Yummly or Pinterest which is Best?

Before we decide whether Yummly or Pinterest is the best. Lets start at the very beginning. As bloggers we are very interested in the tools that drive traffic to our website. As foodies we are consumed by finding delicious recipes… to consume! hehe… funny 🙂

So just the other week something surprising/wonderful happened to me. Yummly overtook Pinterest as my leading social media referrer!! WOW! Howwzat! …as my cricket loving son would say!

Obviously I need to share my Yummly Strategy V’s Pinterest Strategy with you, but first the basics.

What is Yummly?

Yummly Logo
Yummly Logo

Yummly is a relatively new player on the social media scene. It was developed in 2010 and was named “best for 2014” by Apple iTunes.

Yummly is a recipe database website which collects and correlates recipes as they are added by users. Each user has a recipe box which can be divided into any number of recipe categories. When a user visits a website and wants to add the recipe they hit the “Yum” sharing button.

Yum to Save a Recipe
Yum to Save a Recipe

This action adds the recipe to the users personal recipe box.  Yummly also adds the recipe to the publishers page and to the Yummly database.

Here is where the magic begins, the recipe that was “Yummed” then forms part of the website database for all users. Yummly employs a powerful algorithm to the data, and provides personalized recommendation to individual’s based on recipes they may like.  Individuals can also search Yummly for recipes. Recommendations and search are able to be very specific. Yummly will notice which ingredients you favour or avoid and present recipes to suit your tastes. Individuals can further refine the search by excluding ingredients.

Shopping list can be extrapolated from the recipes and in some area delivery services can even be linked to the app.

It’s a pretty powerful app! Best of all, it’s all about food and recipes. It was developed to be the ultimate kitchen tool. Take a look at my Yummly Publishers Page. Perhaps even “YUM” something whilst your there xx.

Gourmet Getaways Yummly Desserts
Gourmet Getaways Yummly Desserts

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest Logo
Pinterest Logo

Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool. Users create an account and divide their interests into boards. When a user is on a website and they want to bookmark something for later they will “Pin” an image to their appropriate board for later user.

Pinterest account holders have “Followers” and can “Follow” people. An individuals Pinterest feed is made up of all the pins the people you follow, are pinning. Hence your Pinterest feed quality depends on the pins others are interested in pinning.

As at todays date I have just over 10,000 pinterest followers. I spend a significant amount of my social media time creating beautiful pins for my recipes. I use Canva to make them extra pretty, and then I add them to board booster.

Board booster then schedules my pins to be “released” at intervals so I don’t “flood” my followers feeds. I only use the free Boardbooster account, but it also allows me to pick a board that I “loop” my best pins from.  This ensures my pins get seen by more of my followers. I release a pin during the Australian day, and board booster rereleases it of a night for my US audience.

I choose my pins carefully so that my pinterest boards feature only amazing content.  Do you follow me on Pinterest? Please go ahead and follow, I would love to share my favourite recipes with you.

Gourmet Getaways Pinterest Page
Gourmet Getaways Pinterest Page

Because my pinterest feed comes from what the people I follower pin, I get a huge range of topics in my pinterest feed. Sometimes this is good because I may see something interesting.  But if I’m looking for recipe inspiration and I need to sort through a bunch of Nike Shoe advertisers, Fashion Pins, God Quotes, Inspirational Quotes its not so good.

One thing I really don’t like about Pinterest is the practise of buying followers and repins as a way of appearing popular. It won’t bring blog traffic, but it is a tool that is used as a bragging right. I know this happens on other social media platforms but it really irks me and it can’t happen on Yummly, because there are no followers!

Yummly or Pinterest - What's Best for Food Bloggers
Yummly or Pinterest – What’s Best for Food Bloggers

Yummly or Pinterest which is Best?

So lets talk strategy.

Pinterest Strategy

  • I added a Pinterest sharing button to my site
  • I have a Pinterest follow button in my social media tools
  • I have 10,000 pinterest followers.
  • I contribute pins to extremely popular group boards
  • I “like” nice pins from other bloggers
  • I pin beautiful content from other bloggers sites
  • I am a member of various FB Pinterest Groups that have a Pin for Pin arrangement
  • I create beautiful pins from my own content
  • I use BoardBooster to maximise my pinning schedule

Whew! That kind of a lot of work.

I have been actively employing this strategy for nearly 2 years. For all this effort I get 5% of my traffic from Pinterest.

Yummly Strategy

  • I added a Yummly sharing button to my recipes
  • I joined a Facebook Yumming Group that Yum each others recipe (I’ve only added to the Yum Board about 5 times.)

Hmm, I can’t think of anything else I do… I’m now getting 8% of my traffic from Yummly!

Yummly or Pinterest – My Statistics

Gourmet Getaways Google Analytics

Google – 59% – I love you Google, thank you for the traffic

Direct – 17% –  Thank you beautiful readers for being so loyal, I love you too xx

Yummly – 8% – Umm, I don’t know how this has happened but Yippee!

Pinterest – 5% – After 2 years of working my butt off I’ve finally managed to get to this all time high!

Bing – 2% – Again wow, unusual but welcome.

Other – 8% – For me this is other websites, Foodgawker, FB, Twitter, Tastespotting, Instagram etc

Yummly or Pinterest which is Best Conclusion

Yummly or Pinterest which is Best
Yummly or Pinterest which is Best

I know there’s a lot of blogger who receive significant amounts of traffic from Pinterest. They may even scoff at my personal statistics. Obviously Pinterest works in driving traffic to your websites. However for the amount of repins I get on my recipes, I don’t see amazing traffic. This being said, I will continue to pin my recipes.

I do think that Yummly is the future of recipe sharing. Yummly is specific only to food and is attracting food lovers and people who want to cook delicious food. Yummly has capture the food niche. Yummly then directs higher quality “leads” to websites. It’s a tool specifically designed to hook foodies and direct the traffic to food blogs.

I think the traffic difference between Yummly and Pinterest comes because Pinterest followers are interested in a wide range of topics. We tend to hit “pin” on a range of images but may never visit the website. When a user accesses Yummly they are looking for something to cook immediately, so they do follow through to the website.

Getting Started with Yummly of your Blog

HOW TO USE YUMMLY AS A BLOGGER

  1. Sign up for an account at Yummly
  2. Add a YUM button to your Shareaholic or post area. Or use the Yummly recipe plugin. This makes it easy for to YUM recipes.
  3. Start YUMMING things that you think like or on your blog and others.
  4. Fill out the form to get your blog listed as an official publisher. {Makes you eligible to be featured ie MORE traffic}
  5. Go here to get your profile personalized and a picture added.  Makes you all official and fancy!

Final Conclusion Yummly or Pinterest

Both of these platforms are a vital way to direct traffic to your website. I wouldn’t ignore either as they both send a significant amount of followers.

What are your thoughts Yummly or Pinterest? Have you tried Yummly? Is your Yummly traffic taking off too! I would love to know if you have a Yummly or Pinterest Strategy I have missed.

***Oh and before you go, don’t forget to visit Gourmet Getaways Yummly page and YUM your favorite recipes! ***

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