Should you repin your own pins and content on Pinterest? Pinterest has made it more difficult to repin your content by hiding the ‘save’ button above the pin. In this blog post, I’m sharing what Pinterest strategy you should do instead to get more traffic back to your website.
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Should you repin your own pins on Pinterest?
The only thing consistent about Pinterest is that it is always changing. I appreciate that, actually. The creator’s team at Pinterest is working really hard to listen to the content creators of Pinterest to find out the best way to deliver the most inspiring and actionable content on Pinterest.
As marketers on Pinterest, we of course want to drive traffic from the Pinterest platform to our sites. But, should we repin our own pins over and over again?
According to Pinterest, when we confirm our domain (simply confirming our website with Pinterest), they are looking for domain authority. Domain authority is a fancy way of asking— is this a trusted site that gives good information? Are pinners coming either from your site via Google or another Instagram platform and saving the pin? Are they visiting the pin from Pinterest and saving the pin to read later? If Pinterest identifies this as happening over and over again, it can increase your domain authority with the website. Your pins are more relevant and therefore will show higher in the Pinterest smart feed or search.
An even better strategy is to create ‘fresh pins’ for your past content. You can read more about that strategy in this post, but the goal is to remember a fresh pin is a graphic that is new to Pinterest and has never been posted before. If you’ve got traction on a post and it is driving traffic and conversions/sales, consider creating ‘fresh pins’ instead!
LOOKING FOR EASY TO EDIT PINTEREST TEMPLATES FOR CANVA?
Random, but relevant. I recently noticed that Pinterest added this prompt when I visited a pin from Pinterest to the website on mobile. They are polling pinners to find out if the content is helpful.
So, by repinning or saving your content, you aren’t doing much to help your domain authority. And in fact, if you do it too much, it might appear as spam on the platform.
What should you do instead?
Pin from Website to Pinterest
What do I mean? Either go to your website and manually pin your recent (or top evergreen content) from your website or use a Pinterest approved scheduler like Tailwind. Tailwind is an Instagram and Pinterest scheduler I use every day in my business. All pins that are scheduled from Tailwind are not considered ‘repins’ (even if you pulled them straight from the Tailwind extension on Pinterest to your queue).
What about popular evergreen or seasonal content?
The same rule applies. You can certainly go into your main boards and schedule your content on Pinterest again for a season or to repurpose your top content, but be sure to either go into the original post (this is cumbersome, when you really think about it), or use the Tailwind browser extension and pin the content again from the Tailwind app and queue.
Still confused? Just remember pinning either from your website or via Tailwind is best! Pinning from a scheduler or straight from your domain trumps repinning on the platform.
Are you new to Pinterest and want more tips to get started? See my introductory post Getting Started on Pinterest and don’t forget to sign up for my email newsletter below. You’ll receive my FREE Pinterest Start-up Guide for your creative small business where I give easy actionable steps to getting started on Pinterest! Ready to automate your Pinterest marketing strategy? Learn from my How to Use Tailwind course!
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Hi Vanessa! I’ve been away from Pinterest for a couple of years, so having to relearn the changes is tricky! So I’ve learned from this blog post that I should have fresh pins, and if I want to repin one of my recipes, I should go directly from my website or use a service like Tailwind. Makes sense. My question is, let’s say I have several boards that has my pin for “Lasagna.” That pin is currently on my main blog board (every recipe I’ve posted is on there once), my board “Main Dishes” and “Pasta”. So it’s on 3 boards. When I’m repinning it to Main Dishes, am I still leaving the old pin on there? Now it’s on there twice. But I’m afraid to delete it because it might be a well performing pin. I guess I’m just confused about repinning my content over and over. And I’d like to repin things since I’ve been stagnant for 2 years. Thank you for your help!
Yes, when you ‘repin’ a fresh pin (of an older post), you definitely leave the older pin there. Just continue to add to that board and don’t worry if it is repeated. Just don’t repeat too frequently or it might be seen as spam. I’d go slow at repinning your new content. Maybe pick 3 posts and start pinning those this week, and so on. Make sure you are spreading out your content with other’s pins to within those boards.
Hi Vanessa, would creating a new pinterest Picture with the same old site Link (same link from old/previous Pin) be considered a repin (and be seen as a “spam”)? and do hashtags work?
Creating a new image with an old link would be considered a fresh pin and is a REALLY good strategy! Hashtags send strong keywording signals to the Pinterest platform so they are worth using!
Thank you for explaining the repinning of old or already pinned content. Like Dee, I was totally confused. But, I’m good now!
It can be so confusing, Carol! I’m glad you’ve got it figured out. 🙂
Hey Vanessa, I hope all is well.
Quick question about pinning. Do you pin other users content to your board or just your own? I am new to pinning and have really only pinned my content. It has reached a little over 11K views in a week. What I don’t want to do is seem like I am spamming as you mentioned above, but I am the only person that writes on my blog (about 2 posts a week). Basically, should I be adding other pins to my board that are relevant to my content, and will it hurt my brand views?
Yes, you can definitely pin others content (focus on content that is relevant to your own!). It won’t hurt your brand views at all. It can send strong signals to the platform WHAT type of content your business profile is about. 🙂
Hi Vanessa. Thanks for this information! I have a new business and I am working on building up my Pinterest account I’m getting into blogging and creating graphics to pin/share from the blog, however, most of my pins right now are just graphics with a link to my website. In other words, most of my images/graphics do not “live” on my website. While I have definitely “claimed” my website, I”m now thinking that my pins don’t really send the “Domain Authority” message to Pinterest to being with. (?) I also have been re-pinning my pins to other boards I own and I’m wondering if that’s a waste of time. If I do fresh pins for the pins I already have pinned (but same image and link to my website with a changeup in the description?) will I be better off?
Repinning to other boards (if they have keyworded board names and descriptions) is not a waste of time! It’s good for Pinterest SEO! It’s ok if the pin image doesn’t live on the blog post, but if the subject of the pin image isn’t in the post, it could be confusing for your visitors. Consider adding pin images in to get visitors to share the pin from your website TO Pinterest for stronger domain authority!
My most recent blog is only about a month old. I didn’t do as much with my older blogs when it came to Pinterest so I only just really started getting into it. I created a couple graphics for my first posts and looking back I think the graphics are kind of blah. I want to redo them with newer graphics but how soon is it ok to add a new pin (I use Tailwind) with a fresh new picture but the same link to the same blog post? I have a food blog.
Right now most of my pins are from other people’s content because I only have 7 posts to pin. Should I wait a couple weeks? It is really my first couple that I am itching to get a new graphic on and they are from 3 weeks ago.
Hi Dawn! It’s never too soon or late to add new fresh pin images to old blog posts! It’s definitely a good strategy! Sift through all of your old posts and start making new graphics!
Hi there, thanks for the helpful post! I’m still a bit confused about how often I should repin the same content. For instance, I recently started a food blog, and am wondering how often I should post a pin about the same recipe? I have a pin that’s been shared over 9 thousand times in 8 days. How often should I be re pinning that recipe? Thanks in advance for your advice!
Hi Jill, there isn’t an easy answer to that question. If you have had virality (congrats!) pinning it daily or every other day when it is fresh content it is great. Using SmartLoop to loop through your past top content is a smart idea too.
Hey Vanessa.. Wonderful guide.. thanks a lot
I recently signed up for tailwind and scheduled a couple of already existing pins rather than simply repinning them as i had been doing before.
But i noticed that the pins i re-schedule through tailwind show zero impression at first even on Pinterest.
Is this supposed to happen? I was expecting to see the individual impressions for the pin on tailwind while seeing the aggregate impressions on Pinterest.. but that’s not the case..
Please is this supposed to happen or is it normal?
Hi Sarah! Unfortunately, it’s not a simple answer. They are supposed to aggregate, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t!
Hi Vanessa!
My Pinterest account got suspended yesterday. 🙁 I am crushed. I ave never received notices of violations of any kind and never pin anything inappropriate and do not partake in any spam practices. I pin and repin about 10-20 things per day at most. I have appealed to Pinterest and they just keep sending automated responses saying I violated the spam policy. I have read the guidelines and cannot think of anything I could have possibly done other than this, which is repinning my own pins. I have done this with my pins in the way you describe, like I’ll go find an old pin I haven’t pinned in a month or so, and I will “repin” the same image from that page.
Do you think Pinterest is started to flag repins as a negative, and have you heard of anyone else being suspended for this? I had 45,000 followers, and now my account is just gone, and I’m crushed. 🙁
Hi Kbell! You aren’t alone. This definitely happens to innocent pinners too. If you truly think you haven’t pinned spam or done something wrong, email creators-support@pinterest.com and tell them why you think your account suspension was a mistake. Many people have had their accounts restored.