This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

Have you ever been suspended from Pinterest? Are you trying to become more educated on how to prevent Pinterest from suspending you?  Maybe you are currently suspended from Pinterest and you need help reactivating it. Then you came to the right place. I have been suspended from Pinterest twice and both episodes occurred in my first 3 months of blogging. Yikes, that’s not a good track record. In this post you will find out what happened to me as a new blogger, why I think I got suspended, what steps to take after getting your suspension notice and hear the happy ending to my Pinterest jail story.

I started blogging with no experience in social media. I was a newbie for sure. It took hours upon hours of research to learn the basics of all the major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. However, there is one platform that I was familiar with when I started my blog, and that was Pinterest!

I have had a personal Pinterest account with Pinterest since back in 2011 when they were starting to become more well known. Like I said, I was NOT very active on social media, but I never really felt like Pinterest was like the other social media platforms. I enjoyed Pinterest for the images and the pins to my own personal boards.

Pinterest Is The Best Way To Get Quick Traffic To Your Site

When I found out that Pinterest was the one platform to help bring traffic to my new blog, I knew this was the place I should be spending my time in order to increase click-through rates. So I did my research.

I learned as much as I could from online resources and through other bloggers in my niche who belonged to the same Facebook blogging groups I belonged to. I never signed up for a Pinterest course at this point (and still haven’t yet, but am considering it), because, honestly, I wasn’t ready to dish out more money on a blog that wasn’t making any money yet.

With my experience from pinning in the past and now my new knowledge of using Pinterest for my business account (a Pinterest business account which is specifically for my blog), I was sure that I was on the right track.

17 Actionable Steps To Creating A Thriving Pinterest Business Account

After creating my new Pinterest Business Account using my blog name as my Pinterest username and my business email as my Pinterest email address, I then did the following based off my Pinterest/blogging research:

1. Made my user name (for all pinners to see) as my FIRST NAME | BLOG NAME | NICHE DESCRIPTION

2. Made boards within my Pinterest business account with keyword rich descriptions for the board description all relevant to my blog niche 

3. Pinned only pins related to my blog to my boards that were specifically geared to my blog niche with a focus on having at least 20 pins per board to start.

4. Joined group boards related to my blog niche.

5. Began to follow other bloggers in my niche with similar interests.

6. Started to pin other bloggers pins related to my niche

7. Focused on pinning 80/20 (80% other people’s pins to 20% my pins)

8. Pinned at peak times (which I learned as in the evening for moms interested in my types of pins)

9. Increased my pin frequency to more than 10 times a day, and maybe as much as 75 times a day (caution, keep reading to see my tips on frequency of pinning)

10. Pinned a variety of pins and not the same pin over and over again

11. Pinned daily without missing a day

12. Followed group board rules

13. Joined Facebook “Pin All” and “Pin 10” group boards and followed their rules

14. Followed those pinners who followed me first (if they were related to my niche and had high quality pins and pin titles)

15. Researched pin design and created high quality pins on Canva with inspiration from my favorite pinners

16. Made two to three pins for each blog post so I would have a variety of choices to pin when promoting one post

17. Wrote keyword rich descriptions with occasional relevant hashtags for my pin descriptions

I felt like I really knew my stuff. Again, I spent hours researching Pinterest business for bloggers and hours creating pins for each of my blog posts I was publishing. Not only was I staying active in my group boards, but my pins started to have increased repins after staying consistent with daily pinning. I was confident that I was on the right track.

Until….

Pinterest Suspension Can Happen To Anyone Without Warning

I was pinning late one night about 1 month into blogging and I was not paying attention to how many pins I was doing. I was going down my list of group boards and pinning 1-3 of my pins per group board and then reciprocating with 1-3 pins of others from each group board. Everything seemed fine until all of a sudden my account got logged out and I received an instant email from Pinterest stating

“Your account has been suspended due to violating our spamming policy”.

Instantly I got this sick feeling in my stomach and I thought, surely I didn’t do anything wrong, did I? What could I have done wrong. I had been doing the same thing every night for the past month.

I was clueless, and nervous and embarrassed and afraid of my blogging future. The blog just launched 1 month ago and I thought I was off to a great start, mainly due to Pinterest. What was my blogs future without Pinterest.

I googled “what to do if you get suspended from Pinterest.” I took the actionable steps that were suggested when getting the notice of suspension.

Remember To Stay Calm & Don’t Worry

Right then, I made the decision to not worry but to pray to God that I would learn from this experience and that whatever happens, it’s in His hands now. At that point, I turned off my phone and went to bed.

When I woke up the next morning, I instantly checked my phone. Was I able to log in to my Pinterest Business account?

To my surprise, I was!!! I received another email stating they had made a mistake and my account was reactivated. I couldn’t believe it. Praise God!

Still to this day, I have no idea why that happened but I sure did learn from it. Well, so I thought. I went back to their spamming policy to read and make sure I fully understood it. So I thought I understood it, however their policy is a little vague. Maybe I’m naive, but what really constitutes spamming?

Understanding Spamming and Pinterest’s Spamming Policy

Two months later, I’m still doing great with Pinterest and my blog. I was doing some pinning on to multiple group boards and peak pinning time while having a really in depth conversation with my husband about something physical therapy work related. While in this conversation, I lost track of how many pins I was doing. It must have been over 30 minutes of time that I was pinning constantly and then…..it happened again. I was locked out, suspension email in my inbox and I was shut down. UGGGGHHHH. I was so disappointed in myself.  There must have been something I did wrong again to be suspended. But what did I actually do?

The first thing that came to mind is “Does Pinterest Have A Pinning Limit Per A Specific Length Of Time?” What is the rule of thumb? How many pins is too many? How many pins is the right amount for a certain block of time? What constitutes spamming? I just didn’t know. Was I at fault of spamming when I didn’t even know I was spamming?

I had spent a lot of time trying to figure out what spamming is but no one that I know seems to have a definitive answer.

I went back to that previous blog post about how to request an appeal and followed all the steps again. However, the next morning, I was not reactivated. This wasn’t good. As you can see in the picture above, I wrote a very brief but detailed remark asking to be reactivated. I instantly got a reply from the Pinterest Team stating it can take hours but as long as several days to get back to me with an answer. 

I decided to send another appeal request. This happened to me during the Christmas holiday break. December 21, 2018 to be exactly. Since the holidays were my main focus, I decided to let it settle for a few days while I enjoyed preparing for the holidays. It was Christmas eve night when I was about to go to bed and it was heavy on my heart that I was still suspended. I wrote a third email to Pinterest. I was not getting any other response from them except the same automated email like the one in the above picture. Nothing was working.

But then one morning I woke up with an email from Pinterest! I was praying for good news.

Suspension Can Lead To Deactivation and Termination

Finally, after the holidays were over,  several days had gone by, I received an email with devastating news. The email stated that my account will be deactivated and I will no longer be able to log in with my business email due to spamming.

That was it. I was done. It was so disappointing. A thousand thoughts were running through my head at this point.Should I take a break from blogging or should I quit blogging. Will my blog even be successful without Pinterest? Should I open up a new Pinterest account. Do I have to change all the URL’s to all my pins and start over? What are the names of all my followers? Can I even get all those followers back? Should I keep fighting for my original business account? Should I seek help or keep it to myself?

After thinking about these questions over and over again, I decided to seek help. Again, I was very ashamed of what happened, and I was afraid people would think less of me as a blogger if I admitted I was suspended. That’s why I hesitated to seek help, but I am so glad I did.

I even emailed Tailwind in the middle of all this because I didn’t know where else to get help. Taylor at Tailwind wrote me back promptly and reassured me that from what he could tell I was not spamming or doing anything wrong. He encouraged me to keep trying to reach out to Pinterest and appeal. So I did and I did with a copy of Tailwind’s email.

I even went a step further writing this question in a Facebook blogging group….

“I need some help. I am embarrassed to say my Pinterest business account was suspended and I have no idea why. I am rather new to Pinterest and Tailwind. I finally got a response back from Pinterest that they will not be reactivating my account and I cannot sign up for a new account. Where do I go from here with my blog and with Pinterest. I am completely willing to work hard to fix all this and I don’t want to give up. Any advice? “

Later that evening I had many friendly and helpful bloggers come to aide me in my predicament.

One person in particular gave me a piece of advice that changed this entire situation around.

 Jada Gorsha Aloisio said:

“…Email [email protected]. Email as many times as it takes. Pinterest recently did this to many accounts and then sent out apologies after a few days. Good luck.“

So I did and I did many times with a new outline to my email. This is what it said:

I ended up filing 12 requests to Pinterest with several different ticket numbers for each request.

Several days went by again and nothing was happening. Unfortunately we were still in the holiday season, and I think that might have slowed things down a bit. But I was persistent, and I kept emailing until I got a new response.

After 14 long long days, I got the news! I woke up to another email stating my account was reactivated! I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was over and I would never have a chance. But it happened and I was able to log back in. My Pinterest business account was exactly how I left it (except with less monthly page views of course). I felt so blessed to be back in the Pinterest blogging world again.

After that, I took a break from Pinning. I wanted to let things calm down a bit before I started up again. Honestly, I was afraid. And I am still afraid. There was no warning when it happened, I was honestly innocently pinning and reciprocating others pins as group board rules state. I followed Tailwind’s recommended schedule. What did I do wrong?

13 Must-Read Tips To Prevent Suspension:

1. Pin on a schedule. Some pinners even create a pinning spreadsheet to keep track of the schedule and have a clear plan.

2. Keep track of how many pins you do a day.

3. Keep track of how many pins you do within a certain time frame (Example: 5 pins within a 10 minute time frame)

4. Space out your pins throughout the day at different times during the day (don’t do it all at once) because your followers will get bombarded with all your pins and no one else’s, and they really don’t want that.

5. Don’t pin to all your group boards all in one day.

6. Don’t Pin your same pin more than once in one day. Never repeat a pin in one day, especially on group boards.

7. Pin the ratio 80/20 (80% others and 20% yours).

8. Be aware of what pins you have in your schedule on your scheduler (Tailwind) so you don’t over pin while pinning manually.

9. Make sure your pin images are original to you, no copying other pinners’ pins or taking photos from google. Use free stock photos to get started and create your own design on canva.

10. Make sure your pins are following the Pinterest Spamming guidelines and policy.

11. Be careful not to follow or unfollow too many pinners all at once.

12. Comment on other’s pins sparingly and spaced out, not all at once.

13. Don’t create too many group boards all at once.

The Main Take Away To Avoid Pinterest Jail

I think the main take away from this experience is “Don’t do anything in excess, but instead sparingly on Pinterest”.

If you are a work-a-holic, take it down a notch when it comes to Pinterest. Don’t overindulge in Pinterest, and space it out. Space out your pins, your comments, your followings, joining group boards or whatever it might be. Be wise with your Pinterest decisions, make every move count and don’t waste energy in areas that might get you suspended. I would say it’s better to be safe with gradual growth than to have a quick ramp up in repins but have the risk of being suspended. Then you are just starting back down at the bottom again.

I hope this information was helpful for you. I wish I had read an article like this before I started my Pinterest business account.

Have you been suspended before? What is your biggest concern when it comes to using Pinterest for marketing your blog? What have you found to be working well for you on Pinterest? I would love to know how many pins a day are you capable of doing without getting suspended? And how many pins can be pinned within a certain time frame?

If you are suspended currently while you are reading this, please comment below with questions. I would love to help you in any way that I can. 

I hope to hear from you because I know other readers would really benefit from learning from each others’ Pinterest experiences. This is a topic that is not talked about much, and I think it’s good to get the conversation going.

Keep Smiling,

Dr. Jena Bradley, DPT

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

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-Jena

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