As content creator, should you invest your time in Pinterest?

Pinterest analytics overview

This is one of the questions you may ask if you are just venturing into Pinterest as a content creator. As often quoted, “Time is money.” You’ll probably be skeptical at first because no one wants to waste his or her time doing something that will not yield any result at the end of the day. Should you invest your time in Pinterest to drive traffic to the contents on your website? Well, It depends on the type of contents you want to promote.

Pinterest works differently because it is quite different. The tactics that work on Facebook and Twitter in driving traffic to your site will not work there. Pinterest focused on visuals, so you need to be very creative if you want your time spent to be fruitful. If you are just hearing about Pinterest for the first time, there are some things you need to know before you get started. Just keep reading.

Pinterest is one of the few US-based social media sites that offer something entirely different from other social media platforms out there. Unlike others, it focus on visual contents such as images, GIFs and videos, while providing tools for users to manage their contents on-the-go. Pinterest was founded in 2009 and has become very popular among marketers since then. It has risen to become one of the top platforms used by marketers, media, and content creators to drive engagement and traffic to their products.

Also read: Pinterest vs Instagram, which is more effective for branding?

Creating a new Pinterest account is very easy – it only required an active email address. Apart from an email address, the new user will also be asked to tender his or her name, location, and bio. Pinterest offer two types of account, personal account and business account, depending on what the user want to use his/her account for. More tools and analytics are provided for business account owners, unlike personal accounts. Both are free and does not incur any fee.

Moreover, Pinterest personal account can be converted to business account with just a few clicks within the settings. As at August 2020, Pinterest had over 400 million monthly active users. This may not be much compared to the mammoth number of active users that other social media sites have (i.e Facebook and Instagram), but then, Pinterest is not like others that heavily regulate and moderate users contents.


Here are the things you can do on Pinterest:

  • Upload photos and videos from your device
  • Upload photos and videos via link
  • Create Pins
  • Create Boards
  • Follow other users
  • Share other users pins
  • Comment on other users pins
  • Like other users pins
  • Message other users

Each video or photo uploaded on Pinterest is called “Pin”. Users can share, like, or add your Pin to their Boards. The more likes and shares your Pin get, the more popular the Pin become, and the more engagement it gets. You can create multiple Boards based on the topic or product you want to promote, and then create Pins of each topic or product in each Board.

Pinterest Pins

Creativity is very much required if you want your Pins to be noticed. On Pinterest, your writing skills won’t help in any way. Since Pinterest is simply about visuals, you need graphics knowledge to get the best out of it. Eye-catching images in right sizes are the key, which required some amount of time to develop. Pinterest is not for content creators that have little amount of time to spare in a day, but for those that are devoted.

Also read: How to delete your Pins on Pinterest using Pinterest mobile app

Your images and videos must stand out if you want to get good results, and that takes a lot of time. The good news is, the platform is not heavily moderated like Facebook, so the reach and the impression of each Pin are not much cut short by any unnatural means, which increase their chances of being seen by other users. Pinterest is more natural in how it moderate contents compared to Facebook and Twitter.

As blogger (sole proprietorship), managing your website alongside with multiple social media pages may be tiresome; adding Pinterest to the queue is probably something you should not do if you are unwilling to be creative. The fact is, you can’t upload your post featured image as Pin and get any result. I’ve been there.

You need to create a Pin (can be image or video) worthy of each post you published on your site if you want to drive engagement and get traffic to your blog. Most large media sites (LLC) have social media managers or content marketers that manage their social pages across the web, including developing contents for their pages. They have the resources, unlike standalone bloggers and content creators.

If you can be creative, knows a bit about graphics, and you can fit Pinterest into your daily or weekly schedule, you can give it a try.

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