Site icon Alisa Meredith

Pinterest FAQ: How Many Times Should I Pin Per Day?

How much should I really be pinning? Do I need to pin 300 times a day? via @alisammeredith
You don’t want an “it depends” answer, so I won’t give you one. Instead, I’ll tell you – somewhere between one and 5o is the right number of pins per day.

Not super helpful, you say? Well, there are some bloggers who pin 100 or more times a day (I really don’t know how), so you can consider yourself off the hook for that level of pinsanity.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

One of the (ahem!) several of my feline companions, Snophie, assisting with storm cleanup.

Why does it matter? Well let me start with a confession. I am officially a crazy cat lady. It’s true – my vet confirmed the diagnosis (with too much amusement in my opinion).

I started out with good intentions – to control the feral cat problem in my neighborhood – and I am not even particularly attracted to cats. Well, I wasn’t. Now, I have more than I want to admit to here, and some are in varying states of unattractiveness to most rational humans. But, it got carried away and now, well you know. Most of the time this is not a huge problem. Sure, flea control is expensive, and vet bills can add up, but I don’t have children I’m depriving by caring for them, so it’s doable.

The trouble becomes apparent when, like last weekend, we have a hurricane. Here in North Carolina they do happen! This was the first big one since I moved here four years ago, and I was sick about what I’d do if we had to evacuate. Not just because evacuating is a pain and my disabled mother needed help, too, but what about the cats? ALLL the cats. Fortunately it all worked out, but I have to say, when you get carried away with something, at some point it’s going to cause trouble…

Do I digress? Perhaps a little, but bear with me because there is a good answer to how many times a day you can pin before becoming a crazy pin lady (or fella).

When Pinning, Start Small

By far, the most successful account I’ve ever had started AND REMAINED small in terms of pins per day. In fact, we only pinned 3-5 times per day for him – ever! But, they were well thought out pins with well-written descriptions, and it worked. Of the 200 leads we brought in for him each month, well over half came from Pinterest. That’s a lot of Pinterest love for less than two hours of work per week!

Once you’re comfortable with consistent pinning of quality content (you will need a scheduler like Tailwind  – affiliate link – to help you out!), start pinning a bit more.

Then Pin a Little More

More frequent pinning is an effective tactic for increasing your repins, follower count, and when pinning your own content (which you ARE doing, right?) – website traffic.

As you learn more about what works for your audience and the number of boards you have continues to grow, you’ll naturally want to pin more frequently. A good way to ease into more copious pin counts is to use Tailwind, which will suggest more times to pin on each day. See, here’s my schedule. The times outlined in dotted lines are times Tailwind knows are good times for engagement on my account. All I have to do is click to add. I could also add my own time slot, but they know better than I do, so I let them choose!

Why not modify your schedule once or twice a month and add one for each day of the week?

Don’t Get Carried Away with the Pins!

More is not ALWAYS better, however. Once you get above 50 pins per day, Pinterest tends to throttle your engagement and exposure. This according to Tailwind, which has 100K accounts from which to draw data.

I would challenge anyone with any kind of job or family responsibilities that pinning any more than 50 times per day is not the best use of your time. Not only does it not work, but can you REALLY be providing the kinds of content that are truly in service of your audience AND your business?

I’ve Hit My Pin Limit. What Else Can I Do?

If you find yourself with more time on Pinterest than you know what to do with (jealous!), may I instead suggest you create more content for your own site which you can then pin? If you have a post on your site which does great with search traffic, but seems to have a Pinterest cloak of invisibility, why not turn it into an infographic, a slideshare, or create gorgeous pinnable images for it?

You could also do a board audit – look at what is not working and see if you can change up a board’s purpose and then change the title, description and pins to suit that. It’s rarely necessary to delete an entire board. At most, you might set it to secret as you renovate.

There are so many productive things you can do on Pinterest – don’t anger the algo by Pinning more pins than you can do really well.

How many times a day do you pin? Do you use a scheduler or is it all real time? I’d love to hear about it on Twitter. Better yet, follow me and send me a message on Pinterest!

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I've been creating marketing strategies for years - for both B2C and B2B businesses, formerly as co-owner and chief strategist of a HubSpot partner agency, and since 2015 right here. I have a passion for businesses that make the world a better place in ways large and small, and the people who run those businesses are the ones I enjoy working with. I am slightly obsessed with Pinterest. Not just because it is fun, but because it works amazingly well for traffic and lead generation.