23 Thing to avoid on Pinterest

Pinterest is a gift from heaven for any business. Yes, Pinterest does not only work for companies in tourism, fashion or the food industry. Not-so-visual businesses – including B2B’s – can profit as well.

The reason is, that Pinterest users pin all kinds of content and products they are interested in. They create wish lists with products they would like to have, things they recently bought, places they would like to travel, activities they want to do, etc.

A recent study by Millward Brown reveals that Pinterest helped 87% of the respondents to make a decision about which product to purchase after they gathered information on the social network.

It doesn’t make a difference if you are just starting out on Pinterest or if you have used it for some time now, it is important to know about all the things you rather shouldn’t do! Avoid the most common mistakes businesses make on Pinterest to get better results and avoid violating Pinterest rules and terms listed here. Also take a look at the brand guidelines and read what they don´t allow in the Acceptable Use Policy.

These are some of the things you should avoid doing on Pinterest:

Don’t just open an account because everyone you know is using Pinterest!
Don’t start without a strategy!
Don’t be one of the inconsistent businesses which open an account, create one or two boards, pin things for a couple of days and after a while forgets all about it.
Don’t use your personal account to promote business! Convert to a business account and verify your website!
Don’t operate with an incomplete profile! Or just create an account and then pin nothing!
Don’t forget to include a description for your boards! I’m guilty of this one too. I have a lot of boards and lost track over some of them. But I promise you, I will go back and add a description to the boards that don’t have one. And so should you. Make sure to add significant keywords to your board description!
Don’t leave your pins without a description! A blank space, a full stop or simply one word like “love”, “cute” or “pretty” is not helping you to get found in the search results.
Don’t display empty or incomplete boards! Pinterest gives you the opportunity to add so called secret boards. Use this kind of board until you pinned at least 5–10 images. Then make your board visible for the public eye.

Would you follow this account?

Don’t pin all content on one board! Create multiple boards.
Don’t use hashtags unless they are branded! They don’t work the same on Pinterest as they do on Twitter or Instagram.
Don’t use link shorteners! Even though some articles recommend using bit.lys, Pinterest is not a fan of link shorteners and marks them as spam.
Don’t only pin your own content! Avoid being one of those me-me-me-businesses which only care about themselves and their vision. Offer help and valuable advice from different sources and watch how people keep coming back for more.
Don’t forget to add a link when you upload your images! Always remember to click the edit button and to add a link to the original source of your content so your traffic from Pinterest increases.
Don’t pin too much at once! Try to PIN frequently new things and keep your audience engaged.
Don’t pin a new pin to all your boards at the same time! Pinning your content to different boards is a great tactic but don´t do it all at once. Wait a couple of days or weeks to pin the same content again.
Don’t break the rules in group boards you join! Each and every group board has its own rules. Some don’t allow more than 3 new pins a day from the same user or object to pinning horizontal images. Make sure you read the rules of each group board carefully before you ask to be invited or before you accept an invitation.
Don’t steal someone else’s images! There is no need to do so because you can create your own images in less than 2 minutes using these tools.
Don’t obsess over the number of followers ON your ACCOUNT! Pinterest requires a lot of patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day, right? So, don’t expect to gain thousands of followers overnight. Anyway, the number of followers is not as important on Pinterest as it is on Twitter or Facebook because people can find pins in the Guided Search and Pinterest shows recommended pins in the feed or boards in the emails they send.
Don’t oversell! Instead help, inspire, educate and entertain. The sales will follow naturally!
Avoid pinning low quality images!
Don´t put text overlay on images related to promotions! Why it´s a bad idea to write something like “20% discount”? Because discounts last limited time and pins live forever. If you do you will confuse pinners once the promotion is over. Instead implement product rich pins which automatically change the product prices if there is a discount
Don’t use affiliate links on Pinterest! The network made some changes in February 2015 which are related to affiliate links. Now, included affiliate links lead to nowhere. Here’s an example: