I walked into this year with only one social media goal: become consistent on Pinterest.
I’ve heard about the power of pinning for years—how Pinterest is a search engine, how bloggers and writers like me should be using the platform strategically. But the task always felt so daunting, and I didn’t know where to begin.
I’d start and stop, start and stop, never finding a true rhythm that could actually foster growth.
That is, until this summer.
In the months leading up to May, I came up with a plan and started prepping.
The Tools I Use to Pin Consistently:
- I settled on and paid for a plan with Tailwind. I knew that with all the other things I have to keep running in my business and home, I could not be getting on the Pinterest platform multiple times a day to pin from it. So I picked a scheduler that would work for me and my business.
- I design all of my pins in Canva, my go-to tool for designing anything in my business. I am a self-taught designer, though I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a designer. But I have a look and a feeling, an aesthetic that I like, and it genuinely charges me creatively to create these elements on my own.
- I came up with around five template posts that would work for my blogging and writing experience. Yes, I use stock images from Haute Stock and Elevae Visuals, but the most important thing for me was an emphasis on the words since that was my reason for being on Pinterest to begin with– to share more of my writing. Every couple of weeks, I will play around with a few new templates to mix into the folds. This is critical if you want to pin consistently: do not create every pin from scratch. You will quickly burn out!!! For every template I make, there are easily a couple of hundred pins that fit inside it. Here are a few of the current templates I’m loving (I’ll change up the words and images so that Pinterest sees each one as a fresh pin, and then I try to make the colors in the batch cohesive for a good overall look and feel):
- I decided to go with ChatGPT’s expertise when it came to generating many of the headers and descriptions for Pinterest. I feel strongly about not letting ChatGPT into my writing process, but when it came to generating Pinterest pins, I knew ChatGPT could get me started with keyword-rich ideas beyond my usual range. So, I would send it a blog post I was currently pinning, and I would ask it to generate 25-30 headers and descriptions. Then I would go from there, tweaking and customizing to what I felt fit the pins best.
My Secret Weapon: Batching
As part of my strategy, I told myself no active pinning until I had created at least 300 pins, which came out to around 10 weeks of consistent pinning once scheduled.
Before beginning, I knew I wanted to pin at least 5 times a day. It sounds like a lot, and that’s because it is, but it is the sweet spot for being consistent with Pinterest. So, 7 days a week x 5 pins a day equals 35 pins a week. I had my work cut out for me.
I quickly learned that you can create a lot of pins in a short time. I fell into a natural rhythm of one night a week, when I put on a reality TV show and created pins while I watched. For each new post that I put on Pinterest, I would make 30-40 pins. This is what I call a batch.
I decided to go against my natural beliefs for this creative process. I am someone who always opts for quality over quantity, but in this case, I needed to create a lot of pins and didn’t yet know what would or wouldn’t work on Pinterest. So I focused on quantity, on trying a bunch of different things and seeing what worked for the algorithm.
I genuinely fell in love with this creative rhythm. I find it really relaxing to sit down at the end of the day and create pins. This is especially critical because if I viewed this task as a must-do or something that had to get crossed off the list, I don’t think I would enjoy it nearly as much. The reality is that when you’re starting on Pinterest, it takes a lot of muscle and dedication. I wanted to create a process that would be enjoyable and life-giving for me.
You can catch me curled up in bed watching a true crime documentary and sipping a ginger ale while I make pins one or two nights a week.
Pinterest is a Slow Burn
People say this all the time, but it really, really is true. Pinterest is a slow burn; instant virality is very rare. It is definitely not operating under the same algorithm as Instagram or TikTok.
If you don’t like moving slowly or can’t be patient, I wouldn’t recommend Pinterest because it requires a lot of legwork up front before you see actual results.
It feels like opening up a high-yield savings account. You slowly start putting deposits into the account, and at first, it doesn’t look like much. But over months and eventually years, the interest starts to accrue, and you begin to see dividends on your deposits.
I started pinning every single day in May, but I didn’t see traction until 6 months later, when the numbers began to grow. Even still, the numbers have not skyrocketed just yet. But I’m not looking at one pin to blow up the account. I am faithfully, steadily pinning day after day, trusting in every little deposit I am making into the app and ultimately in sharing my writing with others who are searching on the platform.
In a podcast about Pinterest marketing, someone compared Instagram to a bar and Pinterest to a library. There could not be truer words. Pinterest is slow-moving, but it also doesn’t drain me creatively to be on the platform. I am more inspired every time I scroll on Pinterest and get better ideas. Whereas Instagram can sometimes suck the life out of me, Pinterest feels like a place where I can breathe, create, and enjoy the overall experience.
An Important Mindset Shift
I stepped into this Pinterest journey with curiosity and the willingness to learn and grow, not to see results within the first day, week, or even month. I’ve always heard that Pinterest is a slow burn, but now I am seeing it for myself. My advice to anyone starting is not to expect instant results. Expect to learn, expect to grow, expect to become more creative in the process of showing up on Pinterest. There are many gains beyond numbers that you actively track and celebrate along the way!
A “Content First” Strategy
This is a flip I made several years ago on social media in general. For a long time, I would get on platforms like Instagram, scroll, and wait for an idea to pop up that I could then post about. It drained my creativity and made me feel like I was a robot, not a hamster wheel, just living to produce.
A few years ago, I flipped the funnel and rededicated myself to my creative process. I got back in the writing chair and made that the priority in my business. From that overflow of creation, I was then able to create social media content to share, and my results skyrocketed in a way I had never seen happen before.
So when I approached Pinterest, I decided to do the same thing. I would lead with a content-first strategy. Meaning: I pick several blog posts that are already published on my blog or in my newsletter, then create the pins and link them back to that content. I make sure every post is updated, ready to go, and has a straightforward way for someone coming from the app to join my email list, download a challenge, or explore one of my courses. This is called optimization– not just leading people to dead ends but to spaces where the writing is rich, and the prospect of connecting further is a natural next step.
This is what makes the pinning feel easy to me. I’m not creating content that doesn’t exist yet. I’m pulling from writing I worked really hard on, and then creating assets for it. Doing it this way has actually expanded my creativity and made me realize that for one piece of content, I have dozens and dozens of ways to share it.
I emphasise this because it’s really easy to follow what many experts say about Pinterest. Look at the trends and create for the trends. As a writer, this has genuinely never worked for me on any social media platform. I’ve seen much better results from creating genuine material that resonates with me and then sharing it. From this excavation process and blazing my own pathway, I’ve actually been really surprised to find that I have several elements of my writing that fit perfectly on Pinterest:
- Building better habits and routines
- Cozy entrepreneurship
- Building a brand and career as a writer
- Wisdom from the writing room
- Slow living + unplugging
- Intentional rhythms for my home and business
- Raising little ones with intentional rhythms
I like to think that instead of following trends where my heart isn’t in it, I’m digging my heels deep into the evergreen content that applies in any season of life– and might just be the thing someone is looking for on Pinterest.
The Current Results
When I started my Pinterest journey back in May, my impressions were about 20,000 per month, and that was because I had claimed my Instagram account. I had very little engagement. No real reason for anyone to follow me, and bare minimum outbound clicks, which was one of my goals, stepping into this consistent rhythm to get people to visit my blog.
So I grew from basically zero to this in 6 months:
Again, my goal is to reach the hundreds of thousands, but what’s really great about Pinterest is that it’s helped me rewire my mindset back to slow, steady consistency. After being on social media for over a decade, I have become used to instant results. On a platform like Instagram, you know almost immediately whether it’s going to be a win or a flop. On Pinterest, you could pin something and not see any traction on it until 8 months later, when it absolutely blows up.
I’ve loved and needed this mindset shift because it matches and mirrors almost everything in life. The best stuff is never instant; it is slow growth over time, consistent dedication, and discipline.
Complete transparency: At this point in my journey, I have not played around with advertising or really leading people to my courses and classes. My primary focus for the last 6 months has been:
- Build consistent systems that run in the background
- Get comfortable with the creation process
- Focus on pinning solid content that leads back to the blog
Is Pinterest Worth it for the Writers?
Absolutely, yes, without a doubt. As with all things, it’s really important to acknowledge your capacity. I was at a space where I could really invest in the Pinterest journey. And even in the investment, I probably only give about an hour a week to Pinterest prep.
The thing about good writing is that it deserves to be found and savored, not just treated as a flash in the pan. I love the idea that pins are evergreen, and they can have a lifespan far beyond the day when you first pin them.
Instead of looking at numbers and wanting this massive surge, I’ve taken great pleasure in going through and seeing which individual posts people clicked on. In my mind, I practice gratitude to think, “Wow, that’s so cool that a person found that post. 300 people found that post.” I’m always praying in my mind that the right people are finding my writing, that it’s not just a crowd of people coming in all at once, but that there are these small pathways leading to my words at all times in all hours of the day.
Pinterest makes those pathways possible, and I’m excited to keep building them in the days and months to come.
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