(This is in reference to the changes happening with Pinterest in 2021)

Let’s talk about what you should do if your traffic is down and you’re frustrated with Pinterest. I’m not talking about checking your SEO or your keywords or anything like that, because that’s what everybody’s gonna tell you to do. What I’m talking about is for the people who don’t feel like Pinterest is for them anymore, the people who feel like they should focus their efforts elsewhere, for the people who feel like Pinterest has overstayed its welcome in the business world.

The first thing I want to say is that Pinterest is here to stay. It is not like Clubhouse or any other fad social media platform that is still trying to make its way in the world. Over the years Pinterest has climbed to the third highest ranking search engine in the world, behind Google and YouTube. It’s not going anywhere- it might pivot, expand, try new things, but it’s not leaving.

Let’s look at some stats. Pinterest currently has over 400 million users on the platform (and that’s after they spent the summer clearing out all of the bot accounts). Based on that number alone, odds are your ideal client has used Pinterest to search for content that you offer. But what if your analytics tanked? Do you think it would be wise to put your efforts into a different platform? Here’s some things to consider if that’s you:

Your pins are going to last months if not years, unlike the social media platforms where your content might make it 15 minutes. With that knowledge, even if traffic is down right now, when it picks back up you will be there, ready and waiting. I was not managing accounts in 2016, but I’ve heard many stories of people who bailed on the platform when the 2016 changes happened, and when things leveled out those creatives who stopped using Pinterest missed out on a huge growth opportunity and the people who stayed got to reap the benefits.

The second thing I want you to consider is that searches on Pinterest are influenced by real world events. Can you imagine being an online business coach or a product based business that sold desks at the beginning of 2020? Pinterest searches for at home offices, work from home jobs, and even closet offices skyrocketed because of a major world event that had us searching for new ways of life.

It actually doesn’t have to be something major to tip the searches in your favor. Check out the spike in searches for email marketing content when Facebook and Instagram took a six hour siesta. Imagine if you were an email marketing expert and you had left the platform over the summer because analytics weren’t what they were three years ago. You would have missed out on this spike of searches!

All that to say, even if your Pinterest traffic is not what it used to be, I don’t think leaving the platform would be in your best interest. Tweak your strategy, audit your account (Learn how I can help!), improve your SEO, understand the way the new analytics are reading your data (see this blog post), and keep producing content so that whenever the world needs access to your knowledge, they will have it readily available.

-Sarah