I recently had my Pinterest account suspended and after a few days of back-and-forth with Pinterest Support I have come to the conclusion that it is basically dead. I want to share the story of how I ended up here so that you do not. Pinterest can be a very powerful tool for getting traffic to your website as well as a fun way for your readers to share and save blog post they like.
As I have had some time to reflect and except that the suspension was probably the result of my own actions I can see an easy comparison between my story and the story of Icarus.
In the story of Icarus, Icarus escapes a labyrinth using wings constructed for him out of things that were just lying around. The construction of the wings was sound and he was able to fly out of the labyrinth. Unfortunately Icarus becomes drunk on his own accomplishment and flies ever higher and higher. The higher he flies the closer he gets to the sun. The closer he gets to the sun the warmer his wings become and since they are just held together with beeswax eventually the wings fall apart and Icarus falls into the sea.
I know my stories no Greek legend but I think people can still learn from my mistakes.
It all started out so simply.
If you do not already know, when you create a new blog website it can take quite a long time for new blog posts to rank on search engines. This can leave your website looking and feeling like a ghost town for months.
I had heard that creating a Pinterest account for your blog website was a good way to get traffic to it in this early stage.
So I created and set up a Pinterest account for my blog website. When I adopt a new tool I like to create a step-by-step method to follow for posting content. When I first started using Pinterest this method was quite simple but overtime evolved to be my downfall.
My method stage 1
- Write a blog post
- Design a basic pin for it
- Pin that image linked to the blog post
At the end of stage 1 my Pinterest monthly views were 7500.
Growing My Pinterest Account
After creating my account and posting a few pins I became very interested in how I could grow my account.
I started doing a bunch of research on Google and YouTube to see how other people had grown their accounts. I have a blog post about these strategies which you can check out by clicking on the link below.
I was proud up myself. I had done the research and then I done the work. After adding a few more steps to my method which I learned in this research I started seeing more visitors to my website from Pinterest.
I want to point out this was not a huge change in traffic. But when you have a new website in your traffic is zero and you are able to make it go from 0 to 10 that can be pretty exciting. It can also lead you to try and amplify those results. It was this want to amplify my traffic that I think caused the most problems for me.
My method stage 2
- Write a blog post
- Design a pin image using Canva
- Add image to blog post
- Pin that image linked to the blog post
- Fill the whole Description
- Add 3 related hashtags
- Share on 3 Tailwind Tribes
I also experimented with a few $5 Pinterest ad campaigns during this stage.
At the end of stage 2 my Pinterest monthly views were 20,000. This growth only took 2 weeks. I did post about 20 blogs in that time.
Flying Too High
This is where I think the trouble started. I had been so successful in such a short time at growing my Pinterest account. I wanted to see if I could grow it more and faster. This lead me to make some dumb mistakes.
I think if I had just stuck with the method in stage 2 I would not have lost my account. Unfortunately I had to push it and when you push things to far they break.
My method stage 3
- Write blog post
- Design 3 pin images using Canva
- Add the 3 images to the blog post
- Pin those images linked to the blog post
- Fill the whole Description
- Add 3 related hashtags
- Shared on 7 Tailwind Tribes
- Share pins on Facebook group Repin threads
- Share pins to multiple boards
- Follow 50 people in my niche a day
Adding this many steps makes it difficult to judge which of them is effecting your results the most. On top of that it is just more work.
I was focused on the wrong metric, monthly views. I was able to grow this from 1500 to 85,000 but in the end it was not worth it.
I should have kept my focus on website traffic. As my monthly views grew and grew my click through rate did not. I never got more than 15 views a day from Pinterest even with my huge monthly view numbers.
The End
Well this is how it all fell apart.
After taking a break from Pinterest and visiting my family over thanksgiving I got back to it.
I was doing my usual daily thing, following a few Pinterest accounts. After following about 15 accounts Pinterest gave me the boot. I was locked out of my account!
I got an email saying my account had been suspended because of spam.
I was stunned!
All those hours of hard work and research wiped away in a single second. I could not believe it.
Dealing With Pinterest Suspension
Almost immediately after reading this Pinterest suspension email I began going through the 5 stages of grief.
Denial
My first thought was this must be some kind a mistake. I’ll get in contact with Pinterest and they will reactivate my account and tell me they are sorry.
I was so sure I would get my Pinterest account reactivated I wrote a blog post on what to do if your Pinterest account gets suspended.
You can find that blog post by clicking on the link below.
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/what-to-do-if-your-pinterest-account-is-suspended-with-pictures/
After actually getting in touch with Pinterest it did not look like it was going to go my way. Pinterest was set on keeping the account suspended and not telling me clearly why. The closest I could get to an explanation was I was participating in spammy behavior.
Anger
Now I was pissed. They would not tell me what I did wrong. They would not give me a way to get my account back. Pinterest had make their decision and their decision was final.
And to think I pay Pinterest for ads, I added hundreds of pieces of content to Pinterest platform, and I shared hundreds of other peoples pens as well.
It has been hours sorting pins on the proper boards, creating interesting and descriptive descriptions, and designing eye-catching pins. And now it was all for nothing because Pinterest decided my account should be suspended.
Bargaining
After I cool down a little bit from being pissed off I decided to try and contact Pinterest again. I asked them if there was anything I could do to try and get my Pinterest account back. I apologize for whatever I have done to be suspended. I asked if they could clarify what that thing was so that I would not do it again. And then I politely asked to have my account reactivated.
I was met with a brief email reply. Basically it said they decided my account should be suspended because some of my actions went against their anti-spam policy. They told me they would no longer be able to look into the issue and that it was resolved.
Depression
Now I knew there was no turning back. My Pinterest account was gone, Suspended, deleted, removed, and destroyed.
Even my URLs on existing pins are now blocked. If you try to click on them you will receive a spam warning message and you will not be allowed to visit my website.
It was all terrible news. I spent several days feeling very down on myself about it.
Acceptance
Well, as they say, time heals all wounds. About a week after being suspended from Pinterest I finally accepted that it was my fault. I knew pouting about it would not change anything.
So I decided to make lemons into lemonade.
If I could stop one person from making the mistakes I had made maybe it would be worth it. So I decided to share this story. It was not easy to share but I think it is for the best.
Pinterest Behavior To Avoid
I can not tell you exactly what it was that got my account suspended because Pinterest would not clearly answer that question, but I can guess.
Posting Too Much Too Fast
If you combine the number of pins I physically posted everyday with the number of pins I had posted using Tailwind’s pins scheduler I was posting somewhere between 65 and 100 times a day.
With Pinterest less is more. Do not flood it with pins, they will notice.
Posting The Same Pin On Multiple Boards
This is straight up listed in Pinterest spam policy. Do not do it. Just post your pins to the best possible board. That should keep you out of trouble.
Using Pinterest Sharing Facebook Groups
I am pretty sure this was a major mistake. Let your pins grow organically. Using this type of repin for repin group is dishonest and I am pretty sure it is against Pinterest spam policies.
Posting Multiple Pins For the Same Blog
Keep it simple. One pin per post.
Using Too Many Tailwind Tribes
Do not get me wrong, Tailwind is a great tool for growing your Pinterest account. Tailwind tribes can also be very useful but posting the same pin to many tribes is not the best idea.
Mostly because if the tribes are in related niches chances are the same people are in those tribes.
It is better to pick a few and share different pins instead of the same pin to a ton of tribes.
To learn more about Tailwind click the link below.
https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/new-tailwind-users-get-15-tailwind-plus-credit/
Following Too Many People Too Fast
Take this slow. This is the last thing I did on Pinterest. Personally I do not know what the limit is for this but you should try to stay as far away from it as you can.
Putting Promoting Over Content
The quality of your contacts should always be you are number one focus. While promoting your Content is very useful it should not be your primary focus.
Conclusion
While sharing the story was not easy to do I hope at least by sharing it I can help someone avoid the mistakes I have made. It really sucks being suspended from Pinterest and if you can avoid it I highly recommend doing so.
While being suspended from Pinterest was not my favorite experience, I do think I can walk away with a few valuable lessons.
The first one being Patience.
Growing up presents online takes time. When you try to force this you will probably cause nothing but problems. I am going to try and let my web presence grow organically from here on out. It will not be easy but I think it is for the best.
The second lesson I learned was to put content over promotion. Now that I can no longer promote my blog on Pinterest I suddenly have more time to focus on creating content. I am going to choose to take it vantage of this extra time I found.
I hope this blog post was helpful or at least entertaining. Feel free to share your Pinterest story in the comments.
Have a great day!