Why Bloggers Should Consider Pinterest

by Lori Hatcher @LoriHatcher2

When I needed decorating ideas for my daughter’s baby shower, I went to Pinterest. When I searched for a recipe for a French toast casserole, I went to Pinterest. When I lost the directions for how to make reindeer Christmas tree ornaments, I went to Pinterest.

As the fastest growing social media site, Pinterest has become the go-to place for information. But is it also a valuable platform for writers? I say YES.

Today I’d like to build a case for why writers, especially bloggers, should use Pinterest. I’ll share some stats, then tell you about my personal Pinterest experience. Beginning next month, I’ll share some practical tips to get you started.

Digital Marketing Research website reveals that 72.8 million people use Pinterest. Eighty-five percent of them are women, and an estimated 42 percent of online adult women use Pinterest.

Did you catch that last statistic? Almost HALF of online adult women use Pinterest.

If someone offered you a marketing strategy to reach half the online women in America, and all it cost was some time and creativity, how quickly would you say YES? Well here you go—my gift to you.

In the summer of 2014, thanks to the encouragement of a kind and successful fellow blogger, I took the Pinterest plunge. Although my efforts were rudimentary and somewhat haphazard, I saw a 33 percent increase in my page views in the first month. Even more important, I gained dozens of new subscribers.

In the 18 months since, I’ve had several months with 100 percent increases in page views and have almost tripled my subscriber base. Pinterest has been the single most effective strategy I’ve employed for growing my blog and sharing the words God gives me.

Another powerful reason for directing your time and creative talents toward Pinterest is its sustainability. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest images (with links to your blog posts) have an amazing lifespan. Social Marketing Writing website states, “The half-life of a Pinterest pin is 3.5 months. i.e. it takes a pin 3.5 months to get 50% of its engagement. The half-life of a tweet is only 24 minutes and the half-life of a Facebook post is only 90 minutes. This means that the half-life of a Pinterest pin is 1,680 times longer than a Facebook post.”

These statistics show that if you create a pin that catches people’s attention, it can linger, growing in the blogosphere for months or even years, continuing to reach more and more people with little or no ongoing effort on your part.

I’ve experienced this amazing phenomenon. Twice a week I create pinnable images for one of my blog posts. I share the images on Facebook and Pinterest. A year ago, I shared an image from my post called “How To Know It’s God Speaking to You.” It received 15 likes on Facebook and four people shared it. Six people clicked through to read the blog post.

I pinned a similar image on Pinterest and shared it on several group boards. As of January 1, 2016, Pinterest users have repinned that pin more than 6,000 times. Fifty-four thousand five hundred and fifty-one (54,551) readers have clicked through to read the corresponding blog post. Because of Pinterest, this post continues to receive the most page views of all the posts on my blog almost every single day—a year after I pinned it.

I hope I’ve convinced you to take a serious look at Pinterest as a way to promote your blog and get your message out. It could be a serious game changer.

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