Hashtags on Pinterest, Yay or Nay?
As business owners, we know that diversifying our content among multiple marketing platforms like IG, Facebook, and Pinterest is a good way to reach a wider audience. But with that comes learning the rules of various platforms. Sadly, some strategies just don’t cross over well (wouldn’t it be easy if it did!?). One thing that leaves many marketers scratching their heads is whether or not to use hashtags on Pinterest. Social Media marketing gurus have big opinions on this, and I’ve seen some heated discussions in forums on the effectiveness of hashtags on Pinterest (I brought my popcorn).
Instead of listening to these so-called “gurus”, let’s see what Pinterest says about the use of hashtags on the platform.
Why do Marketing Experts think Hashtags are a good strategy?
But before I get to that, let me explain this all started when Pinterest suddenly disabled all the hashtags on the platform. They stated spammers were using them to, well, spam, so in an effort to preserve the integrity of the platform, they were disabled. By that, I mean you could see them but they weren’t clickable. However, some marketers continued to put hashtags in their pin titles and pin descriptions “just in case” they were reactivated, arguing if nothing else, they would be words to help with SEO.
As soon as everyone was getting used to the idea that hashtags weren’t clickable, Pinterest started reactivating them (commitment issues maybe, IDK). And then the debate started back up, “Are hashtags necessary?” After all, we had survived on keywords alone for quite a while and were perfectly fine!
What does Pinterest say about Hashtags?
That’s when I reached out to Pinterest. I needed to know for myself what their intent was and why hashtags were back. I emailed support and asked “I noticed hashtags were clickable on mobile again, should we use them in our pin descriptions?”
This was their response:
So, they aren’t recommended but we can use them if we want to? How vague, Rachel!
What happens if we do include hashtags on Pinterest? Do they help?
I decided to find out.
Up until this point, the strategy I use for myself and all of my clients revolves around very targeted keywords. We know SEO is the tried and true method for connecting your pins to the most interested Pinterest user. You can find out more about finding top notch keywords here. But what happens if you include hashtags in a pin description?
Turns out, if someone finds a clickable hashtag in your pin descriptions, and they click on it, Pinterest will convert it to a regular old keyword in the search bar and send you to that search page. It looks a little something like this:
If you can’t watch the video, I found a summer salad recipe that had a whole slew of hashtags stuffed at the end of the description. One of which being “#refreshing”. I clicked on that, and Pinterest removed the actual # and opened up a new search for “refreshing”. Which populated a bunch of pin about refreshing drinks.
Why are hashtags bad for your Pinterest marketing strategy?
Let’s take the example of the “#refreshing summer salad recipe” I found.
- First thing to note is that Pinterest sees hashtags as a plain old keyword. In fact, had I clicked on “#healthyfood”, it would populate a search for “healthyfood” (no space). So there’s no use in researching hashtags if they are only going to populate as keywords. Focus on keywords, just like you would for Google.
- Second, hashtags invite Pinterest users to leave you pin, which is counter productive to the goal of Pinterest marketing. You want the only clickable link on that pin to be to your website, not to a whole new search category.
- They are wasting your time. If you absolutely hate doing hashtag research on IG (like I do) you’re likely thrilled to hear this. Since they are unnecessary for any Pinterest growth, there’s no need to rack your brain trying to find the best hashtags, as they certainly don’t cross pollinate between platforms.
What do I suggest?
I’d skip the hashtags all together and focus on finding short and long tail keywords that will drive Pinterest users to your content. So where do you find great keywords? I’d start with the search bar inside Pinterest. For more details on this, head over to my Pinterest SEO Training. If you’re looking to establish a solid Pinterest Marketing strategy, check out this blog post.
Happy Pinning,
Sarah
