Pinning on Pinterest is a beast. There is so much information you have to learn and many things to consider. One of the most common discussions I see revolves around pins per day. Not sure how many you should be pinning? Here is a list of 5 considerations to help you be successful on Pinterest and get the most out of your Tailwind subscription (if you have one).

(This blog is specific to teacher-authors but can still be helpful to other pinners)

1. The amount of products you have

I’ve struggled with this first section already. I’ve deleted two completely different words of wisdom already but am resolved to stick to this.

I’m not here to tell you when to start Pinterest. If you want to start pinning and you have one product that is your decision.

But if you have one product then please do not assume when people say, “You should be pinning 25 – 50 times a day,” that applies to you because it doesn’t. You couldn’t possibly pin that many times a day because you have one product.

At the moment, I have 105 products and I am pinning an average of 45 pins a day on Tailwind. I am also active on over 70 collaborative boards (not including my own collaborative boards which I am looking for more collaborators. Click here for more details.)

I have arranged my schedule to keep from pinning to boards more than three times a week. From Sunday – Saturday I only pin on each board once. I may repeat a board if it is included in a specialty board list such as Elementary Products #1, Monday Bundles, or Friday Freebies.

This is NOT how it was in the beginning. When I started out I was on zero collaborative boards and didn’t really understand them. You don’t want to repeat the same pin to the same collaborative board over and over again but it is difficult to avoid that when you are starting out.

I only point out my personal numbers to remind you, the fewer products you have, the less likely you are to be able to pin 50 times a day. 5 is fine. 2 is fine. Heck, if you have one product and you are going to leap into Pinterest then pin your pin once a day.

2. The amount of blogs you have

Blogs are an overlooked asset on Pinterest when it comes to teacher-authors. Many teacher-authors haven’t started a blog yet or forget that they should be creating new pins for their blogs too.

The second problem is that you may not be on enough collaborative boards that will accept your blogs. Some product boards specifically say, “No blogs.” Some boards do not want product blogs but only subject or skill blogs. If all you do is product blog, those boards are out there. Find more product-blog friendly collaborative boards. (I have a collaborative board open for blogs. Click here to find out more.)

If you blog and you have places to pin your blog then this needs to be considered when you plan how many pins a day. Don’t put the same pin on the same board every day. That is spammy. Have only a handful of blogs? Pin one a day on your collaborative boards. Have a ton of blogs? Pick a few every day and pin them to different boards.

At the moment I pin blogs heavily on Monday. I pin product blogs three days a week but will pick one or two at a time. I do not like to pin product blogs every week though and may skip a week or two.

3. How many pins should you have for each product or blog?

Teacher-authors have a MINIMUM of five seasons: Back-to-school, Fall/Halloween, Christmas/Winter, Spring, End-of-Year. (I personally consider Thanksgiving, Valentine’s, and St. Patrick’s Day as well but that will differ from author to author). You should have fresh pins for every new season. Ideally, you have a couple of new pins for each product and blog every season.

Some people hate creating new pins and just don’t. DON’T BE THIS PERSON! Make new pins for every season. Reuse your old pins from previous seasons. As the seasons go by you will have many pins to choose from (and hopefully more boards to share them to).

I do go on Pinterest pin creation breaks and I rely on my old pins for a few weeks. But on a normal week, I create six to ten new product pins a week (not including pins for brand new products) and three new blog pins a week (not including new blog pins). I have a general aesthetic but do attempt to go outside the box on occasion. Even if I don’t love the pin I will use it. Ugly pins still get people to look at and buy products. The pin might be ugly to me but exactly what someone else wanted.

Plus with 20ish new pins a week, I can’t be that picky. Some are great, most are good, but some are meh.

As you begin to collect pins, this will be a determining factor for how many pins per day but now you have to keep track of boards that limit how many per day. There are some boards that do not care how many you pin per day and tell you so in the description (though this is not common). Some boards only want one a day or have some other criteria (one paid, one free or one paid, two free, and a blog). I usually avoid these boards because I am not interested in keeping track of all the rules.

Personally, I stick to three pins per board.

This doesn’t mean I put three pins for PERSIA Charts on the same board. This means I pick three entirely different pins and pin those three to a board. (For example: PERSIA Charts, Leif Erikson, and World History Timelines Bundle all would be pinned to High School Social Studies (one of my collaborative boards looking for collaborators)).

These link to my TpT store if you are interested.

PERSIA Charts, Leif Erikson, and World History Timelines Bundle would also be pinned to five other boards that same day. 6 total boards, 3 pins each is 30 pins per day.

Note that none of my pins repeated on the same board on the same day. Nor are they likely to in the same week. (Thanks Tailwind Board List!)

4. But I pay for Tailwind. I want to get my moneys worth.

Tailwind is an awesome tool that offers so much more than scheduling (although scheduling is THE reason I signed up originally. Their scheduler is awesome.) I do understand the idea that you want to pin a lot and that is what you think will give Tailwind value.

But if you only have a few products and only a few blogs, you CANNOT pin 50 times a day and NOT be spammy. You just cannot do it.

That doesn’t mean you should get rid of your Tailwind account. But I encourage you to reduce the amount of pins per day. Do five. Schedule your pins a week or two in advance and then spend that time savings looking for collaborative boards. The more boards you get on, the more you can pin.

And never forget to pin to your own boards. Just don’t do it all the time. Don’t pin PERSIA Charts every day to your own board and especially don’t pin every pin you have to your own board every day.

Treat your boards like you would a collaborative board. You need to pin to them all the time but don’t spam your boards. Space out your pins.

When I create a new pin, I schedule that pin to collaborative boards and then to all of my personal boards. I have a board list for all of my personal boards then use the interval scheduling tool. I space out the new pin to post to my personal boards over a three-day period.

But because I create new pins often my boards are not filled up with the same pin over and over and over again. It may be the same products but not the same pin. And that does actually make a big difference to viewers.

5. Let’s pretend…

You have five products and no blogs. You recently became a member of one collaborative board. How do you do this?

Create five different pins for your five different products.

• Load ONE of those new pins on Sunday to your personal board. Pin that same pin to the collaborative board.
• Load ONE of those new pins for a different product on Monday to your personal board. Pin that same pin to the collaborative board.
• Load ONE Of those new pins for a different product on Tuesday to your personal board. Pin that same pin to the collaborative board.

Do you see what is happening here? NEVER UPLOAD ALL OF YOUR PINS AT THE SAME TIME!

Let me say that again.

NEVER UPLOAD ALL OF YOUR PINS AT THE SAME TIME!

If you have five new pins for the SAME product, pick one and upload. Upload ONE more another day. Upload ONE more another day. NEVER UPLOAD ALL OF YOUR PINS AT THE SAME TIME!

Now, because you don’t spend a lot of time pinning or scheduling, get out there and find more boards to join. And create more products to create pins for.

 

Hopefully this gave you an idea of how Pinterest works and how to figure out your pinning strategy. If you are going to begin Pinterest marketing and are interested in Tailwind, email me at integratedsocialstudies2@gmail.com to get your code for one month free! When you sign up for a Plus plan I get $15 (or a month free) too.

Not sure about Tailwind yet? Check out my previous blogs about it.

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