Today, we’re going to talk about Pinterest hacks. Specifically, we’re going to talk about why Pinterest hacks suck.
Yeah, I said it. Pinterest hacks suck! We see a lot of hacks everywhere. You might even have tried one and gotten good results, but in reality, this is the deal with Pinterest hacks: they’re not a strategy or a tactic that’s part of a successful strategy.
What are Pinterest Hacks?
Usually, most of the hacks we see on Pinterest came from someone who was trying something unusual, thinking outside the box, or finding a loophole or gap in the system that they could tweak in a certain way to see immediate results. This could be link clicks, impressions, saves or followers– anything.
To be honest, I’ve found a lot of these gaps myself. They’re honestly kind of fun! You do one little thing and BOOM, your followers or your views explode, and you don’t know why or how. Maybe you pinned at a certain time of day or used a certain image or set of words. Or maybe you pinned a certain volume of content. Whatever you did, you’ve seen amazing results faster than you’ve ever seen them before.
The thing is, most of the time these hacks cannot be replicated. They work the first time you try it, and for some people, that’s good enough. When somebody tries something and sees some crazy growth, they almost immediately call it a hack.
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Pinterest Hacks Are Not Tactics
A hack is an accident, not a tactic.
One Pinterest hack that I’ve seen that doesn’t work is stuffing keywords in the alt text function. Another is just dumping keywords into your Pin descriptions instead of writing an actual description. Maybe these tricks worked once or twice, but that doesn’t turn these hacks into tactics. These hacks are not part of a strategy. Unless the results can be replicated and you can establish a pattern and say with confidence that your actions work, these hacks shouldn’t be a part of your long-term Pinterest strategy or plan!
Unless the results can be replicated and you can establish a pattern and say with confidence that your actions work, these hacks shouldn’t be a part of your long-term Pinterest strategy or plan!
Growth tactics work. Growth tactics and strategies come from repeating a process over and over again and getting similar results. Doing something that aligns with Pinterest and will continue working in the long term.
A recent hack people have been talking about is adding hashtags to their Pins. Can you actually prove that adding hashtags will help you grow consistently over time? If not, forget about it! But growth tactics will continue to work over time. They’ve been tested and can be replicated, and unlike hacks, they are predictable and understandable.
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Correlation ≠ Causation
Let’s say that you tried a hack for a few days and you saw a huge spike. That spike may have been caused by something else. Not even by that hack that you did. So when people come in and claim that a hack works, trust me, they’re not testing this over time. They’re not watching and observing and trying to replicate it in different scenarios, niches, or moments. They’re just blurting it out because they want you to buy into their hack.
Keep Your Eyes On The Prize
I know it’s hard to keep your eyes on the prize and to close your eyes to the shiny distractions that you see. It’s hard to keep going with your Pinterest strategy and content creation strategy. You have to embrace tactics that work, and that can be challenging, especially because Pinterest hacks promise explosive results immediately. This is why I think these hacks suck. To be very honest, a hack will show you a glimpse of what you could have achieved in using strategy and tactics consistently over time.
A hack will show you a glimpse of what you could have achieved in using strategy and tactics consistently over time.
What I mean is that even if a hack can give you a spike in one moment, this won’t be long-lasting. This growth won’t be sustainable, and the hack will not be worth the work or your time and effort. This is going to distract you from the final prize, what you really want with Pinterest. Your goals of overall growth, of being seen and growing your presence, of monetization, of website traffic, of expanding your audience. Hacks can’t give you that.
Don’t let those Pinterest hacks and the creators who post them take over your mind! Before wasting time on a hack, think about it carefully. Ask yourself if it’s sustainable over time. Will it continue working? Is this something worth investing in? Is it something worth adding to your current, consistent strategy? If not, let it go.
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Ask An Expert about Any Pinterest Hack
Anytime somebody comes in with a new Pinterest hack they’re determined to try, I immediately have questions about its sustainability– and I know how to test these things. If you see a hack, ask me about it! Honestly, if I see a hack, and it makes sense, I want to try it. If it keeps working, I will be the first to say that it works. I’ll make sure to credit whoever came up with it. But so far… it hasn’t happened yet.
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