Pinterest Challenge Update – How I gained 2,000 PInterest followers in 40 days.

(This post may contain affiliates link, please refer to my disclosure policy for further information)

 

Incase you missed the first post about me starting a 90 Day Pinterest Challenge for myself, you can it read here.

 

The purpose of the Pinterest Challenge was for me to learn more about how to use Pinterest as a Blogger so I can pass it on to other bloggers that is striving to grow their platform.

 

As a Blogger that has a passion to encourage new Christian Bloggers, I have created goals to reach more bloggers by sharing all that I have learned and what I am learning throughout my blogging journey.

 

Pinterest is the largest source of page views for Married by His Grace blog. As I stated in the last post, Pinterest brings in 90% of my monthly page views.

 

I can not stress enough about how much Pinterest can build your blog and how it can reach not just anyone but it can reach your specific target audience; no matter who it is.

 

Pinterest is made to tailor niches’ and interests. You can create this by how you market and brand yourself on Pinterest. The boards you create and the pins you pin to your boards will show your potential followers what you are interested in.

 

Since Pinterest is considered a search engine, not a social media platform which means Pinterest users will follow people that they feel have the same interests as them. Their common searches and pin likes will be easy to find when they open up to Pinterest. This is why how you brand yourself and what you Pin will be important. You will want to gain traction and followers that like what you pin so that when you pin your blog posts it will be something they will want to click on.

 

I was asked recently from a fellow Christian Blogger , “Is building Pinterest worth it for me to invest time in even if I am not planning to monetize from my blog?”

 

Yes, yes, and yes! The time and effort is completely worth it because truth be told, blogging is to share your message. That should always be the reason why you are blogging, not to just monetize. Monetizing is a huge plus but should never be the why.

 

Related Post: Step by Step, How to start a Blog.

 

 

Success in blogging is not made from self motives. Bloggers are known as guides, helpers, and selfless people that truly want to help and encourage others in areas that they feel like they may be lacking in. Hence the reason why they are on the internet looking for your blog in your niche. Helping others also involves encouraging others in a certain area. Maybe they want assurance they are not alone. This is where your story and message becomes valuable.  Don’t you want to make your message known and available to others that may need it?

 

Pinterest is always a great investment to getting your message out, to building a profitable blog, to building your subscriber list, and for your audience to get to know you as a blogger.

 

Now that I have gone over a few important reasons why to use Pinterest as a Blogger, let’s get started on what I been up to the last few weeks on Pinterest.

 

In my last post I showed you this screenshot from my Pinterest account of how many followers I had.

 

 

Since then I have worked on the goal list I had placed in my last post. Here is what I have accomplished thus far into the 90 days of the Pinterest Challenge:

Building my following. Using Promoted Pins:

I have not done this yet. This is my goal for month of May;  after getting new graphics done for my eBook and subscriber freebie.

 

How does Promoted Pins work and did it really help?:

Have not done yet, hope to reveal the outcome of Promoted Pins in my next Pinterest update post.

 

Creating new graphics for my eBook, did it help increase traffic?:

In process of doing. Just found someone to help me on this and hope to start using on Pinterest within the next week or two.

Updating older graphics; the results?:

Updated 5 Pinterest graphics. I have slowly been changing graphics since I have recently found my colors for branding that I love. My repins increased immediately from this.

 

Researching affordable Pinterest Courses that bring in effective results:

Following Simple Pin Media is a must! Kate is a Pinterest strategist and I learn so much from her blog but I feel like I gain the most information from her emails. If you go to her blog, take my advice and subscribe! She unleashes everything in her emails. On the blog, Kate also has pricing tiers for Pinterest consulting and strategy courses.

 

Updating boards:

Achieved – I changed a few board covers to match other boards more closely. Matching color schemes on Pinterest board covers helps create a brand. This is important to do either as a new Pinterest user or as a veteran Pinterest user.

I also added a minimum of 10 pins to each board that was inactive for more than 30 days. Pinterest will consider any board inactive if it has not had any pins added within 30 days. If a board is inactive, Pinterest will not suggest the board to other users which can decrease your chances to gain followers. This helped big in gaining more followers. I saw an immediate increase after adding new pins to inactive boards.

 

Deleting Pins. Does this really help?:

This was hard for me to do because I mostly pin to promote posts from bloggers that I love and follow. But I have read before that Pinterest does not like pins with low repin rate. It was recommended to delete anything under 100 repins and I wanted to try it. I personally couldn’t delete pins with 100 repins or less. I felt like I would be deleting too many pins I loved and appreciated from other bloggers. So for the challenge, I chose to delete any pins that had under a 50 repin rate. I went in individually to each board I created and worked on three to four boards a day till I finished through.  I noticed an increase immediately to gaining followers.

 

And much more:

I have been using Board Booster as a scheduler for my Pinterest boards the last six months, I thought I knew how to use it well but once I watched a video that Natalie from Milk and Honey Faith  created, I realized, I was not using Boardbooster to the fullest and I was not taking enough advantage of the scheduler. You must watch this video and start using Boardbooster. It will help you understand Pinterest more and will definitely help you with increasing your following. You can try a free 30 day trial here.

Once I decided to take Boardbooster more serious. It has helped me with my repin rate which eventually leads to more followers and page views.

Click here to watch the Boardbooster tutorial from Natalie, the creator of the Milk and Honey Faith blog.

Update: Boardbooster is no longer available. I now use Tailwind and it continues to boast my following, my Pinterest views, and pageviews to my blog.

Get a free month to Tailwind here. I am sure you will see the difference immediately just like I did!

 

Since I have started the Pinterest Challenge, here are the results from the changes I have made, as stated above. Within less than 40 days (37 days to be exact), I have increased my Pinterest followers by over 2000 followers. 2,037 to be exact.

 

Here is a screenshot of my Pinterest account now.

 

 

 

Although I wish I could give tips of how to gain close to 2,000 followers within 40 days as a new Pinterest user, I can’t. Everything I have done so far was either updating or adding to my existing Pinterest account. The growth you will see in the 90 day Pinterest Challenge is based off of having a Pinterest account and how we can continue to improve our Pinterest status with little changes and updates.

 

However, the overall success of Pinterest is that I have gained over 11,000 followers in less than one year.  I do believe is this is GREAT, especially considering I did not take Pinterest seriously till after I became a blogger. When I first started blogging I only had 63 followers on Pinterest.

 

Click here to read a post about the three most important things to do as a blogger with a Pinterest account. Hopefully this can help if you are fairly new to Pinterest and Blogging.

I also have two chapters in my eBook, ‘By His Grace We Blog’, about how to start a Pinterest account and why you should as a Blogger. In the 17 chapter eBook, I cover topics such as social media, networking, monetizing, creating products, cultivating your blog into a ministry, and much more.

To receive a 15% discount, enter the promocode: byhisgrace

I hope this post has helped you. I am excited to continue on with the Pinterest Challenge for myself and to come back with much more to share with you.

 

What would you like to learn more about with Pinterest? Do you have any tips to share of how to grow your following and presence on Pinterest? Please share!