How to create a winning pin on Pinterest that will get repins

Do you want to know what goes into creating a successful pin on Pinterest. Do you wonder how others get hundreds of reshares and you want to do the same? Our 8 steps to creating a winning pin on Pinterest will set you up for that success.

Update your board names and board descriptions to create keyword rich boards that actually get searched for by users on Pinterest.

Make sure your pins link to interesting content so that your followers will want to repin it.

Check the description of the pin itself has targeted keywords and uses hashtags. The pin description should align with the board keywords and on page keywords to reinforce what the pin is about.

Create Images that invite curiosity

Create interesting images that invite curiosity so the user wants to check out your article and repin it.

  • Bright images
  • High resolution (not blurry or grainy)
  • 600 x 900 vertical image
  • SEO optimized file name (don’t use IMG1234.jpg)
  • Text overlay with easy to read fonts
  • Red, Yellow, and Orange hues tend to perform better than darker hues

Invite curiosity in the text overlay:

  • “How To …”,
  • “5 ways to …”

Use sentimental words that get more repins:

  • “…recipe…”
  • “…in 3 minutes…”
  • “…love…”

Create a call to action that attracts users to click (and delivering on that). This could be on the image or in the pin description.

Highlight the pain or problem the user has, or the solution being offered by the article to solve the pain.

Aim to create at least 5 images for each post to share on Pinterest. Each image should target different keywords with different text. This gives you more chances for having one of those images go viral. If one does go viral, then some of that virality also helps feed its sibling images.

Measure engagement levels of your boards

If your boards have low engagement, pins on the board wont be broadcast by Pinterest as much to non followers. Pinterest will typically first show your pins to your followers. If these followers like what you pinned and repin it, then Pinterest will take that as a signal that the content is interesting and relevant and show it to your non followers. As it gets repinned more (going viral), it gets shown to many more users.

To measure your board engagement level, divide the number of repins for all pins on that board, by the number of pins on that board. Tailwind gives you this number in the Board analytics.

If your engagement is very low (less than 1) then those pins aren’t going to do to well. You will need to pin more strategically to those boards to boost your engagement levels.

Pin more strategically

If you pin too much to your boards, then you will likely have a lot of pins with very few (0 or 1) repins. This impacts your board engagement levels, affecting how many users will see your pins.

To pin more strategically, follow the less is more concept. Pin less content, but make sure its high value and engaging content. This way you are likely to get more repins on that content, helping you expand your reach.

Use Tailwind Tribes and Group Boards

Get your fresh pins in front of your tribes and group boards so they can share it to their audiences to repin, improving engagement for these posts and improving your reach.

Be careful not to spam your tribes or groups. Aim to share 1 or 2 times per day to a tribe, and avoid sharing the same articles to multiple tribes on the same day as many of the users will overlap. Avoid being spammy.

Make sure you are collaborating in Tailwind tribes with high engagement.

Earn high quality followers

Pin relevant content that your followers are interested in based on your niche.

I.e if you have a home decor blog, avoid posting pins about health and nutrition as your true followers won’t care about that and may lead to unfollows.

Pinterest will put your brand (as a business) in front of other users to follow as you start to get more repins. Pinterest has also said that having a high follower count isn’t as important any more to get your pins seen.

Don’t “buy” followers or do “follow for follow” schemes just for the numbers, as those followers will be of low quality who aren’t interested in your content - leading to lower engagement for your pins. This is turn will cause your pins to be less widely shared by Pinterest.

Share other peoples content

Try to pin content that is already going viral (lots of repins) as chances are you will get some of those repins.

Make sure that the content you share are high quality pins

  • relevant to your niche
  • attractive image
  • have keyword rich descriptions which matches the image text
  • good use of hashtags
  • links to a page that loads quickly and is related to the pin image

Pin more of your own content

New blog posts are considered “fresh” by Pinterest (which they love) and thus will be broadcast more (increasing chances of you getting more repins). So go ahead and pin new content that you create.

Content is king!

You have less control over the content of other peoples pins and you can’t see their stats, so it doesn’t really benefit you to share their content. Exceptions are:

  • Sharing Tailwind Tribe content or Group Board content based on their rules.
  • You don’t have much of your own content so fill in the gaps with content from others.

A good strategy is to follow a pin schedule to know how much you should pin daily.