Create Optimized + Shareable Pins For Pinterest

Pinterest is the favorite tool for many bloggers and online business owners. It’s a powerful social media platform that works as a search engine and drives people to your website – if you create the appropriate graphics and pins.

In The Shop (launching September 1) you can get high quality but affordable templates for blog graphics that will work amazingly on Pinterest. Follow this guide with your new templates to create Pins that will boost your blog views and make Pinterest your number 1 referral site in no time! 

In the meantime, here’s the anatomy of a perfect Pinterest pin in five easy steps.

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VERTICAL

First and foremost, make pins vertical. Think about how you actually use and view Pinterest: it’s a grid that you scroll down through. Vertical images take up more real estate in that regard and will be seen for much longer of a ‘scroll’ than horizontal ones. The same applies with using Pinterest on your phone or tablet. Vertical = better.

The width of a pin is best at 735 pixels, though the height can be whatever you choose (most people’s come in somewhere around 1100px, though I know there are some pins that are much longer). In The Shop I’ve created templates to get you started creating your own Pins that have varying lengths so you can test out what works best for you. ** Updated in 2018: the new recommended size is 600x900 pixels!

Action Item: if you have old pins circulating on Pinterest that are more horizontal than vertical, take time to create new images for them and start getting those out there too. It’s definitely okay to have multiple pins (and images) per blog post, so unless your old pins are drastically underperforming, I’d leave them up. Chances are your newer, more optimized pins will start getting more re-pins, likes, and click-throughs a lot quicker and the older pins will start to fade away.

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LARGE READABLE TEXT

In the actual Pinterest image you create the text should be large and readable, to quickly gain attention of someone scrolling through their feed. What I mean by this is:

leave the curly, swirly, elaborate fonts alone and pick something that's easy to read for Pinterest [Tweet That!]

In my own graphics I like to emphasize parts of the title of blog posts by bolding a portion of the title that is most important (like the words ‘business’ or ‘branding’). I also include a small detail that shows if there is some sort of free download, like a worksheet or checklist, to gain attention and build the probability of a click-through. 

From a branding standpoint, I need to make sure I take a moment and tell you to use consistent fonts, colors, and styles on your graphics so that you begin to make a cohesive presence on Pinterest and become quickly recognizable by someone seeing multiple pins from you.

Action Item: Look through your old pins and evaluate if the text is large and readable or if you need to create newer, more legible graphics.

Are your current pins all unified enough that they’re obviously from the same blog or business? [Tweet That!]

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USE RICH PINS

Rich Pins are an awesome and easy way to direct more people to your website and give a more polished, professional vibe on Pinterest. What are rich pins? They’re the small details you see beneath pins (you’ll see them beneath my pins) that include your website name and favicon, as well as the blog post title and description.

Rich pins are awesome from a visual standpoint, but they also make it easier to get noticed during a scroll, which in turn can lead to more click-throughs and traffic to your blog. You’ll end up taking up more vertical space and having more of an opportunity for key-word rich descriptions.

Action Item: Get rich pins set up on your blog ASAP. Squarespace makes this SO easy. After you’ve connected your Pinterest account under settings>connected accounts you can head over to this validator and put in one of your blog posts to enable it. No code necessary!

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SEO-FRIENDLY DESCRIPTION WITH CTA

Besides the actual pin itself you want to spend time crafting a great description that is SEO-friendly (Pinterest is a search tool first and foremost) and includes some sort of “Call To Action” to help people want to click through.

I usually say something like “Click through to read the five ways to best optimize your Pinterest graphics (and get the free download)” at the end of the description because that’s straightforward and has some more key words in it. I’ll include my website name and small mention of what I do (like “Branding Design + Strategy”) just to set people up for what they will see when they travel to my site.

As far as the rest of the description, it’s usually some portion of the beginning of my blog post, because I’ve already worked to get some key words in there. I don’t try to make it more work on myself – work smarter, not harder right?

Action Item: Go through old blog posts and update the description that will show up when someone pins your blog post (In Squarespace it’s either the caption you use, or the “filename” field if you don’t use captions). That way, from here on out anytime someone pins your blog post they are adding your new, updated, awesome description. If you are feeling really productive then go and update some of your pins on Pinterest (I’d start with the ones from your website’s content board, since that’s probably where a lot of re-pins come from).

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MAKE SURE YOUR LINK WORKS

Lastly, the best-optimized pin is a pin that actually leads to the blog post you say it will. Nothing makes me sadder than thinking I am about to read some awesome post I found on Pinterest to find it only leads to www.whateverwebsitetheysaid.com/blog and shows their latest blog post instead. What a buzzkill!

Branding is all about creating an experience and that’s a bad first impression that someone could have with your business. Make a habit of double checking yourself when you pin from your website!

Action Item: On your website’s content board, at least, go through and check your pins and make sure all the links are correct. If they aren’t, take time to edit and correct the link!

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Why Your Business Doesn't Need Every Social Platform

Hi there! Kaitlyn here, introducing this week's guest post from Brittney of BrittneyLLynn.com. Brittney is talking to you this week about why you don't necessarily need to waste your time on every social media platform if it's not the right fit for your business. Be sure to follow her using the links at the end of the post!

I know. The title of this blog post may seem like the opposite of everything you’ve ever learned about social media.

• “Be everywhere!”
• “You need to be on every platform, otherwise your business is missing out!”
• “You’re losing major dollars if you aren’t every social platform!”

We’ve all heard it. And while some aspects of these statements ring true, there are times when it makes sense to not be on every platform.

• “But what if I miss out on customers?”
• “Will my brand be noticeable online if I’m not on every social platform?”
• “Everyone says you have to be on all social media platforms.”

These could be questions you’re asking yourself, and I’m going to show that you won’t miss out on customers, you will be noticeable, and you don’t, in fact, need to be on every social platform.

Reasons Why Your Business Shouldn’t Be On Every Social Platform

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It’s not relevant to your industry

I used to work at a university that primarily has majors in engineering. There, I managed a department’s social media profiles (as well as all of the marketing efforts). If you don’t know, engineering and engineering topics are not as popular on Pinterest. Shocking, I know.

Are there businesses out there in the engineering industry that are rockin’ it on Pinterest? Maybe. But for the most part, the engineering industry isn’t sharing articles with “Pinterest-worthy” images. The time and effort to maintain a Pinterest profile for our department didn’t make sense, because the industry we primarily served wasn’t as relevant on Pinterest at the time.

If your industry doesn’t spend time on these platforms, why should you?

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You’re limited on time

If you’re a small business or solopreneur, you only have so much time. And if you aren’t ready to outsource your social media, you need to be picky about where you spend your time.

We all only have 24 hours in a day. To effectively run a small business while also keeping up with the business tasks, marketing, customer service, AND social media, you need to be very selective with the time you spend on your business. You can’t do it all.

Pick the one or two platforms where 1) your audience spends the most time and 2) where you see the biggest ROI and engagement and stick with those.

This requires research. You will need to put in the time to discover where your audience spends time (don’t just guess) and pay attention to your current social media profiles to see which has the biggest ROI and engagement.

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You ignore it

If your social media strategy is to create profiles and then never log back in again for another 6 months, it’s not time to start using that platform.

Seems like a logical suggestion right? Don’t start something you don’t plan on contributing to?

Well I see it all the time with small businesses. Someone told them they needed to be on Instagram, so they hurried up and created an account, stuck a few pictures up there and then never opened the app again.

I would rather see a small business truly master the social platforms that they choose to be on, and show up every day, instead of kinda sorta participating and then fall of the face of the earth.

Your audience will notice if you ignore your accounts, they won’t notice if you aren’t on the accounts in the first place.

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Your audience/fans aren’t spending time there

If your target audience isn’t there, why should you spend time there? That isn’t to say you don’t routinely do research to see where your audience hangs out (because it can certainly change!) but if your target market isn’t on a platform you shouldn’t waste your time.

Big brands like Nike, Best Buy, and Delta are on all of the social platforms because their target audience is quite large. Nike sells sneakers, nearly everyone wears sneakers. Best Buy sells electronics, think of all of the people who buy electronics. Delta sells flights, thousands of people buy flights every day.

You get what I mean. As a small business, you are probably serving a much smaller portion of the population than Nike, Best Buy or Delta serves. Which means you need to have a true understanding of where your audience spends time before you jump on every single social platform.

By choosing to only be on the platforms where your audience hangs out, you won’t be missing out on customers, because you’ve done the research to find where your audience spends the most time.

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You plan on sharing only your content

If you plan on only sharing your own content on any social platform, you might as well save your time and effort and not be on social media at all.

It’s called social media for a reason. You are supposed to be social. Which means not always talking about yourself and your business.

Think about when you go to a party. Do you waltz in and only talk about yourself? Or do you sit down, chat with someone and have an actual conversation (meaning more than one person is talking).

Of course you have an actual conversation (at least I hope that was your answer! :) ). Nobody wants to hear your message if all you do is talk about yourself.

The same goes for social media. Your audience will begin to tune you out if all you do is promote your products or services.

You need to share other people’s content to get the most engagement out of your audience.

Question: Are you on every social platform? Why or why not?

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This guest post is from Brittney Lynn, who is a social media strategist who helps entrepreneurs and small business owners grow their audience, build engagement and get raving fans on social media. You can check out her blog, sign up for her free email course, or follow her on Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest.

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