Going viral on Pinterest is what every blogger, business owner, and Pinterest marketing expert hopes and dreams for.
It means Pinterest users are sharing, saving, and clicking through a Pinterest image to their websites and reading the content.
While there’s no guaranteed way or magic formula to make it happen, there are plenty of Pinterest tips and tricks for how to make your Pinterest pins go viral.
Or what I like to call, a perennial pin. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?
Seemingly random pins that keep getting saved and clicked over and over at about a rate of 3 times more often than average pins are considered viral on Pinterest. Viral pins aren’t limited to static images either, lots of content creators are now seeing their video and story pins going viral on Pinterest too!
Sometimes the cycle originates from a single Pinterest user with very few followers pinning it to one of their boards. As this cycle of saves continues to grow, Pinterest’s algorithm shares your pin more and more often to its users.
To put it simply, you’ve hit the jackpot!
While eye-catching Pinterest pin design (I recommend using Canva Pro for this) ignites the flame under a pin and causes it to go viral on Pinterest initially, there are a few other hacks you can try to influence how often your pin is saved and clicked by the platform’s users:
Follow Pinterest’s creative best practices
Staying up to date with the platform’s creative best practices is an essential part of having your pins go viral on Pinterest. If you want your pins seen, saved, and clicked, it makes sense that you need to follow their guidelines.
For instance, pinnable images need to be a 2:3 aspect ratio. Depending on your website’s preferences this can be anywhere from 600 x 900 to 1000 x 1500 pixels.
In addition, Pinterest has said that their artificial intelligence can’t read script or cursive fonts, so in order for it to know how to categorize your pin, it’s best to stay away from pretty fonts.
Not following Pinterest’s best practices is the reason a lot of content creators see a drop in Pinterest traffic, so mark this essential on your Pinterest to-do list!
Compelling pin title text overlay
A client of mine saw a 4,000% increase in traffic with assistance from a single viral pin and all I did was change up the title on the text overlay a bit to achieve this. Try incorporating power words that provoke Pinterest users to click through to your website!
Optimizing your Pinterest schedule
You know what they say, timing is everything. This holds true when it comes to pins going viral on Pinterest. To give yourself the best chance of having a pin go viral on Pinterest, pin it to its most relevant board first, and during the season your pin most likely fits into.
This one is tricky, I know. There’s not always a perfect time to pin, but as long as you use your best judgment and a bit of strategy, you’ll increase your chances of going viral on Pinterest.
To ensure you’re pinning at the right time of day, try using a Pinterest scheduler like Tailwind. They have an awesome feature called Smart Schedule that can create optimized timeslots for when your target audience is most engaged.
Seasonality is also an important factor to consider in your pinning strategy and for trying to go viral on Pinterest. Pinning seasonal content at least 45 days prior to the start of a season is a best practice that I include in my own strategy. Why do this? Pinterest users are the type of people that enjoy planning ahead. This year, Pinterest trends suggested that holiday content was being searched for as early as April!
Using keywords in your titles & descriptions
Pinterest has a useful feature called, Pinterest Trends that allows content creators to search for keywords that could be trending right now.
This tool is especially helpful when you need keywords for pin descriptions, titles, or want to write a blog post geared towards what’s currently trending.
Also, try searching for your keywords within Pinterest’s search bar to see what other search terms pop up and include them within your titles and descriptions.
Creating visually compelling pin designs
I previously touched on how using Pinterest’s best practices as a guideline to creating pins is an important factor in going viral on Pinterest, but the pins themselves need to go beyond being the correct aspect ratio and easy to read.
They also need to be pin-worthy and eye-catching. Before I started offering pin creation as a service in my business, I spent a while asking myself what makes Pinterest users stop scrolling and read a pin before clicking on it.
For me personally, I love pins with easy-to-read fonts where the keywords stand out from the supporting text. These pins also have some mystery or propose a solution to a problem that causes me to click. You can see a visual example of what I mean by this in my post, How I Increased Pinterest Traffic by 4,000% Instantly.
How should you go about creating eye-catching pins? I am a huge advocate for using the web-based design platform Canva for anything and everything. They make it super easy for beginner designers to create beautiful graphics and offer a lot of tips, tricks, and shortcuts for creating designs fast.
Within the platform, you can customize one of their free Pinterest templates or design your own from scratch. They also have thousands of free stock photos and videos that can be used within your designs. A lot of the higher quality images and videos are exclusive to Canva Pro members that pay a monthly or annual fee for the platform, which is totally worth the money.
Canva is one of my 12 favorite Pinterest marketing tools for bloggers and essential to your success on the platform.
If you’re not design-savvy, hiring a Pinterest manager that offers pin design services may be the right option for you.
Adding your pins to Tailwind Communities
Exposure is a key factor in getting your pin to go viral on Pinterest! One way to do that is by using Tailwind Communities. If you don’t already know, Tailwind Communities can be found within your free Tailwind or Advanced account. It allows its users to join Communities related to their niches and add their pins to the Communities for other members to repin directly from within the platform!
This is a great idea and I’ll tell you why: Other members in your Communities may have a much larger reach that extends beyond your target audience. This means, more and more users will get the chance to see your pin!
If you’re too busy or are overwhelmed by learning another platform, let a Pinterest management professional take the reins and start growing your Pinterest traffic.
When you hire a Pinterest expert, you aren’t only are getting someone who knows everything about Pinterest, you’re also getting someone who is passionate about helping you grow your business!
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