Are you trying to figure out how to make a Pinterest Pin go viral? Does it seem like no matter what you do, they just get lost in the sea of images on Pinterest?
You’ve probably been on Pinterest searching for tips on how to succeed with Pinterest. Being successful on Pinterest has a lot to do with your Pinterest Strategy.
Well, I may know why this is happening and I am going to tell you how to fix it. So if you want to learn how to make a Pinterest pin go viral, keep on reading.
In the beginning, I was just like you. I would create my pins, upload them, and just wait for them to take off. But they never took off. They resulted in little to zero traffic. I was frustrated.
Many fellow bloggers said they were receiving thousands of people to their blog every month from Pinterest. So I knew I must be doing some wrong.
So for the last 3 years, I’ve been experimenting with Pinterest. One of the things I wanted to learn was why some pins would go viral and why others didn’t.
After some time, I figured out how to make Pinterest pins go viral.
how to make a pin go viral
The key to getting a Pinterest Pin to go viral is by creating visually, compelling pins.
Making a pin go viral has nothing to do with the content in your blog post. But, if you want your visitors to stay on your page, you need great content.
Pinterest is a visual search engine. You need to create pinnable images that are aesthetically pleasing. Don’t forget to add the pinnable image to your blog posts.
If you are not getting viral pins or any traffic from Pinterest, then you need to work on the Pins you are creating. It does not matter how many followers you have because anyone can create a pin that goes viral.
I’ll walk you through 7 essential tips all your pins should have. These tips will highly increase your chances of making your pin go viral. I do want to note that Pinterest has made it clear that there is no way to guarantee a viral pin but these tips will greatly increase your chances.
7 Tips on How to Make a Pinterest Pin Go Viral
The Perfect Pin Image
When you create your pins, you want to pick an image that is related to your content.
Stay away from blurry photos. Always go for high-resolution, eye-catching photos.
You can either take your own photos or use stock photos. If you do use stock photos, whether free or paid, make sure they come with commercial rights for you to use on your blog.
Pin Size
The size of your Pinterest Pin is so important. If you don’t have the right size, you are setting yourself up for failure. You want to make sure your pin is taking up the right amount of space on the Pinterest Feed.
If your pin is too long, part of it could get cut off. If your pin is too short, your pin will rarely be seen.
Pinterest has always said the perfect pin ratio is 2:3.
So never use square images. They are not aesthetically pleasing and Pinterest will less likely show your pin as they don’t like square images.
If you are not sure what size to use, go with 1000 x 1500.
Colors
The color you use on your pins is so important. Some colors are known to be pinned more than others. People are drawn to certain colors.
When I first heard this, I did a test. I made the same pin but changed the colors. Some colors really do perform better than others.
So create pins with bright and warm colors. Don’t use dark colors. You want your pin to pop and stand out to people as they scroll through Pinterest.
Add Text
When you create your pins, you want to add text to the image.
This will help to make your pin stand out as well as get your message out there. If people know right away what the pin is about, they’ll click to go to your blog (assuming they are interested in that subject).
If they don’t clearly know what the pin is, they’ll keep on scrolling.
So don’t make the text too long. Make sure the font stands out and it’s legible. You want people to easily read it while they are scrolling through Pinterest.
Eye-Catching Titles
If you want to increase your chances of getting your pins to go viral, you need to make sure your blog titles are eye-catching.
It doesn’t matter if the content is amazing, if the title doesn’t stand out, people won’t want to read your blog post.
When you create your pinnable images for your blog post, you can write the blog title on the image. This will tell people what your blog post is all about if they only see the image.
Pinterest SEO
People are constantly searching Pinterest for ideas and topics.
So you want to make sure your pin shows up in their search results when they are searching for your niche. In order to show up in those search results, you need to focus on SEO.
With Pinterest, you want to make sure your pin’s description is full of keywords. So use keywords that are related to your content and don’t forget to include hashtags.
If you’re not sure which keywords to use, check out my post: How to Find Keywords to Use with Pinterest
Social Share Button
When creating your blog, you want to make sure you install a social share plugin.
This will make it easy for your readers to easily share your blog post on their social platform of choice. All they have to do is click the share button and they can easily promote your blog.
So make sure you add at least one pinnable image to your blog post. This way your readers can easily share it on Pinterest.
When I am reading a blog post and I love the content, I will share it. If they don’t have a pinnable image and a social share button on their blog, then I won’t pin it since I have no way to share it.
Make it easy for your readers to promote your blog posts.
WHERE TO MAKE VIRAL PINS
Now you know the 7 tips to make a pin go viral you are probably wondering where you can make Pinterest Pins.
My favorite program to use to make Pinterest pins is Canva!
Canva is a graphic design platform that allows users to create visual content to use with Social media, posters, presentations, and more!
Canva offers a free version and a paid version. If you upgrade to the paid version, you will have access to thousands of fonts, stock photos, designs, and so much more!
HOW TO MAKE A PINTEREST PIN GO VIRAL
If you want your Pin to go viral, you need to make sure you are creating pinnable images and you are adding those images to your blog post.
If you follow the tips I outlined above on how to make a Pinterest pin go for viral and you’re not seeing results, make some tweaks. Use different photos, try different colors, and work on your blog titles and content.
You want to figure out what your audience likes so you can create the content and pins for them.
Your audience will be the ones to click on your pins and share them. So it may take practice as you learn what your audience loves.
Hi, such an amazing ideas to start a blog on different niches. Really an useful post with clean and clear details. Thanks for sharing this post. Keep sharing.
I needed this! Mine has dropped drastically!! IDK why!
Pinterest is constantly changing their algorithm, so it is normal for your monthly views to go up and down. Just never give up. These tips have helped me through all Pinterest changes over the last 2 years.
After reading your post, I want to upgrade my Pinterest, asap. Thanks for your tips!
Great tips for making Pinterest Graphics! Been making a batch just last week and making more in the future. Cheers for this helpful post!
Thank you for all this helpful info. I’m just getting started to use Pinterest so this really is timely for me. Thank you!!
Wow! I never thought about this size thing.. Thank you sooooo much for this post. I’ll follow you. Happy blogging 🙂
We have started using pinterest a few months ago, and so far we are generating good traffic for the blog, and for other social media accounts, and these tips will surely help us out even more 😀 thank you for sharing 😀
This is useful information for my blog! I’ll pin this. Thanks!
I have a love hate relationship with Pinterest. I recently got a viral pin and it was wonderful but now i am struggling.
Pinterest can be tricky like that. Try creating a new pin (change colors/designs). Pinterest likes new pins. So keep creating pins for all your older blog posts.
Hi Kelly! This is my first time on your blog and this is an amazing post! I absolutely love Pinterest but I don’t have much experience with it. I really found this article helpful and also checked out your other post about how to find keywords for Pinterest. Really helpful, thank you 🙂
I have tried all these and they work definitely. My monthly viewers and number of visits have been increased.
Great tips! I definitely need to experience with different colors.
we just started being more active on pinterest! trying it out!
I love your tips especially I’m not too familiar with Pinterest.
Such a great article. I have learned a lot of strategies that I haven’t done before.
Very interesting and doable tips. Surely gonns try it
Pinterest always seemed like an ocean I’d get lost traversing. Thanks for simplifying the process to get a hang of how to make the pins productive!
Thanks for this post.At least I know what to do for my posts to go viral.Not just pinning for myself .
👍
Ok this is SO helpful! going to try these tips 🙂
Have you ever had a pin go viral? Would love to hear where or not you have actually had success with the tips you share.
Hi Brandon, Yes I have had many, many pins go viral. After I posted this article, one of the pins from this article went viral. I’ve been monitoring the pin closely with screenshots and plan to write a follow up post to show the results.
That is so cool! I would love to follow your Pinterest strategy. After Google+ bid goodbyes, I would like to learn more about Pinterests.
We have definitely experienced fluctuations in Pinterest over the last year. We grew from zero to 28k views but have seemed to plateau. We’re not seeing the traffic we had hoped for from Pinterest so I’d like to try some of your tips and see how they help us out.
A viral Pinterest Pin is what we are all striving toward! The reminder to focus on SEO in the Pin description is an area that I need to continue to improve when created Pins. Thanks for the tips!
This summer one of my goals is to work on my pin descriptions and titles. I’m never sure what keywords to use. I’ve had some luck with a few pins, but the numbers aren’t consistent from month to month.
Great advice. I always choose vivid images, titles and colours for my pins, but I’m not so good at using key words effectively. This was a good reminder.
Pinterest isn’t yet one of the social media platforms I have got into. I do need to change and embrace this medium in the future, particularly as my blog does publish posts with some really beautiful images associated with the great outdoors. Love how well you have laid this information out and included the key points to give people the ‘heads up’ to benefit from your experience. I will be returning here when I start my own Pinterest account going.
Pinterest is a social media platform that I haven’t yet explored, but definitely should, and you offer some fantastic tips not only for how to make pins go viral, but even for how to get started!
I have been using Pinterest as my major traffic source ever since I started blogging. I have seen my Pinterest views go from less than 1k to 100k plus in a month, and I’ve also seen it crash back to 40k and then went back up again because of changes in the Pinterest algorithm. I have had a few viral pins that raked in traffic to my blog and landed me some serious affiliate income.
I would say, apart from the things you listed, which are basic, the key is in your pinning strategy. I used both Tailwind and Manual pinning when I first started and pinned up to 200 pins daily (30% mine and 70% others). I pinned to group boards with high engagement and visibility and I got my pins shared by some top bloggers as a result which is what helped the pins go viral.
Now I do only manual pinning and pin about 200-300 pins daily– I spend 3 hours (1hour in the morning, evening and midnight when I’m doing my blogging duties) pinning. I now pin 40% of my content and 60% of others. I try to create at least 10 new pins each day for the top post on my blog and pin them. I had abandoned my blog for a couple of months and only got back recently and my traffic is picking up really fast with this strategy.
Getting a viral pin is beyond just the aesthetics. It takes a lot of work and getting your pins in front of people who will share them and help make them go viral.
I completely agree, the key to Pinterest is consistency. I do talk about how to be consistent in a few other blog posts.
But I’m surprised you pin 200-300 pins every day. That is a lot and you don’t need to pin that many a day. I usually pin about 100 a day, about 70 from Tailwind and the 30 manually. I have been running tests where I pin much less. I’m still in the middle of running these tests but so far I have seen I am getting the same results whether I pin 100 or 50.
Thank you for this insight. Pinterest have proven to be a great traffic generator for my site.
Thank you for the great insite. We are just starting our pinterest page and appreciate your help.
My experience with all the social media has been a struggle. I think I have done several of these, but there are some I’m going to work on, including checking out some of your other posts (I saved them and pinned them). I’m not sure where to find out ow much traffic I’m getting on my blog or how much traffic is coming from specific pins, so I have some work to do there, too. Thanks for these tips. I’ll be working harder on Pinterest for awhile.
Pinterest has not been my favorite. We have huge dry spells and then spikes of excited virality that last a few days a goes away. I’ll keep on plugging away!
Very helpful! I’m just starting to work on Pinterest and need to figure out the keywords.
I really suck at pinterest 🙈 well i did not know that there is seo in pinterest too. Will try your tips! 🙂
Wow I’m just starting to use Pinterest now, for the longest time I didn’t have one because I was worried it was just another platform to upkeep. I need to Pinterest optimize my photos and use Pinterest smarter not harder
Love all these tips!
I am still considering setting up a Pinterest account. This post helps to get familiar with what I consider technical stuff. Interesting to see SEO here as well.
We’re you reading my mind when you shared this post?! Lol. I’ve been working on upping my Pinterest game this week by creating new pins for some older blog posts and helping them along. These tips are amazing and so helpful to this task!
I seriously needed this! Bookmarking and repinning for sure!