Share this post!

As a new blogger, figuring out how to get followers on Pinterest was a struggle. In this post I’m sharing my best tips that you won’t find anywhere else on how to get followers on Pinterest.

When I started my Pinterest business account, I was spending hours every day pinning, editing my profile, optimizing pin descriptions, and trying to do everything other bloggers said would guarantee my Pinterest success. But even with all that effort on my part, it literally took me two months just to get 100 followers on Pinterest!

I knew the importance of joining Pinterest group boards and that it could dramatically increase my reach and traffic to my site. But despite spending entire days (no exaggeration) applying to group boards, I was only getting a handful of responses! I knew that my lack of followers was making it hard for me to get noticed and approved.

I was confused and discouraged.

Since doing everything other bloggers said to do in their posts about how to get Pinterest followers wasn’t working, I began trying my own methods.

Thankfully, after lots and lots of trial and error, I found three highly effective ways to get new Pinterest followers. I don’t want you to have the same struggle I did to build momentum for your blog on Pinterest, so I am sharing my best tips in this post! I guarantee you won’t find these tips anywhere else.

But first, why is it so difficult to get Pinterest followers?

It is harder than ever for new bloggers starting out on Pinterest to gain followers. This is because Pinterest is no longer encouraging users to follow other users nearly as much, and instead is using a Smart Feed. I’ve written an entire post covering what you need to know about the Pinterest Smart Feed and what it means for your follower count. Rather than going into it all here, I would encourage you to head over and read that post!

My #1 Mistake Starting Out on Pinterest (Don’t Do What I Did!)

The biggest mistake I made as a new blogger on Pinterest was waiting for people to follow me.

At first, I didn’t buy into the whole “follow for follows” game. I wanted people to follow me organically!

When I wasn’t getting organic followers for weeks, I read a lot of other bloggers’ opinions on what to do to get Pinterest followers. Many of them said, “You just have to wait. Make good pins, make a good profile, write good pin descriptions, and wait. Wait, wait, wait.” Part of that is good advice. Do take the time to optimize your profile and learn how to make successful pins! But don’t just wait. I just waited, and that was my biggest mistake starting out on Pinterest.

Eventually, I got desperate and tried following massive numbers of people hoping for follow-backs. Here’s how other bloggers will tell you to do it: Find other bloggers in your niche and follow their followers, then hope that some of them follow you back. Well, I tried it. And what was my result? Hardly any of them followed me back. It was a waste of my time. Plus, Pinterest kept flagging my mass following as spammy, and blocking me from following people for periods of time. I think maybe Pinterest even hid my content for a while because of that.

Here’s why I think that didn’t work. For months, Pinterest has been super slow with notifications, including notifying you when you have a new follower. There have been times when I’ve seen that I got a new follower according to my follower count, but then hours pass before I get a notification about it. Even then, the notification is usually buried under other notifications, and I would never even see it if I wasn’t watching for it. Pinners who aren’t bloggers probably aren’t paying that much attention to how many followers they have, don’t ever see the notification, and so they don’t follow you back.

Learn from my mistakes.

My Turning Point

For the past couple of months, I have been getting between 100-300 followers each week! That’s pretty massive growth for an account with 1,500 followers.

Here are my top three tips on how to get followers on Pinterest. You won’t find these tips anywhere else!

1. Join Facebook groups, and participate in Pinterest share threads.

If you haven’t started joining Facebook groups to grow your blog, you need to start right now.

There are tons of Facebook groups, specifically for bloggers, with the sole purpose of supporting each other. You can ask questions and get support with challenges you’re facing. But you can also participate in share threads.

Share threads are Facebook posts within the groups with specific focuses. For example, there might be a thread for sharing Pinterest profiles. Each person to share their profile must follow 10 other people’s Pinterest profiles. You help other people out, and you can potentially get a bunch of new followers in return!

You can find share threads for all kinds of social media promotion, but Pinterest-specific threads can be a little more challenging to find. I’ve joined lots of Facebook groups and have narrowed them down to the ones that are most worth participating in for Pinterest followers.

Enter your email address and I’ll send you access to the best Facebook groups for promoting your blog’s Pinterest! I get new Pinterest followers from these groups every single day.

2. Follow people. But not the way other bloggers say to do it.

I talked earlier about the follow-for-follow method that didn’t work for me earlier in this post. Through trial and error, I’ve discovered highly effective ways to follow other people, and actually have a lot of them follow me back.

First, follow contributors on group boards in your niche.

How to do it: Find group boards on topics similar to what you blog about, or general blogger boards. On the group board page, click the circular photos in the upper right, and follow as many of them as you can. Pinterest will block you from following eventually if you do it for too long, but not nearly as quickly as it blocks you for following people on their individual profile pages.

Why it works: A majority of contributors to a lot of group boards are bloggers. Bloggers tend to be active on Pinterest, and they pay attention to their follower count, noticing when they get new ones. And so, often bloggers will notice you followed them and follow you back. This is most true for other bloggers who are also just getting started with Pinterest. I like this method, because I know I am genuinely helping other bloggers out by following them, and if they follow me back it’s because they want to.

Second, follow bloggers who pin your pins.

How to do it: The easiest way I’ve found to do this is using Tailwind Tribes. When I share a pin to a Tribe, I check back after a couple of days and follow anyone who pinned my pins. It’s a way of thanking them for sharing my pins, and oftentimes, they follow me back.

Why it works: Most Tailwind users are bloggers. And again, bloggers are the most likely Pinterest users to notice when they get new followers. Plus, if you’re in a Tailwind Tribe with them, you probably blog about similar topics. So, they’re a lot more likely than the average Pinterest user to follow you back.

If you aren’t already on Tailwind, it is a tool that helps you get your pins seen by more people, and allows you to schedule pins out ahead of time so that you don’t have to always pin manually. If you want to check it out, use my Tailwind link for a free trial!

3. Add Pinterest links to your blog posts.

Check the bottom of this post to see exactly how I do it, then make it your own!

I include my pin images at the bottom of each post. Just above the pin image, I say, “Are you on Pinterest? If so, pin this post to save it for later!” After publishing the post and pinning it, I link the words “pin this post” directly to my pin on Pinterest. I make sure to link to a pin on one of my own boards (usually my Best of Uncommonly Well board). This way, readers have two options for pinning – through the link or by pinning the image. If they follow my link to pin, hopefully they’ll follow me or my board while they’re there!

Below my “pin this post” comment, I also add a link to one of my Pinterest boards, saying, “Come follow my Blogging for Income Pinterest board for more ideas!” (or whatever board is most similar to the post’s topic.)

These links to my Pinterest get quite a few clicks every day. Those clicks grow my Pinterest engagement and follower count dramatically!

By following these three tips on how to get followers on Pinterest, you will see your follower count begin to grow more and more rapidly. Let me know how it goes, and what is working for you in the comments! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

Are you on Pinterest? If so, pin this post to save it for later!

Come follow our Blogging for Income Pinterest group board for lots more tips!