These visual marketers are getting RESULTS. 120k repins in 6 months. 80% of e-commerce traffic from Pinterest. 1.4M followers. Here’s how they did it.
We love to see our members grow and succeed on social media, in fact Tailwind’s mission is to make world-class marketing easy for everyone.
That’s why we created the Takeoff Awards: annual awards that honor those who have achieved massive growth on Pinterest.
To find our winners we dipped into the last 6 months of our data and uncovered 10 incredible success stories. Some of these Pinners achieved growth in followers, some substantially grew their Repins, others increased their Repins per Pin, and many did all three! These 10 success stories are the 2016 Tailwind Takeoff Award winners! ✈️
Congratulations to all of you!
Learn from their success
We interviewed each winner in-depth to unpack exactly what it is that they did to be so successful. Winners include bloggers, businesses, media companies, marketing agencies, startups and solopreneurs; so collectively their insights are applicable to nearly everyone.
Below you will find:
- 10 proven Pinterest strategies, dozens of tactics, hundreds of ideas
- 10 PDF case studies (one-click download, no-email-required)
- 5 video interviews with winners
- Dozens of Pinnable and Tweetable quotes and an infographic
The Winners
How Humor Enabled Pregnant Chicken to Get 120,000+ Repins
Winner Pregnant Chicken, Amy Morrison (Site/Pinterest)
Category Maternity/Humor Website
Quote ‘We create a handful of new pins each month and Repin our old content daily.’
In-Brief By exploring the lighter side of pregnancy and being intentional about virality and consistent Pinning, Pregnant Chicken managed to climb into the top 1% of Tailwind users by total Repins.
Using Pinterest to Drive 80% of Ecommerce Traffic
Winner Wedding Favors Unlimited, David Sherni (Site/Pinterest)
Category Ecommerce Business
Video Interview Details at the bottom of the page
Quote ‘Instagram and Facebook are great, but 80% of our traffic comes from Pinterest.’
In-Brief Pinterest is so popular with brides-to-be that Wedding Favors Unlimited has been able to grow their following by 65% in 6 months by Pinning three types of content: long-form Pins; Pinnable images pointing to blog posts; and gorgeous product photography. Today Pinterest drives 80% of their website traffic.
Care and Consistency are the Secrets to +52% Repins for Hej Doll
Winner Hej Doll, Jessica Doll (Site/Pinterest)
Category Travel and Lifestyle Blog
Video Interview Details at the bottom of the page
Quote ‘You need to be consistent on pinning. You need to be consistent with your content.’
In-Brief The Hej Doll travel and lifestyle blog relies heavily on Pinterest traffic. That’s why a 23% jump in followers and a 52% jump in Repins over the past 6 months has been huge for Jessica. She puts her success on Pinterest down to quality photography and design, an all-day presence, consistency and testing.
Group Boards & Cross-Promotion Aid Growth to 1.4M Followers
Winner Gabrielle Orcutt Photography (Site/Pinterest)
Category Photography Boutique, Small Business
Video Interview Details at the bottom of the page
Quote ‘Followers, engagement and Repins all play hand in hand on Pinterest.’
In-Brief This Pinterest Influencer has grown her follower base by 43% in the past six months by focusing on details like seeding board descriptions with keywords, providing mini profiles of her photography subjects in her Pin descriptions, and utilizing group boards.
Teacher Grows Dormant Pinterest Account by +206% Followers
Winner Brown Bag Teacher, Catherine Reed (Site/Pinterest)
Category Education Blog / Solopreneur
Quote ‘Facebook is my jam, but Pinterest is a non-negotiable part of my business plan.’
In-Brief Pinterest isn’t Cathrine’s social network of choice, but by using Tailwind for her scheduling she managed to create 948 Pins in the past 6 months, almost doubling her all-time Pin count. By engaging promoted Pins she’s seen a further 23% increase in traffic to her site.
Patience the Key to Cooking, and to Growing a Pinterest Following
Winner Mel’s Kitchen Cafe, Mel Gunnel (Site/Pinterest)
Category Food Blog
Quote ‘Facebook is my jam, but Pinterest is a non-negotiable part of my business plan.’
In-Brief Mel grew her Pinterest following by a massive 72% over 6 months by pinning 5-10 times a day alongside a steady diet of group boards, long pin-friendly images, and repining archived content. Just as impressive she saw an 85% increase in Repins.
Pinterest Core to Building Startup’s Brand from Scratch
Winner Proper Post, Rebecca Bradley (Site/Pinterest)
Category Online Startup Business
Video Interview Details at the bottom of the page
Quote ‘Every time you Pin things that are optimized, you’re cutting out effort down the line.’
In-Brief In the four months since opening a Pinterest account for her greeting card startup, Rebecca has attracted 2,356 followers and inspired 1,748 Repins. Proper Post have put in the work upfront to research their target market and have aligned their Pinterest strategy with their brand strategy with impressive results.
Create Great Pins, Drive Traffic, Get E-mail Addresses
Winner One Good Thing, Jill Nystul & Kate Ahl (Site/Pinterest)
Category Life Hacks Blog
Video Interview Details at the bottom of the page
Quote ‘Be authentic in what you are doing.’
In-Brief Jill hit a nerve in the blogosphere with clever, tried and true tips and with the help of Kate Ahl she grew her already large Pinterest following by 37% in just 6 months. Continually recycling Pins of blog posts to relevant boards helped created an engine that continually drives traffic.
Ranking High in Pinterest Search Aids +51% Follower Growth
Winner CafeMom (Site/Pinterest)
Category Media Website for Moms
Quote ‘We consider ourselves successful when our Pins are at the top of Pinterest search results’
In-Brief CafeMom are strategic and deliberate with their Pinterest presence, using every trick in the book to get exposure on the network. They constantly Pin new content, repin old content and prepare seasonal content ahead of the upcoming season. Nearly every board and every Pin has a search engine optimized description, and they leverage their sister websites to further their success.
Using Pinterest to Drive Sales via 2M+ Repins
Winner Project Nursery, Lauren Benson (Site/Pinterest)
Category Baby Blog and Nursery Ecommerce Store
Quote ‘Because Pinterest changes it’s important to stay flexible and test new strategies’
In-Brief Lauren believes in testing. “Test, test, test, then evaluate,” she says. And with 20,196 Pins and counting posted to-date she has plenty of tests under her belt. She inspects every Pin and watches what works and what falls flat and in this way Project Nursery’s Pinterest account continually improves as a content source for its audience.
Hear it from our winners, in their own words, on Launchpad
Half of our winners were available to share the tips that helped make them successful in on-camera interviews. Access all of these videos alongside the 10 PDFs available above in our Takeoff Awards Launchpad course.
Launchpad is a collection of free online courses brought to you by Tailwind that can help anyone master visual marketing.
Launchpad is part of your Tailwind membership, so if you’re already a Tailwind member click here to access the course. If you’re not a Tailwind member you can still access Launchpad for free by clicking here.
All of the winners in one infographic
Feel free to embed this infographic with the following code
Tailwind’s intuitive dashboard and clever browser extension help you to schedule a week of social posts in under an hour, at your convenience. To top it off our smart schedule makes sure that all of those posts go out when your audience are most likely to engage with them.
Tailwind members grow engagement on their post 2.5x faster than non-members on average.
Start a Free Trial of Tailwind for Pinterest!
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Get more engagement with SmartSchedule.
- SmartGuide keeps you up to date on Pinterest’s best practices - spend your time and energy on your business.
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Find great content to Pin, collaborate efficiently with Tailwind Tribes.
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Pin smarter with Pin, Board, and profile performance reporting.
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Automatically reshare your best Pins at safe intervals with SmartLoop.
David is Tailwind’s Director of Marketing and Growth. He is a former journalist who wrote for The Times and The Financial Times, a marketing agency co-founder, founder of Confluence digital marketing conference, father of two, and early morning writer. He grew up on The Isle of Wight in England and lives in Oklahoma City.
Nice to see Jessica Doll on this list. I will have to study the master processes and implement. Thank you.