5 Pinterest Faux Pas and How to Fix Them

You’re using your personal account as your food blog account

While your blog’s Pinterest account can definitely serve to humanize you through your profile image, your bio, your Pins and their descriptions, it’s important to remember that you are not your food blog. Your blog’s Pinterest account should include a professional profile image, a bio that focuses on you as a food blogger, and a link to your food blog. Your food blog’s boards and Pins should be tailored to the interests of your audience.

Your Pinterest account is a chaotic labyrinth of boards

There’s a fine line between organizing and nit-picking. The more boards you include in your Pinterest account, the more difficult it will be for your audience to find the boards that interest them. Eliminate boards that don’t serve your audience or are unrelated to your blog, or move them to your personal account.

Furthermore, take time to put your boards into an order that makes sense. Looking through dozens of food blog-related Pinterest accounts, one of the things that I noticed was a lack of coherent order.

Because most of us have an attention span about as long as a baby carrot, you don’t want to force your followers to spend time trying to figure out whether your famous carrot cake recipe would be in your board titled Colorful Carrots, Creative Cakes, Healthy Desserts, or Old-Fashioned Sweets. Again, keep board hierarchy simple and easy to follow, perhaps borrowing from your blog’s recipe index as a model. You can move boards around easily on your Board index page.

Your images aren’t Pin-worthy

Pinterest is all about visual appeal, and when you’re pinning for your food blog, you should do so with a discriminating eye. For best quality, pin images that are at least 600px. Choose the most tantalizing image from each board to serve as the Board’s cover image.

Remember this tip as you’re creating images for your blog as well. Make sure you provide Pin-worthy images for readers and brand them with your logo so that Pinterest users can find you when they fall in love with your shared recipes! For extra credit, add Rich Pins to your food blog so that your recipes are as easy to read in the Pinterest app as on your food blog.

You’re bombarding followers with Pins

If you’re super-excited about getting your newest board started and you’ve got dozens of images to add, start with a secret board. This will allow you to add multiple pins without cluttering up your followers’ feeds.

Otherwise, spread posts out over the course of a day or week.

You’re not being social

Yes, Pinterest is a great way to get the word out about your food blog, but it is ultimately a social media channel. Emphasis on the social. Share Pins from brands that are relevant to your food blog or from other foodies. Create a Shared board and collaborate with followers, fans, and fellow bloggers to build camaraderie. Get involved in the social aspect of Pinterest in order to grow your following and gain the respect of your peers.

Where does your Pinterest account have room for improvement?