At BrightonSEO in April 2026, I stood on stage in front of 400+ marketers and said something that made a few people frown: "Stop treating Pinterest like Instagram."

I could feel the room shift. Some nodded. Others looked skeptical. A few were probably thinking, Wait, people still use Pinterest?

But here's the thing: six months before that talk, I'd launched a fashion Pinterest account with zero followers, no budget, and honestly, no idea if it would work.

Sixty days later, I hit 500K monthly views. Today, I have 1.6M monthly views.

How did I manage to hit those numbers?

I didn't treat Pinterest like a social platform. I treated it like a search engine.

Because that's what it is.

What changed the way I use Pinterest

I use Pinterest every day; it’s the space I use to save my catalogue of ideas, but I never really thought about it from a brand perspective.

Then, on my thirtieth birthday, I needed to find the right shoes to wear with a specific dress. I went through every tag on various brands’ Instagram accounts but couldn’t find what I was looking for.

Instagram was a dead end, so I started searching Pinterest instead. I used long tail keywords, and found the perfect pair of shoes.

Based on this experience, I decided to create a Pinterest account to spotlight African fashion. The performance marketer in me saw an A/B test opportunity, I would create one set of pins using long tail keywords, and another using hashtags, and see what worked best.

By day 60, it was clear that the long tail keyword strategy was the clear winner – treating Pinterest like a search engine had me ranking for popular searches and seeing a high number of saves.

Most brands copy and paste their Instagram strategy to Pinterest (i.e. they lean heavily on hashtags); but Pinterest isn't really a social media channel, it's a visual search engine where people actively look for solutions.

What I did differently (and why it worked)

I created and followed this four-part framework that treats Pinterest like the search engine it is:

Step 1: I let Pinterest tell me what people want

Before I created a single pin, I spent two hours with the Pinterest search bar.

I typed seed keywords like "spring fashion" and "wedding outfit" and watched what autocomplete suggested.

Not what I thought people would search for. What Pinterest showed me they were searching for.

Here's what I learned:

• ❌ "fashion" = too broad, impossible to rank
• ❌ "navy blue linen blazer petite size 6" = too specific, no search volume
• ✅ "Nigerian Wedding Guest Dress" = specific enough to rank, broad enough to have volume

I also used Pinterest Trends to see what was rising. I noticed that "Ghana" was spiking 1,500% month-over-month.

So I created content around that trend:

Impression, click, and save data for one of my pins titled “Vogue style dress made in Ghana”.

Step 2: I optimised every pin like a landing page

Here's the before/after that changed everything for me.

BEFORE (Instagram mindset):

I do the same on Pinterest as I do on Instagram:

• Title: Blank
• Description: "#Nigeriafashion"
• Results: 5 impressions, 0 clicks, 0 saves

One of my pins with no title or description, just the hashtag #NigerianFashion.

AFTER (Pinterest SEO mindset):

I treated the pin description like a meta description, not an Instagram caption:

• Title: "Maxi skirt outfit style with black top"
• Description: "Ghana vacation style inspo | Skirt from Mola clothing."
• Results: More than 37k impressions, 1.45k clicks, and 41 saves

My optimised pin garnered more than 37k impressions, 1.45k clicks, and 41 saves.

Step 3: I let users tell me what to create next

Pinterest has this under-rated feature where you can see which boards people save your pins to. When I noticed users were saving my pins to boards like "Spring Wedding Guest Outfits" and "Asoebi dresses" I knew exactly what content to create next.

This is free keyword research. Your audience is literally telling you what they want.

Every 30 days, I audit my top-performing pins:

• What keywords are driving impressions?
• What boards are users saving to?
• What images are getting the most engagement?

Then I double down on what works.

Impression, click, and save data for one of my pins titled “Aso Ebi Style Insp for Tailor”.

Step 4: I showed up consistently (not obsessively)

I didn't go viral. I didn't have a pin get 10 million views overnight.

I just posted 3-5 well-optimised pins per week. Every week. For six months.

Pinterest rewards consistency. The algorithm favors accounts that show up regularly with quality content. No 50-pin-a-day hustle. Just consistent, keyword-optimised content.

What most brands get wrong

After my BrightonSEO talk, dozens of people came up and asked the same question: Why isn't my Pinterest working?

When I reviewed some of their pins, here's what I kept seeing:

Mistake 1: Using hashtags

Focus on keyword-rich descriptions instead. In my testing, pins with detailed, natural language descriptions outperformed hashtag-heavy pins every time.

Mistake 2: Vague descriptions

"Fashion inspo ✨" won't rank. "Spring wedding guest dresses under £100" will.

Mistake 3: Ignoring seasonality

Pinterest users plan ahead. They're searching for "summer travel" in April, not June. Post 45-60 days before seasonal spikes.

Mistake 4: Treating it like Instagram

Pinterest isn't about followers or likes. It's about search ranking and sustained visibility.

The results (and what they mean)

Let me show you the actual numbers.

A screengrab of my Pinterest account performance

My performance to date:

• September 2025: Account launched (0 views)
• November 2025: 655k monthly views
• January 2026: 1.4 million monthly views
• May 2026: 1.6 million monthly views

A screengrab of the stats of my best-performing pin

Key metrics on my best-performing pin:

• 424k impressions
• 1,190 saves (the strongest ranking signal on Pinterest)

But here's what matters more than the numbers:

This traffic is high-intent. These are people actively searching for specific products and ideas. They're not casual scrollers. They're planners. They're researchers. They're buyers.

And because Pinterest is a search engine, this traffic is evergreen. Pins I posted four months ago are still driving traffic today.

What this means for you

If you're a brand in fashion, travel, e-commerce, home decor, food, beauty, or anything visual, Pinterest should be part of your strategy.

Not because it's trendy, and not because your competitors are there. Because your customers are actively searching for what you offer, and if you're not showing up in those search results, you're invisible. Here's how to start:

This week:

1. Go to the Pinterest search bar
2. Type 3 keywords related to your business
3. Screenshot the autocomplete suggestions
4. Pick the 3 most specific phrases (4+ words)
5. Create 3 pins with keyword-rich titles and descriptions
6. Post them

30 days later:

1. Check impressions, saves, clicks
2. Find your top performer
3. Create 3 more pins in that style

That's it. No complicated tools. No massive budget. Just search-first thinking.

Final thoughts: Pinterest is search, not social

The biggest lesson from going from 0 to 1.4 million views in six months?

Pinterest is search.

And like any search engine, if you optimise for how people actually search, and give them what they're looking for, you win.

You don't need followers. You don't need to go viral. You don't need a big budget.

You just need to stop treating Pinterest like Instagram and start treating it like Google.

Because that's what it is.