How much do followers matter on Pinterest, and how do you get them? The more that Pinterest becomes relevant, the more it seems that followers are necessary.
This post will discuss why followers might be relevant to your Pinterest strategy long term. However, the meat of today’s post will go through six different ways that I would suggest utilizing and implementing in your strategy to get more followers on Pinterest.
These are legitimate, no-nonsense ways to get more followers on Pinterest. We’re not suggesting anything crazy like buying followers here. So, let’s dive right on in and learn how to get more followers on Pinterest.
Why are followers important on Pinterest?
More followers equal more engagement
One of the reasons Pinterest followers may be relevant or necessary to your overall strategy and longevity on this platform is because the more followers you have, the more engagement your pins get. However, we’re unsure how much your followers correlate to the long-term growth of your Pinterest account.
In 2021, Tailwind did a six-month-long study examining the overall growth curve for accounts that had more engagement. The accounts that had more engagement had more followers. We are going to go ahead and continue publishing consistent content knowing that followers are not 100% necessary to succeed. However, they are becoming relevant in more ways.
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Credibility for landing brand deals
If you want to land brand deals on Pinterest with your Pinterest profile, the brand or sponsor of the product you wish to land may require followers as an indicator in your media sheet.
So if you are looking to land brand sponsorships, Pinterest followers may be necessary to prove your legitimacy for that brand, even though we know it is more of a vanity metric.
Get recruited to the Pinterest Rewards Program
You may want to grow your following on Pinterest to get accepted into the Pinterest Rewards Program eventually. I am currently in the Pinterest Creative Rewards Program. One of the stipulations is that you have to have 1000 followers to be accepted or added in.
This program is still in alpha. As more creators are added to that program, we will see more people coming in. It seems the people being added to the Creators Rewards Program are not very large accounts. They don’t have 50,000 to 100,000 followers. They are more of the micro-influencer size of accounts. But a minimum of 1000 followers are necessary to get into the program.
We will see if the situation remains the same once this program opens up in the beta and there is a full rollout. I have a feeling that it will.
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Tips for growing Pinterest followers
Tip #1 – Use idea pins
You may not like this, but I will tell you to use idea pins. Idea pins are a great way to grow your following on Pinterest. The black follow screen is one of the last slides that most pinners will see.
I got eight new followers from one idea Pin in March. In December, I posted another idea pin for one of my client’s Pinterest accounts. It picked up steam and went viral. It got over a million impressions. She picked up 625 new followers from that idea pin alone.
You don’t need to go viral to pick up followers. On average, our client’s idea pins see anywhere from five to 45 new followers in a month from publishing idea pins. So if you are publishing one idea pin per week, and you were to get 20 followers per week, that’s 80 new followers per month.
You are not going out and following and unfollowing people; you are not buying followers here. This activity is completely organically driven.
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Tip #2 – Cross-platform sharing
The next tip that I tell people looking to grow their following on Pinterest is cross-platform sharing. Many people never even consider bringing one following base over to the next. With Pinterest, this is an excellent way to bring in a new audience with different user intent to this platform.
You have a Pinterest account, and you want to grow your following. You may also have an Instagram, TikTok, a Facebook page, a group, and an email list. Use this to your benefit.
Pinners are on this platform to do, buy, or try, to shop for things. A person’s user intent on Instagram may be to connect virtually in a more intimate setting. That same person is looking to do, buy, or try on Pinterest.
So they may see that your content on Pinterest is entirely different from what it is on Instagram. They may engage with it on Pinterest, while they might not be engaging with your feed posts on Instagram.
Do some cross-platform sharing. Make your email list aware that you have a Pinterest account. In your stories, tell your Instagram followers to follow you on Pinterest. You can share your idea pins over to Instagram stories and put a link to your idea pins and say. ‘Hey, see the whole idea on Pinterest’ and drive people to that idea pin.
Engage in cross-platform sharing because it is an excellent way to bring an audience who never even knew you were on this platform.
Tip #3 – Use MiloTree
The MiloTree plugin costs less than $10 per month. It is a plugin for WordPress users and even works very well with Showit. I use this on my website.
I have Pinterest set up as one of the platforms I have MiloTree present, and only have it set up on specific pages of my website. It is not on any sales page, home page or contact page. It will only show up in my blog.
When someone clicks over and sees my blog post, no matter where they are coming from, they will be presented with this fly-in called MiloTree popup. The social networks that I am choosing to promote at this time are Pinterest, TikTok, and YouTube.
So, a tool like MiloTree is a great way to bring your current website users over to Pinterest or whatever other platform you are using. If you want to focus on growing your Pinterest profile presence with MiloTree, you can only add Pinterest, and it can just present Pinterest to people.
Using a tool like MiloTree is an effective way to bring existing website traffic to a new platform. This tool is very affordable, but there is a free forever plan. You could set it up with no customisations or branding. I have a free forever plan, and I grow my following using it.
Tip #4 – Create high-quality content
You can consistently create high-quality content that people are looking for on Pinterest to grow more followers. Make sure you utilize Pinterest trends to see which content is popular and post those pins in advance of the trend.
In most cases, you can publish idea pins during the event’s time frame. However, with most Pinterest pinners planning and looking in advance, if you can publish that content early and get ahead of that trend, you will be more likely to capitalize on it.
So make sure you are creating excellent high-quality content. This is the number one way I have grown all of my following. I have three different Pinterest accounts. I have had three different brands that I have used Pinterest to grow those websites. Every single time it was through high-quality content that people were searching for.
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Tip #5 – Use a plugin like Social Warfare
I speak to WordPress users because I use WordPress. I do not use any other website builders so, I do not know how others work. Plugins like Social Warfare, Tasty Pins, or Social Pug are handy to let people know that they can easily share your content if they link it to their favorite social platform.
Most of the people that come to my website share to Pinterest. I predefine all of the content in the plugin that I want to be published via that sharing button. So, I am controlling what gets published to the public. I love this tool. I pay less than $30 per year for it, and it is worth it to continue to invest in.
Once people publish your content from your website on Pinterest, they will then be presented with more of your content in their home feeds.
Tip #6 – Make sure your headers have social icons
A lot of websites have an Instagram feed at the bottom. If you go to my website today, there will be an Instagram feed, but I also have other social media icons that let you know I am on other platforms. People can click those, go to other platforms, and connect with me there.
One of the first things I do when a new client comes to me and I am on a discovery call with them is to have their website pulled up and go to the footer of their site or in the header to see if they have Pinterest in their social sharing icons.
If they don’t, that tells me that their audience is not following them on Pinterest. It is not even aware that they have Pinterest, which is why they have hired me in the first place. I request that they add that. It is such a powerful little icon, letting people know that you are there.
I also do this in my email newsletters. If you are on my newsletter list, you will see social sharing icons at the bottom of every email I send. You can follow me on any of these platforms straight from my email. This is like cross-platform sharing again. However, I make sure that people know that I am on all platforms that I care about.
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Final thoughts
That’s it for today. I hope these tips will help you grow a legitimate following, unlike some of the other content on YouTube, which makes me scratch my head about promising to go viral. Most people will never experience a viral post, and that’s ok. You don’t need to go viral to succeed.
If you liked these tips and want more Pinterest advice, you can head right on to our Pinterest Marketing Playlist and watch those videos.
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Heather
Heather went to school for accounting and worked for years in banking and finance. After finding all of that entirely too boring she started her first blog in her basem*nt in August of 2016. She has started 3 blogs in the marketing, motherhood and travel niches and used Pinterest to grow them all. She quickly became the go-to Pinterest strategist in her peer circles and has been implementing strategies, driving traffic and sales through organic and paid tactics for her clients. On this blog and her YouTube channel she educates the public about clear and transparent marketing strategies to help them to grow on Pinterest and in other places online.
