Thousands of Pinterest repins, hundreds of sales,  dozens of influential brand advocates – Virality can certainly do a lot for a brand’s marketing plan.  But where does a viral pin get its start?  To answer that question we used Tailwind’s Analytics Suite to trace back, Pinterest Influencer and Tailwind interviewee, Dan Ashbach‘s most repinned pin and mapped its roots:

• Verena first shared the image 48 weeks ago to just over 30 followers, where it received four repins.  32 weeks later, Dan found the image and shared it to his 1.5 millions followers.
• The “family tree” diverges into two main branches after the four initial repins
  • One branch, beginning with Shirin’s seven repins, gained 33 repins before coming to a dead end.
  • The other branch, beginning with Irene’s one repin, gained 41 repins before reaching Dan.
• Dan isn’t following the user he repinned from.  In fact, none of Suzanne’s 7 repins are from users who are following her.
• It took 66 total repins by 68 users to eventually reach Dan.
  • Since Dan shared the pin, it has garnered 2306 repins, 916 likes, and 19 comments.

Lessons from the “Family Tree”

1. Content is king.  Verena, with only 32 followers, started this entire process by pinning an eye-catching, simple DIY image. Make sure your images pop and maybe Dan, or another Pinterest influencer, will pick it up. I mean, who’s ever seen a boring pin go viral?
2. Virality takes time.   It took 32 weeks between the time this image was pinned and when Dan repinned it to his followers.  Unlike Facebook and Twitter, pins on Pinterest continue to gain traction for months after they are originally pinned.  Even though Facebook and Twitter have instant gratification from posts, content on Pinterest has staying power.
3. CHECK YOUR LINKS! Sadly, who ever came up with this image cannot receive credit because the link is broken.  If you want traffic from Pinterest to your site, make sure your links work! Test your links by pinning images to your board and clicking through from Pinterest.  If you no longer sell a popular product, it’s also a good idea to have the page redirect to something similar.  It’s a great way to make sure your site is still able to receive the traffic!