To some extent, you can tell when people are more likely to be on Pinterest. Data shows that, across all topics and areas of interest, Pinterest traffic is the heaviest between 2 PM and 4 PM on weekdays. You will have the next best chance of connecting with a lot of traffic at nighttime on weekdays, as that is the second busiest period for traffic. These are just averages, however. You need to monitor your own Pinterest account to see when engagement is the highest for your pins and boards.
Understanding when to pin is important. You should also know how frequently you should be pinning to get the best results out of your marketing efforts. Should you pin once a day, several times a day, 3 times a week or on some other schedule? If you pin too frequently, you water down your content and may look like a spammer. If you don’t pin frequently enough, people forget you are there.
So, how frequently should you be pinning?
It has proven most effective for a lot of people on Pinterest to spread out their pinning activities. Varying your pins throughout the day “… exposes you to different segments of the Pinterest population and can lead to more exposure, re-pins and followers,” according to the Buffer website.
A lot of social media experts recommend pinning at least 5 times per day. If you have a very active website or blog and tons of content, you can try up to 20 or 30 pins per day.
Remember to spread your pinning throughout the day, so you don’t look like you are spamming, or pummeling your followers and other Pinterest users with content. By the way, the Buffer website recommends focusing on Monday for fitness topics, Tuesday for gadgets and Wednesday for inspirational quotes. Thursday is fashion day, Friday seems to be popular for funny GIFs and images, Saturday for travel topics and Sunday for food and crafts.
If pinning 5 to 30 times each day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year seems daunting, there is help available. Free and paid resources like ViralTag, TailWind, BoardBooster, Buffer, ViralWoot and Pinvolve are perfect for automating the pinning process.
You can load all of your pins once a week or once a month, and they are distributed on whatever schedule you develop. Remember, your Pinterest account is unique. This means that all the data you see about when you should be pinning and how frequently you should be pinning only gives you a rough idea to help you develop a pinning schedule.
You should monitor your account closely and see when you get the most engagement, then plan your pinning schedule accordingly. Using the Pinterest Analytics Tool, you can see how engagement on Pinterest goes up or down over a set period of time. Experiment with how frequently you pin content. Then study the results. This will help you develop a pinning schedule that Goldilocks would be proud of, one that is “just right” for maximum results.
