Pinterest Recommendations & Best Practices

Let's talk about Pinterest. If you are treating your Pinterest presence like your Facebook or Instagram strategy, it’s time to pivot. 

Pinterest is a completely different beast - it acts much more like a visual search engine than a traditional social network.

Whether you’re a seasoned pinner or just getting ready to integrate Pinterest into your True Anthem dashboard, we've got you covered with the best practices basics to help optimize your build. 

Pinners are Planners

The "season" for a topic starts way earlier on Pinterest than on a normal calendar. 

Want to dominate holiday traffic? Start rolling out your Thanksgiving and Christmas content in August. When users start searching in volume, your pins will already be there waiting.

Freshness Over Everything

Unlike X or Facebook where repeating content is normal, Pinterest prioritizes fresh pins. 

Repinning the exact same image creates competition with yourself. If you want to give a piece of content a second life, change it up! Use a new photo, add a text overlay, or change the font and colors.

Evergreen > Seasonal

While seasonal content is great for spikes, evergreen content will ultimately yield the highest ROI for your brand over time.

Optimize Your Creative:

• Size matters: A 2:3 aspect ratio is the gold standard for maximizing mobile screen real estate.
• Use text overlays: This is especially true for non-food brands or vague images. If a simple photo of an apple pie is actually a Rosemary Cheddar Apple Pie, put that on the image! Pinterest can read legible text, which significantly boosts your SEO, discoverability, and click-through rates.
• Galleries: If you're pinning a gallery or carousel from your site, combine multiple images into a clean collage or just use the single best-performing image from the set.

Treat Boards Like SEO Categories

Approach your boards with organization and searchability in mind. 

Use keyword-rich board names to help your pins surface in search results. If you only have a few boards, pick a broadly-named one as your default so it acts as a good catch-all.

Patience Pays Off

Pin performance is a slow burn. It can take weeks for a pin to gain traction, and it is totally normal for a pin from several months ago to suddenly start driving heavy traffic.

You Don't Have to "Feed the Beast"

Pinterest doesn't have the same sensitivities to post volume as other platforms. You can pause pinning or increase your volume without taking a hit to your overall performance.

Hashtags are Optional

Hashtags aren't a major factor for impression growth on Pinterest. They won't negatively impact your reach, but they aren't the secret sauce either.