How to Improve Your Pinterest Engagement: Tips and Best Practices

This article was created in partnership with Pinterest.

Pinterest is different. Pinterest is not social media. It is a visual search engine. This is something I have emphasized for years when talking about Pinterest. When you think of and use Pinterest as a search engine, it helps you achieve results in the long run.

Pinterest is not about the number of likes or followers (which is important to many people on social media). It is about reaching and inspiring your audience.

Pinterest functions more like a visual search engine than a social platform. Discovery on Pinterest is driven by search behavior and Pin and board activity, not just by who you follow.

On social media platforms, the algorithm determines who you see posts from based on followers, behavior, and interactions.

Pinterest: People go to Pinterest with a purpose – they are looking for inspiration, want to learn something or are actively planning (for example a renovation, vacation, wedding or purchase). Engagement on Pinterest is therefore intent-driven.

TikTok, Instagram and Facebook: Here, engagement often revolves around connection and interaction with others, entertainment or scrolling out of habit. It is socially driven.

People have different intentions on Pinterest than they have on social media. Pinners who click or save a Pin are usually in the process of making a decision or buying.

Social Media: Engagement on social media is more passive and often focused on interaction (liking, commenting, or sharing) without any purchase intent. Think of when someone likes an interior design photo but isn’t looking for products in the photo.

Social Media: On platforms like Instagram or TikTok, content visibility often fades within 24-72 hours. There, engagement is time-bound and fleeting.

Pinterest engagement refers to all the interactions Pinners have with your Pins. These interactions show how well your content resonates with your audience and can help you assess the effectiveness of your Pinterest strategy.

With a Pinterest business account, you get access to interesting statistics and you can view and analyze your engagement.

This gives you a good idea of ​​what content appeals to your audience and what content they are most engaged with. It is therefore important to regularly view your statistics and become familiar with them.

This will help you optimize and improve your Pinterest strategy and you will know what content people want to see.

Instead of likes or comments, you will see these metrics in the Pinterest statistics overview that show you the engagement of Pinners with your content:

Saves – The number of times your Pins have been saved to a board. This indicates that people find your Pins important enough to save and view later. This is comparable to someone putting something in their shopping cart or sticking it on their vision board.

Pin clicks – This shows that a user is interested in the content of your Pin and wants to know more.

Outbound clicks – This means that someone clicks through to your website, webshop or blog. This is direct traffic with often a high intention to plan, buy, book or download something.

The great thing about this is that these actions are also used as signals by Pinterest to determine which content should be shown in the search results and Home feed.

When I look at their Pinterest account and ask about the strategy they use, it turns out that there is no strategy. Think of using keywords, creating new content regularly, adding boards that are relevant to their brand and much more.

Because why would anyone care about how often their Pins are saved or the number of times someone clicks on a Pin? The goal is to generate more outbound clicks and conversions, right?

The more often your Pins are saved, the greater the chance that your content will be shown to other people. Pinners with similar interests and intentions. More saves give you a higher chance of being shown to similar audiences; increasing your reach and potential for driving more clicks/sales.

High-quality, well-sized Pins stand out better in the feed. Pins that are useful, interesting, and inspiring are more likely to be saved and shared by Pinners.

• Use attractive visuals and aim for a vertical 2:3 aspect ratio. (e.g. 1000 x 1500 pixels or 1080 x 1920 pixels.)
• Add text overlays to your Pins so Pinners can understand what your Pin is about at a glance. A great way to give users a reason to interact.
• Use easy-to-read fonts. Most Pinners use Pinterest on mobile devices. Make sure your Pins are mobile-friendly. Avoid using “curly” fonts and light-colored text on a light-colored background.
• Create evergreen content that stays fresh and useful. This can lead to consistent engagement long after you’ve published your Pins.

Pinterest is a search engine so SEO is essential to become visible. Optimize Pin titles and Pin descriptions with keywords.

• Pin consistently and regularly. It is better to save a few pins each day than many at once.
• Create Pins for different search intents (inform, inspire, convert). Think of how-to’s, ideas, lists, product info, gift guides, tips.
• Use different variations of the same content. Think of Pins with different visuals, titles or angles that can contribute to more engagement.
• Pin to different relevant boards. The more context you provide and describe your Pins in different ways with relevant search terms, the better Pinterest understands what your content is about.

On Pinterest, people can contact you via private message (give permission here) or by leaving a comment on a Pin and asking a question about your products or services.

If you have a business account and have claimed your website or published content on your profile, the engagement tab lets you see which Pinners are interacting with your Pins, and lets you respond to comments, track reactions and see who’s been trying your published Pins.

Visit Pinterest Help Center for information about how to use the engagement tab.

Why not follow other Pinterest accounts to show that you are also active on the platform? A missed opportunity for entrepreneurs and businesses who do not reach out to other accounts.

Find bloggers, influencers, entrepreneurs, your favorite brands and businesses that you collaborate with or want to collaborate with.

What can be the effect of taking your audience on Pinterest seriously? My engagement on Pinterest is living proof of that, with this as a result.

Yes, I am on top of it. Keeping an eye on who follows my Pinterest profile and following back interesting accounts.

About five years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, I noticed from the private messages that brands were sending me that they wanted to focus on Pinterest.

After we started following each other on Pinterest, I received an email the next day from Rita Ràcz, owner of Eiken Project Landelijke Keukens in Belgium.

Rita was looking for someone to help her set up and organically manage her Pinterest account.

The next day we had a nice phone conversation. A day later I got her approval for my proposal and since then we have been working together for five years.

Wow, that was really fast! What also helped was to respond to her email within 24 hours. That apparently made the difference for me.

Recently I received a warm email from Rita to thank me. She told me that she still receives regular visitors to her showroom thanks to Pinterest.

It’s great when people believe in Pinterest and even better when they appreciate my work ♥️

Do you want content that does not disappear after 48 hours, but continues to work for months, even years, and continues to deliver results?

Then Pinterest is your platform.

• How to get started on Pinterest – Ask the experts [blog]
• 5 must have tools for Pinterest managers [blog]
• How to make Pinterest Pins [Pinterest best practices]
• Pinterest Predicts – Explore the trends