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Decluttering Your Pinterest Account: A Checklist

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Ok, I have given you some time to declutter your digital life after I wrote about it – Digital Clutter: 9 Things to Get Rid of Now – last week. Now, it’s time to tackle another New Year decluttering project: Your business Pinterest account.

You should treat your business Pinterest account like prime real estate; I mean, Pinterest is a top referrer on the internet. Let’s look at it this way: Imagine you own a shopping mall and one of your store tenants moves out. You’d get busy trying to find a replacement tenant instead of letting an empty storefront sit there. The same principle applies to your Pinterest boards: Don’t take up valuable real estate with outdated pins or pins that don’t link where they should.

To help you get started, I’m giving you some tips:

What to Delete from Your Pinterest Account

  1. Pins with broken links. The internet is constantly changing. You are more than likely to have pins that link to pages that no longer exist. Delete them.
  2. Pins with spam links. Pins get highjacked by spammers all the time. Delete any pins that don’t link to where they should.
  3. Outdated pins. If you pinned something due to a sale, limited time offer, or giveaway and it is now expired, get rid of it.
  4. Pins that aren’t complementary to your brand or product. If you have pins that don’t complement your products, delete them. For example: Let’s say you make wood signs and are in the rustic/farmhouse niche. If you’ve got pins that feature modern, sleek designs – get rid of them. These pins would attract customers that aren’t in your demographic and won’t buy your products. There is no need to keep them.
  5. Pins that your followers haven’t interacted with. You may have thought is was the best ever ‘thing’ but if your followers haven’t repinned it, delete it.

Plan of Attack

If you’ve got thousands of pins, decluttering your Pinterest account can be a daunting task! Here’s some tips for getting the job done:

  1. Start with your most popular boards. After you finish these, work your way down to your least popular boards.
  2. Choose one board per day and work through it until it is finished.
  3. Slowly replace deleted pins with high quality content.

Your Business Isn’t on Pinterest?

If you’re business isn’t on Pinterest, you are missing loads of potential customers! Pick up my Pinterest Boot Camp and in 7 days – your business will be on Pinterest.

Before you start decluttering, be sure to save the image below to Pinterest:

Decluttering Your Pinterest Account: A Checklist - 5 Things to Delete from Your Pinterest Account - by cuttingforbusiness.com

Maggi

Friday 21st of July 2023

How do you get in touch with Pinterest for Questions? I had a pin or two removed but I have no idea which pins were removed. Why don’t they tell you or at least describe it so you understand which pin it is. Was it mermaid stuff? I pinned some when I was designing a Halloween costume, could that have been it? How do you know which one it is if they just say “one of your pins was removed for content…”. Odd…I enjoy the site but I have no idea what pins were offending people. I have not posted anything of my own. I use the site for information and ideas…thanks!

Christine Schinagl, Cutting for Business

Wednesday 26th of July 2023

Hi Maggie. If you were not the creator of the pin, I wouldn't worry about it. The email you are receiving is only informational. It means that Pinterest removed a pin from everywhere on Pinterest. You just happened to also have that pin saved in your account. Hope that helps!

Barb James

Wednesday 5th of January 2022

I love your site! I've been following you for the last year or so and save all the great information I find. Thank you for helping me improve my business! I have a question about deleting items from Pinterest. I was told, by a successful business person, to never delete things from Pinterest. She said Pinterest hates that. It drives me crazy because so many things become outdated or irrelevant and I'd love to clean house. Your post tells a different tale. So, it's ok to do this? Thanks for your help! Barb at Comfort in Crafts

Christine, Cutting for Business

Tuesday 11th of January 2022

Expert opinions vary greatly. I've always been of the 'less is more' on my Pinterest account and see no reason to send readers/customers to outdated information or broken links. My account has about 5 million views a month and around 130,000 followers.