An outdated practice that is KILLING your reach on Pinterest
Are you struggling to get a large reach on Pinterest? Are you participating in re-pin threads in Facebook groups? If you answered yes to both of these questions, keep reading.
What is a re-pin thread?
Many business-focused Facebook groups like to post daily engagement threads, whether it be an Instagram engagement thread, Facebook engagement thread, OR Pinterest re-pin thread.
Each of these threads comes with a specific set of rules you must follow if you participate.
When it comes to re-pin threads, you usually have to re-pin X amount of other pins within the thread if you drop a link to your pin. I pulled the image below from a Facebook group. As you can see, over 400 people have participated in this re-pin thread.
And it makes you think, “This is really going to help my pin get a push by getting all these re-pins.”
When in reality, these threads are KILLING your reach and confidence score on Pinterest.
Here’s why…
Pinterest preaches relevancy. They have said dozens of times they want to see our content saved to relevant boards. This way, the algorithm can pick up on it and push your pin out to users who are searching for keywords specific to your pin.
So, saving your gluten-free recipe pin to a gluten-free recipes board shows the algorithm your pin should be shown to people searching for gluten-free recipes.
Make sense?
When you participate in these threads 99% of the time, your pin is NOT being saved to a relevant board. Most of the users who participate in these threads create boards just for these threads. Saving your pin to a free for all style board filled with TONS of different topics.
See, the algorithm not only picks up on the SEO of your pin and board, but it picks up on the content within the board. So if your pin is saved to a board with other relevant pins, it will get a MUCH larger push.
If your pin is being saved to a non-relevant board filled with pins on tons of other topics, it will hurt not only the reach of your pin but your account as well.
A confidence score is a score you can’t see. But you can tell if you have a low or high score based on your reach. The more your content is saved to relevant boards, the more it will be shown when specific keywords are searched, and the more it will then be pinned to other relevant boards.
Thus showing Pinterest you create quality content users want to save. Thus helping your account rank at the top under the keywords you want it to rank under.
Because my account is optimized correctly and my pins are saved to relevant boards, I rank in the top 6 under profiles when you search 
“Pinterest Marketing.”
So when your pins are saved OVER AND OVER AND OVER to a non-relevant board, the algorithm isn’t even sure where your content belongs.
Best Practice
Even if your account only has 10 followers, your pins will perform 10X better being saved to your SEO-optimized relevant boards over a group board or a larger board that is not optimized for SEO and is filled with non-relevant pins.
These threads are KILLING your reach and overall account performance on Pinterest. I have been working in Pinterest marketing for over 8 years now, and the two common mistakes I see when someone comes to me with a low reach are:
- Improper Pinterest SEO
- They have spent time participating in re-pin threads
It is possible to bring your account back! My best advice is to make sure your entire account, from your handle to your boards, are set up and optimized properly for Pinterest SEO.
Make sure you are up-to-date with current best practices and guidelines. I still see SO many users re-pinning the same pin to multiple boards, and that is NOT ok anymore. Pinterest themselves have said on more than one occasion NOT to do this.
Pinterest is an insanely powerful way to grow your traffic online… and it only takes about an hour of your time each week, Proper SEO and consistency.
If you want to learn more about proper Pinterest SEO and current best practices and pinning strategies, click HERE!
Happy Pinning!
xo Megan
