Pinterest has slowly grown into a massive online community with millions of users posting new content and pins every day. If you’ve developed an interest in using the platform, you may be wondering how to post on Pinterest.
When you use Pinterest, you’ll see that it’s a little different from your typical social media site. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the concept of pins, Pinterest boards, and hashtags.
Not to mention, a lot of marketers find it hard to work with a Pinterest marketing strategy.
In this article, we’ll go over how pins and boards work, how to post on Pinterest, and how you can design Pinterest images.
Let’s jump right in.
Table of Contents
How Does Pinterest Work?
Pinterest is essentially a giant pinboard where users can post, share, and save content.
It works as a social media platform where you can interact with other people’s boards, build connections, and even market products. On a grander scale, Pinterest also works as a search engine for images.
Currently, there are almost 500 million Pinterest users, and the site gets over two billion searches per month. With over four billion boards and 300 billion pins, it’s safe to say it’s a massive repository of visual content.
What is a Pinterest Pin?
A Pinterest pin is just another name for an image on the site. It’s practically any image that a user saves since visual content is the only form of content on the site.
Essentially, every Pinterest pin would have the following:
- An image of any kind
- Any title for your image that would show up in search
- A short pin description of the image
- Alt text for the image for better search visibility and SEO
- A link to the blog, website, or page where the image or the item in the image can be found
These pins are what the social network is all about. They are the search results of its massive search engine.
What is a Pinterest Board?
A Pinterest board is simply a collection of pins. It’s a category that you can make and save your pins to. For example, you can have a board for DIY tips, and you can upload images of DIY hacks on it as new pins, re-pin DIY images from other users’ profiles, and even link images through websites.
As a result, you can create boards for anything from tutorials and portfolios to things like book cover ideas and album cover ideas.
Another reason why people create boards is that they help collaborate and connect. People can collectively contribute to a single board to grow it. Alternatively, people can use the boards to communicate certain a message, strategy, or more.
Each board you create gets tied to your Pinterest profile. As a result, if you upload images on the site, it would ask you if you want to save them to an existing board or if you want to create a new one.
Furthermore, Pinterest boards also help you create rich pins – an organic pin that automatically syncs website information.
What Can You Add as A Pin?
A pin can be any digital image in a PNG or JPEG format. Any image you put on the site will be added as a pin. You can also add videos and GIFs as pins, but images are the best medium.
Here are a few examples of Pinterest pins.
- Photographs
- Illustrations
- Paintings
- Infographics
- Recipes
- DIY images
- Screenshots
- Tutorials
- Profile pictures
Regardless of whether it’s bloggers, a small business, or individuals, anyone can add a pin for anything. Keep in mind that once you upload images on the site, you’re essentially sharing them with the world. Therefore, don’t think of your Pinterest account as your personal hard drive.
How to Post on Pinterest in 8 Steps
If you don’t already have a Pinterest profile, just go to the site and sign up. You need to enter your email, password, and age, or you can sign up through Facebook or Google.
If you want to make a Pinterest business account, you will need to enter your email, pass, and age to continue. Pinterest for business isn’t as different from using it casually. In any case, if you’re wondering how to post on Pinterest using a business account, it isn’t any different.
Once you’ve made your profile and logged in, you’ll be at the home page, where you’ll see some basic pins. If you’ve chosen some interests and hashtags, you’ll see pins related to those.
Once you’re there, follow these steps.
Note: Regardless of whether you’re using the Pinterest app on an iPhone, Android phone, or tablet, the process remains the same on mobile.
1. Go to the Pin Builder
There are two ways you can go to the pin builder.
- On the home page, you’ll see a plus sign on the bottom right. Open the drop-down menu and click the ‘Create a Pin’ button.
- You can also go to your profile from the top-right corner. Once your profile is open, click the pin button on the right. You can create boards and pins from here, so just click on Pin to go to the pin builder.
Clicking on the button will open the pin builder for you. This is where you will be uploading Pinterest content. When you create pins, you have to keep in mind what your purpose is. That’s because it will help in the next steps.
2. Upload Your Image, GIF, or Video
As you can see in the image above, you can drag and drop your image or video. Alternatively, you can click the window, and a small upload window will pop up for you to choose what file you want to upload.
You have to make sure that you use high-quality images to ensure the best quality upload. According to Pinterest, you should keep your images below 20MB and your videos below 2GB.
There’s another option for uploading pins in case you want to save something from a website. In that case, click on the Save from Site button under the image window and enter the website you want to pull images from.
It will then open up a window that will show you the images from the website. You can choose up to ten images to pin them.
3. Add a Title
The title of your pin helps pin it based on different keywords. It’s especially useful in blogging and social media marketing.
For example, if you want to create pins for templates of a form, you will mention the word template in the title. That way, anyone who uses the search bar to search for templates of that form will get your pin as a result.
Keep in mind that only the first 40 characters of the title are shown in the feed. Therefore, it’s best to keep it concise and under that limit.
4. Add a Pin Description
All your pin images should have a description of some sort. Depending on your target audience and Pinterest followers, you have to come up with a proper description.
The description becomes infinitely more important with pins like recipe pins, DIY pins, and tutorial pins. You can use the description to emphasize the key points, mention tips, or just summarize the pin.
Keep in mind that the description has a limit of 500 characters. Therefore, keep your descriptions concise and to the point. Furthermore, people will usually see the first 50 characters of the description, so choose your opening wisely.
5. Add Alt Text
The alt text option is for people who can’t see the pin. It’s where you have to explain what people can see in the pin. This text will be read aloud by the screen readers when someone chooses the alt text option.
It’s a great accessibility option that you should put effort into. However, keep in mind that the alt text also has a 500-character limit.
6. Add a URL Link
You can add a destination link to your blog, website, or social media page. This helps tie the pin to that specific link.
For example, if you’ve uploaded a pin for a product, you would link the pin to your product page.
7. Select Board
On the top-right corner, you’ll see a drop-down menu. That’s where you will be selecting the board where you want your new pin to be.
A lot of pinners don’t select boards, and the images end up in the random pile. All pin images should be added to a board to put them under a category; it makes for better visibility in the search engine.
Make sure you choose a board that’s tied to your pin. If it’s a completely new pin, you should first make a Pinterest board for its category.
8. Publish Your Pin
Hit publish, and your pin will go live. It takes around a day for the pin to rack up some results.
You can use Pinterest analytics to check the performance of your pin. You can also set up a plugin that helps track real-time results.
How to Post on Pinterest Using Designed Pins
While you can upload any image on Pinterest, it’s best to design it accordingly first. You can use software like Pixelied, as they’re user-friendly and have tons of premade designs.
That’s Pinterest images have a few requirements and tips.
- You need high-quality images.
- The pin image size has to be vertical.
- There are two recommended sizes – 600 x 900 pixels and 1000 x 1500 pixels.
- Use minimalist fonts.
That is why it’s best to use an online design tool that provides templates for designing your pins. Here’s how to do it.
Step One – Launch the Pixelied Editor
Head on over Pixelied’s free editor.
In the left panel, you can go through Pinterest pin templates that are ready to use and fully customizable.
The template already have the recommended dimensions for Pinterest pins. All you have to do is edit according to your needs.
Step Two – Add Relevant Assets
Once you’ve chosen your template, you can start to add whatever elements you want. If you want to upload an image and edit it, you can do that.
If you want to choose an image from the internet, you can do that too. Other assets that you can add include the following:
- Creative and customizable text layouts
- Tons of illustrations
- Mockup designs
- Brand presets
- Small elements like speech bubbles, arrows, and various shapes
- Social media icons and logos
- Blend option
There are also tools that control things like border, opacity, shadow, alignment, and more.
Step Three – Download Your Image
When you’re done, you can download your design.
Click on the download button on the corner of the editor.
You’ll get this mini window.
Click the drop-down menu to Choose a format among the following options.
- JPG
- JPEG Transparent
- PNG
- PNG Transparent
- SVG (Beta)
- WEBP
- WEBP Transparent
For Pinterest, you should choose JPG or PNG. After that, choose the size quality you want. It’s best to maximize it.
After that, download your image and post it on Pinterest.
How to Post on Pinterest Effectively
Now that you know how to post on Pinterest and design your pins, you can start publishing pins.
The key is to stay consistent with your pins. Always include high-quality images, write meaningful titles, concise descriptions, and add relevant hashtags and boards.
It’s not a matter of how to post on Pinterest, but how consistently you can publish new Pinterest content. Therefore, set up a Pinterest strategy and start to drive traffic today.
