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Content Best Practices: Creation & Curation

typicallytopical
Loves to help

Hey all,

Hoping someone can shed a little light on what Pinterest's best practices are when it comes to content creation and curation.

I've read conflicting information: one post will say to pin 90% of your own content, and only 10% of others people's, but others will say to pin a good mix (i.e. 60% own content, 40% others) so you don't look spammy (the kind where you look at a board and it's the same blog post but just different pins all the time) and provide a better experience for anyone who comes across your account. 

Which method is best? Is there any harm in re-pinning other people's content as long as you're still actively pinning fresh, original content of your own?

Thanks!

@PinterestGabby @PinterestJanice 

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19 Replies
theburntsunsetnovel
Loves to help

I've noticed two tricks:

1) I like to sort content by boards and I post mostly original pins. I have a board dedicated to Percy Jackson and another to The Burnt Sunset (along with 10 other boards). I'm the author of The Burnt Sunset series. If I post a movie to my Percy Jackson board and later one to my The Burnt Sunset board, after someone watches the Percy movie, Pinterest will prompt the viewer to take a look at my latest movie on The Burnt Sunset board. Percy is far more popular world-wide but within my own account The Burnt Sunset is more popular. I call it excellence by association. In both cases I am posting original movies but only one pays homage to my product.

2) If I want to boost the traffic to my Percy board (and then eventually the board that features my book) I pin a popular post made by someone else. I rarely do this but it has the effect of reminding people interested in Percy Jackson that I have a board for it. Once they find my Percy Jackson board, then they find my The Burnt Sunset Board.

I do the same thing for Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, and Divergent. Again I post mostly original content but not all of it pays homage to my product. 

https://www.pinterest.com/theburntsunsetnovel/solstice-dayton-the-burnt-sunset/ 

https://www.pinterest.com/theburntsunsetnovel/percy-jackson/ 

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PinterestGabby
Community Manager
Community Manager

Nice tricks there, @theburntsunsetnovel! Tagging in some other folks to chime in on suggestions who might have some thoughts on this. 😉

@AmericanoCrystals , @jfishkind, @coolchillmom, @hostesstori, @foodiehomechef

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jfishkind
Posts regularly

I find pinning relevant and recent pins does best for me. I don't focus on a hard number of what I pin of mine and what I pin of others. If it is quality content I will pin it, but I don't curate other people's content. 

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coolchillmom
Posts regularly

It is not a numbers game for me.  I just focus on sharing fresh pins of mine and pinning valuable and quality pins from others.

Sometimes, the topic addressed by the pin makes me want to pin it even if it doesn't meet my quality requirements.  The topic makes a difference too and might help others.

Consistency has been key for my fresh pins

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PinterestGabby
Community Manager
Community Manager

@therealsouthamerica and @owlbbaking, too! Can only tag up to 5 community members per post. 😞 

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therealsouthamerica
Jack-of-all-trades

Hi there - what I have been doing is creating my pins when I post new content | video to my site and running an ad linking my content to my site and so far so good. I am working on a story pin with a video staring ME 😎 and intend to run an ad for that pin as well really also looking to see whether there is consistency et al. I try really hard to pin equally pinning both my content and other's content but sometime I just don't have the time.

I have all but stopped listening to other people online about Pinterest as even with the best intentions they don't know or in some cases they are flat out wrong. I have been reading Pinterest Best Practices and that seems to be working I use the information and apply it to what I am doing.

Lastly, I pay a lot of attention to SEO I never used to but now I realize how wrong I was that definitely does matter I use the Trend feature and adjust the SEO accordingly - its not perfect but it helps.

Lisa

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foodiehomechef
Jack-of-all-trades

Some great advice here & I'll add my thoughts... I generally go with an 80% pinning of others pins & about 20% of mine. That's not a hard & fast rule but close to my strategy.

I do a lot of my work through Tailwind & own my own Food Blogging Tribe. I'm very particular about who I let into my tribe, I screen them thoroughly & they MUST have quality pins on their Pinterest account, otherwise I don't allow them in. This helps me in the long run, as most of the pins, that I pin to my own account, come from the tribe & therefore know they've been screened & have quality content... a win win!

I also spend a lot of time on the upkeep of my boards. I change my board covers & keep them well organized : https://www.pinterest.com/foodiehomechef/boards/

I also agree wholeheartedly with Lisa @realsouthamerica about not listening to other people about Pinterest and sticking with Pinterest Best Practices.

Hope some of that helps, Simone

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foodiehomechef
Jack-of-all-trades

@PinterestGabby @PinterestJanice Can either of you tell me why I constantly  keep getting the error message below? Here's a SS of my entire reply to typicallytopical. I've gotten to the point where I always have to copy my messages to Window Notepad before I press "Enter", just in case PBC truncates it. You'll need to compare the two... the message I was allowed to post & the original.PBC Post Truncated.jpg

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typicallytopical
Loves to help

Thank you all for your comments! I realise there's no hard and fast rule for this sort of thing, but with all the conflicting info out there, it gets confusing sometimes.

As @therealsouthamerica said I'm starting to take less notice of what is said in external communities - I often find it causes people to panic or worse...buy something they don't need haha!

Thanks again!

Charl

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