You know those really motivating (and addictive) blog articles where a blogger shares how their pins have gone viral and they’ve made bank in their first few months, and then they kindly want to share their strategy with you, the lowly starter-pinner? Yeah, so this is definitely NOT one of those! In fact, you’d probably do well to read this and then perhaps do EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE because the stats I’m going to share, well, they’re just not that amazing frankly!
That being said – I am still so excited to share my real-time experiences with you as a brand new blogger, especially as I dive into the world of Pinterest to drive traffic to my blog and show you all the real stats and analytics from my first 7 days of pinning, minus all the clickbait.
Setting Up My Pinterest Profile
When I decided to start my blog, I already knew that Pinterest would be a crucial tool for driving traffic because I’d watched about 5 weeks of YouTube tutorials and took a course. So, I confidently created my business profile, “Far From The Farm,” and started exploring how to make the most of it. Setting up the profile was actually pretty straightforward, but the real challenge began when I had to figure out how to attract followers and create engaging content. It’s definitely not been as easy or successful as some of those creators very excitedly claim it going to be.
The first thing I learned was the importance of having a clear short statement in my profile Bio that reflected what I was about in a quick way, and what my blog is about – a stay-at-home wife brand new to blogging, living in the city, but dreaming of farm life and trying to make it work one day at a time.
This niche might seem small, but I believe there are many out there who share similar dreams. Women who know they’d love that more traditional homestead and blogging/entrepreneur lifestyle, but just aren’t there yet. I saw that most of the successful bloggers I followed on YouTube had a real pic of themselves as their profile picture and so that’s what I did.
Here’s how my profile looks right now as I write this 7 days from publishing my first blog post and pinning:
The wins! – Learning to Design Pins
One of the highlights of my week was learning from scratch to design pins. I have to admit, I was pretty intimidated by Canva at first. I’ve never considered myself a particularly creative person, and the idea of designing something that would not only stand out on Pinterest but actually attract people to my site seemed daunting.
But, after spending some time watching tutorials and experimenting with different templates, I started to get the hang of it. Designing pins has actually become one of my favorite parts of blogging. It’s so rewarding to see a pin you created from scratch get noticed and shared by others and I actually find the whole process of sitting down, choosing just the right photo or colors, learning what fonts I like and what looks eye-catching to be really quite cathartic.
I know it’s unlikely to always feel like this but honestly in the right here and right now of my journey, where everything is new, it’s been wonderful to just sit on the sofa with a hot drink in my favorite mug and spend an hour for each blog post getting to be creative on Pinterest. Truly it’s been a bit of self-care in this season.
And the not so wins! – The Minefield of Affiliate Links
Oh my word, where to begin? One of the biggest challenges I faced this week was understanding affiliate links, both for my blog and my Pinterest account.
Let me tell you, it’s a minefield out there! There’s so much to learn about how to incorporate these links into your content effectively without coming across as too salesy or quite frankly heading to jail.
Is it just me? Has anyone else been scared out of their wits as a beginner affiliate and frightened to even post a link incase it’s the wrong way and you get banned from a platform for life?!
After some trial and error, I decided to stay away from affiliate links on Pinterest for now. It felt overwhelming, and I want to ensure my content is genuine and valuable to my readers. I’ve so much more to learn on this topic and this week I just do not have the bandwidth to do so.
Instead, I’m focusing on creating quality pins that lead back to my blog posts. If anyone has tips or experiences to share about affiliate links, I’d love to hear them! I’ll update you all on how affiliate marketing is going for me once I fully embrace it and jump right in (hopefully around the month 3 mark).
My Pinterest Analyitics for Week 1
Ok, so now for what you’re really here for – the stats!
Well, they’re underwhelming to say the least. Now I did google and scan YouTube for the topic of what Pinterest stats should look like in your first week, but there didn’t seem to be much consensus. All I know is that everyone else seems to be doing a whole lot better than me! But anyhow, you have to start somewhere, right?
So for what it’s worth here’s my current week 1 Pinterest Analytics (so you can feel good about yours!) I have just 4 blog posts up and 25 pins, and absolutely ZERO FOLLOWERS:
Why I am sharing my week 1 stats?
I’m a very Type A, anal goal setting sort of a person. I love evaluating information and data and creating goals from that. So data is my happy place, it makes me feel warm and cozy the way some people do when they walk around the Fall decor section in Target!
Also, before becoming a stay at home wife I had a 20 year career in healthcare and I’ve always had a really strong accountability network around me. It’s easy for me to get discouraged and distracted when I don’t have that driving force to stick to achieving what seem now like hard goals, and go through new blogging twists and turns each week. So that’s where YOU come in – hi, you’re now my people!
I’m hoping that at least a few of you stick around and keep up the encouraging messages and sharing where you’re at on your blogging or stay at home wife journey too. Community is so important, isn’t it?!
Pinterest impressions, engagements, clicks and audience stats.
Impressions are the number of times your pins or ads were on someone’s screen. In my first week, in fact in my first 3 months, I plan to solely focus on how many impressions my pins are generating. It’s too much right now to try and master all the things on Pinterest so I’m going to pick one area to improve on at a time.
This week I managed to get 4.8k impressions on my pins. This might not seem like much to seasoned bloggers, but for a newbie like me, it feels like a big achievement.
I also had 662 engagements and 120 outbound clicks. While my total audience was only 20 and engaged audience was just 2, it’s a start! I also only had 1 save – likely an indication that I need to concentrate on creating ‘rich pins’ that are useful to the reader rather than just eye catching pins hoping to drive traffic back to my blog.
Follower stats.
As I mentioned earlier I currently have ZERO followers. And it hurts my ego a little, to be honest. Zero people have wanted to follow me when they saw my pins. Ouch.
Now in some Facebook groups I joined they did say to remember that Pinterest is not a social media platform but a search engine, and to remember that followers on this platform, at least in the beginning, aren’t the most important thing. But still, zero followers? I really need to research how to get that number up? Any tips and hints welcome in the comments guys!
Month 1 goals
For your sanity as much as mine, I do not plan to continue to share my weekly stats but I will try and update you each month in realtime with my Pinterest Stats along with Monthly Income Reports. So what do I aim to achieve by the end of month 1? I have 2 main goals:
- Get up to 10k impressions in my first 4 weeks
- Attract at least 1 follower
Share your journey
Blogging has been wildly rewarding, even at this beginning stage of my blog. But it’s definitely not been as easy as I thought. To all the other new bloggers out there, particularly if you’re also a stay at home wife or Mom, or you’re working/studying full time and doing this on the side and you don’t have 40 hours a week to dedicate to your business – remember that we all start somewhere. It’s okay to make mistakes and learn as you go, fail a little here and there. I hope this inspires you to share your journey. however it looks.
As always, I’d love you to share your blog with us below and we’ll give it a visit!
