We've been hearing from a lot of Tpters lately reporting that their traffic and views are dropping in Pinterest. So, today we’re talking about what you can do to combat that and increase your Pinterest activity. And, we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what works for you and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com.

On this episode of the Grow With Us Podcast, we have Sara from the Stellar Teacher Company joining our conversation on Pinterest. When we saw the concerns around the current struggle with Pinterest, we put out a call in our group for new Pinterest strategies and someone recommended Sara. Her account has 4.4 million monthly viewers.

Sara creates and sells resources for upper elementary and launched her website earlier this year. We had a long list of questions and discussed the following Pinterest strategies:

The use of video pins

Sara shared with us that she noticed a big increase in her Pinterest views when she started using video pins. She only uses them to share and link to her products and isn't using them to share blog posts or opt-in offers for her email lists.

A recent video pin had 149k views with 2.4k saves on these pins. It's her highest percentage of engagement on Pinterest which really surprised her because they are pretty simple and straightforward. However, the videos are able to provide a more comprehensive view of what's included in the resource which is what teachers are looking for. It allows them to get a good feel for the entire product.

How to create video pins for Pinterest

Sara reassured all of us that it really isn't that difficult to create video pins. She likes to batch her work so she can create multiple pins at once. She uses her iPhone for all of the videos and photos that she takes for her marketing and really likes the time-lapse feature to help speed things up. This allows her to flip through an entire 50-page resource in a 7-second video.

Apps for video editing

When it comes to editing her videos, Sara likes to use PicPlayPost. She uses the paid version because it's not that expensive but there is a free version as well. This app allows you to edit things like brightness and timing, which is helpful because your video needs to be at least six seconds long.

The app also allows you to add text and combine multiple videos into one. Sara shared that it's easy to use and within an hour of playing around you can be pretty set on how to use it.

Importance of consistency

While video pins have contributed to Sara's recent growth you can't overlook the importance of consistency. She experienced what she calls the "Pinterest Crisis" last fall just like many others. In order to combat the dip she experienced, she began to post consistently.

While Tailwind was helpful, Sara didn't enjoy using it so she eventually hired a VA to handle it for her and it's made a huge difference. It helps here to keep the queue full of new pins or high performing ones that she wants to keep circulating.

This is the first year that she's been consistently pinning the same number of pins every day. She keeps it to 25-30 pins a day and personally doesn't use SmartLoop because her VA is helping do the work for her. The consistency has had a good impact on her growth since last fall.

When it comes to creating new resources, she tries to upload 20-30 new pins a month for it. And, while she does do repins of both video and regular pins, she makes a point to get the new pins out there too.

Batching work to save time

As mentioned before, Sara prefers to batch her work. For example, a few weekends before we recorded our episode with her, she created all of her video pins for the month. This is how it worked:

Two hours spent on printing, cutting, and preparing

Two hours spent on making