or read somewhere that you need to pin content from other Pinterest accounts to grow your own Pinterest account.
As much as pinning content from other creators is a great way to support and even to curate content for your audience, it doesn’t exactly work as well as a growth strategy when you are marketing your business on Pinterest.
Why Doesn’t Pinning Other people’s pins Work?
Along with repeating pins at a high volume, pinning other people’s pins was used as a Pinterest tactic. The idea behind this tactic was that when you created a board, you could enrich that board by pinning other creators’ material. This would help give context to the board.
When you were starting a board from scratch, bringing in other creators’ content to that board was used as a way to “jump-start” that board and give Pinterest an idea of what that board was about before you loaded your own content in there.
It was also believed that if you populated your boards with high-performing content from other creators, you’d be attracting people to your board and account. But that may not be how Pinterest works. The engineering behind it has changed, and so we have to change our tactics, too. There is still a school of thought that it might be valuable to share other creators’ content if it’s high quality, highly relevant, and aligns with your audience’s expectations.
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Pinterest boards and the algorithm
The current approach to pinning other people’s pins and sharing other creators’ content works under the assumption that this helps tell Pinterest what the board is about. But is that really how it works? Maybe Pinterest’s algorithm understands your material better and faster if you pin high quality content from other creators’ material at the start, but I have not seen any evidence of this!
If your content is being created and pinned in a highly-strategic manner, your content is better optimized for Pinterest than random content from other creators. If the content you are choosing to pin from other creators is highly optimized, then maybe it could be something to try.
“I have found that if you spend the time you would have spent curating quality content creating content instead, you will see better results.”
I have found that if you spend the time you would have spent curating quality content creating content instead, you will see better results. It’s better to create your board with your own pins to build that board up. That way, you’re not just suggesting what the board is about. Instead, you are showing Pinterest and Pinterest users exactly what that board is about. This way, there’s no guesswork.
RELATED: How Many Pins Should You Be Pinning To Succeed On Pinterest?
Group Sharing STrategies
Another strategy that used to be very popular was reciprocal pinning with big groups of other users. In this strategy, you’d ‘drop a pin and take a pin.’ You’d share the pins you wanted re-pinned by other users, and you would also be pinning other people’s pins they wanted to share. But this is no longer a smart growth strategy– it’s too unfocused.
However, a version of this Pin-sharing strategy does work for some people today. If you have a small community of other business owners who have discussed growing your businesses together, cross-user Pin sharing can be useful.
This kind of pinning is different from finding random content to pin because you’re intentionally sharing each others’ content to promote growth. If you have complementary businesses, you can grow an audience together, and that can work.
Whenever you want to share somebody else’s work on Pinterest, you have to think about what purpose that serves. You might find that there is a really good reason to share somebody else’s content by pinning other people’s pins! For example, if you are a website designer, you might want to share client content. Standard pins that link to a client’s active website can help show off the kind of work that you do and the content that you create.
Users who find these pins might use them for inspiration about the kinds of things that can be achieved with your services. In this case, sharing another user’s content has a purpose that leads to your own growth. But if you’re selling a product, it doesn’t make sense to share other people’s content on Pinterest. Not all businesses have the same kind of Pinterest strategy, and you should focus on what works for you.
“Not all businesses have the same kind of Pinterest strategy, and you should focus on what works for you.”
Personal Pinning aside from business
These are rules for business Pinterest. If you have a personal Pinterest account, you can go wild with what you pin and re-pin. Pinterest has lots of amazing content and saving it to your own boards can help with your own projects! If you don’t have a personal Pinterest account, however, you can still be pinning other people’s pins without interfering with your business’ Pinterest presence.
All you have to do is make secret boards if you want to save things that are just for you. Only the owners of secret boards can see what’s pinned to them. To do this, you will create a board and then open the Edit menu for that board. You will toggle the setting that says “Keep this board secret,” and then click “Done.” And voila! A secret board.
You can pin anything you want to a board like this, and it will never interfere with your brand’s audience. I like doing it this way because that means I can just use one Pinterest account for everything. I can keep my audience engaged with my content, and I can keep my own interests right at hand.
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