Table of Contents
A Note About Content Creation And The Latest Best Practices and Changes
While much of what we’ll cover here has to do with “fresh” images, to find true Pinterest success, we need to think beyond the image and consider the entire Pinner experience - start to finish. Of course you'll start with a great image, and then you'll add in a title and description that invite engagement and add value. Finally, you'll reward the Pinner who clicks on your Pin with a great experience when they reach your website.
Create thoughtfully! Remember that your followers see your Pins in chronological order; to get the best performance, provide them with value—a few really great Pins are better than more, lower-quality Pins.
You also want to think about relevance — keep the Pins you create relevant by making sure your images, copy, and links are cohesive and appeal to your audience. For this reason we suggest saving to only your most relevant Boards (no more than 10) to improve your performance. Finally, don’t forget to optimize for search by including keywords in your title, descriptions, and Board descriptions.
Is it possible for me to Pin more than 25 or 50 times in one day?
SmartGuide’s Spam Safeguard feature will automatically prevent you from publishing above a safe limit of 50 Pins each day by default.
As a guideline, we’ve found that our most successful members Pin around 15-25 Pins per day, so this is a good range to aim towards. SmartGuide is meant to help you stick to healthy practices that will maximize your success on Pinterest and avoid risky behavior that could end up holding you back. Pinning at levels significantly higher than that range (over 50) can be risky and also end up hurting the distribution of your content on Pinterest. That’s why SmartGuide’s Spam Safeguard will let you know as you approach those levels and offer Pinning recommendations.
What counts as a unique or “Fresh” Pin and why are Fresh Pins important?
Pinterest is increasingly prioritizing fresh content for distribution as today’s Pinners respond most strongly to fresh content. Pinterest’s algorithm favors content that’s relevant and timely, so creating more fresh Pins means more exposure for you to your followers, in users’ home feeds, and in search results -- helping you to maximize your reach and traffic potential on Pinterest.
What is a “Fresh” Pin exactly? Fresh Pins are defined by Pinterest as images or videos that they haven’t seen before. You can create several images that link to the same blog post, page, or product listing, and each of those would be fresh when saved to Pinterest for the first time. For example, Fresh Pins can come from creating new images for links you’ve previously shared to Pinterest.
Note: The following changes would NOT be considered the creation of a Fresh Pin:
Pinning the same image and changing the Pin title, Pin description or alt text
Making small, imperceptible changes to an image that has already been Pinned before (for example, shifting your background image a few pixels or moving your logo slightly to try to “fool” Pinterest into thinking it’s a Fresh Pin)
🔑 The key is that the image must be new and fresh to Pinners!
What counts as a duplicate Pin and should I still share them?
Duplicate Pins are Pins with an exact image/URL combination that has already been Pinned to Pinterest before (by you or anyone else).
You may still reshare your own relevant seasonal and evergreen content in moderation. It’s also OK to naturally curate relevant and high-quality content to your relevant Boards, especially if it’s something you genuinely love or believe your audience would love. SmartLoop and Communities can still be incredibly valuable too (addressed further below).
Overall, we recommend focusing your Pinning energy on creating new, fresh content—if the vast majority of your Pinning is re-saving other creator Pins, then we would definitely encourage you to begin shifting some of your effort towards creating more Fresh Pins to maximize your distribution on Pinterest!
Pinterest’s latest best practices recommend avoiding sharing the same Pin to more than 10 different Boards because Pinning the same Pin to too many Boards can actually reduce its effectiveness and limit its potential reach.
What do I do if I typically only make a few new Pins each week? Do I only Pin a few times per week now?
In short, no! If Pinterest is a strategically important channel for you, then you should invest more in creating Fresh Pins, as this will help your content get the most exposure. We recognize that this might mean having to make some adjustments in your workflow, but Tailwind is here to help you out!
If you currently make one Pin for each blog post, article, product, or other piece of content you’re creating, try experimenting with new images, titles, descriptions, or even new formats to see what engages your audience. This could involve adjustments like changes to the background photo, changes to the text overlay, border adjustments, or color adjustments, to name a few. Not only will you now have extra Fresh Pins to share, but you’ll also be able to see what sort of variations perform best on Pinterest! (see below for some more specific examples!)
💡Tip! Here are some tips and resources we’ve put together to help you easily generate more Fresh Pins. In addition, we’re currently working on ways to make Fresh Pin creation even easier right in our product (stay tuned!).
And remember, it’s still okay to save some duplicate Pins - supplementing your fresh Pins with carefully curated content doesn’t hurt your distribution and may help make your profile more robust (for example, when you come across something you genuinely love or believe your audience would love, or relevant seasonal and evergreen content in moderation). However, if the vast majority of your Pinning is duplicate Pins, you may see your performance decline over time. So, we would definitely encourage you to begin shifting some of your effort towards creating more Fresh Pins to maximize your distribution on Pinterest!
What are good ways to create more Fresh Pins? Can you show us some examples?
One great way to generate many Fresh Pins would be by trying to create many versions of a Pin for your content by experimenting with new images, titles, descriptions or even new formats to see what engages your audience. For example, if you had written a blog post about how to “create a DIY Towel Ladder in 4 steps”, each of the images below would be great alternatives to create more Fresh Pins:
Some of the elements of an image you could consider changing to create many Fresh Pins:
Different background photos (including slightly different angles)
Meaningfully different crops of the same image, which provide a new view or perspective (e.g. focusing in on a specific object in a photo vs. showing that object in a wider scene)
Remember: the key is that the image must offer a substantially different experience or perspective for a Pinner! So use your best judgment and don’t try to make minor imperceptible changes to try to “fool” Pinterest into thinking that it’s a Fresh Pin. If you have to look really hard to see what’s different about one Image from another, that’s probably a good sign to make some more meaningful changes!
Do fresh pins outperform duplicate content?
Fresh Pins tend to outperform duplicative content on Pinterest, as they are always focused on surfacing the best and newest ideas to their users. We know that Pinners don’t like seeing duplicative and stale content and that Pinners get more utility from seeing fresh, timely content; and as a platform, Pinterest is always looking for ways to improve their users’ experience. As a result, duplicative Pins are not prioritized in their distribution algorithms and they are continuously shifting towards prioritizing fresh ideas.
Many people have already decreased the overall volume of their Pinning while increasing the number of fresh Pins they post, and they’ve reported getting better results than before. While it may seem counterintuitive, publishing FEWER Pins by focusing on fresh content increases the distribution of your Pins, leading to more traffic and engagement. With Pinterest’s algorithm focusing more on new and relevant content, Pinning the same duplicate Pins over and over won’t result in any additional impact on your performance, and could actually hamper your distribution. That’s valuable time you could be spending developing new content!
What happens if I Pin a lot of duplicate Pins? Will I get banned?
We can’t say with certainty which factors Pinterest considers before banning an account, but we do know that excessively sharing duplicate Pins could put your account at greater risk of losing reach or being marked as spam.
Posting the same photo every day and even multiple times a day could be considered suspicious at a minimum, and could lead you to being marked as spam. In addition, it’s a poor experience for your followers and could increase the likelihood of them unfollowing you or reporting your Pins, which will hurt your distribution and could put your account at risk.
That said, we want to make sure we’re helping you follow best practices based on Pinterest’s most up-to-date guidance. As Pinterest makes changes in the future, we’ll make adjustments to SmartGuide to help you stay aligned with its policies and best practices.
I think I might be Pinning too much right now. What is an acceptable amount of Pinning?
As always, there isn’t an exact “best” number.
That being said, here are some high-level guidelines we recommend for all of our members to consider:
Focus on quality over quantity and Pin thoughtfully.
The most successful accounts on Tailwind publish 15-25 Pins/day on average. Every account is different, but if you’re Pinning at much higher rates than this range (and especially if most of your Pins are duplicates), then this is certain to hurt your distribution and could put your account at risk.
In addition, given that Pinterest is increasingly prioritizing fresh content for distribution, we recommend that you begin creating and publishing more fresh Pins relative to duplicates to maximize your reach and traffic potential.
While it may seem counterintuitive, publishing FEWER Pins by focusing on fresh content increases the distribution of your Pins, leading to more engagement and traffic for your website.
I think I might need to reduce my Pinning to a more acceptable level. Do I need to adjust my queue of Pins that are already scheduled? How do I fix these if I have a lot scheduled? Do I just start over?
If you already have an excessive number of Pins scheduled for each day in your queue, our recommendation is to rebuild your schedule (timeslots) in order to aim toward an acceptable range that’s more in line with current best practices (15-25 Pins per day). This can be done easily in just a few minutes. Here’s how.
Having trouble adjusting your schedule? Send us a message and we’d be happy to help!
Are interval pins and board lists safe to use or still useful?
Yes, just make sure you are saving Pins to only your most relevant Boards. In some cases, that may mean choosing only a select few instead of Pinning to every board you can think of. You should avoid sharing the same Pin to dozens of similar Boards over and over and it’s important that sharing to multiple Boards isn’t overdone to the extreme. Eg. Chairs, Brown Chairs, Comfy Chairs, etc. As a rule of thumb, Pinterest’s latest best practices recommend avoiding sharing the same Pin to more than 10 different Boards. Pinning the same Pin to too many Boards can reduce its effectiveness and limit its potential reach.
When using intervals to schedule the same photo to multiple boards, make sure that you don’t end up having the same photo post every single day or multiple times per day as this type of activity can be seen as suspicious and could lead to you being marked as spam. We recommend using an interval of at least several days to ensure that you avoid suspicion. To help you avoid this, we’ve updated our interval settings to prevent you from using potentially unhealthy intervals that could put your account at risk.
Instead of manually Pinning a new image to Pinterest first and then using Tailwind’s extension to make several copies, upload the Pin to Tailwind first and schedule it to the most relevant boards at optimal times to maximize engagement.
Can I still use SmartLoop while staying within best practices?
Yes! As always, it's best to use SmartLoop’s recommended settings.
Resurfacing older, timely content is acceptable if done in moderation. For example, once or twice a year is generally fine as long as the content is timely and relevant.
If you’ve altered the overall duration in the Advanced Loop Settings, we encourage you to revert to the recommended settings which are designed to reshare at healthy intervals and update with best practices as they change.
Monitor your loops regularly and create fresh content for your best-performing Pins
SmartLoop is designed to help you get the most from the content you’ve worked hard to create as well as identify the best opportunities to refresh your Pins.
To ensure you continue to get the most exposure for your content, we recommend you regularly review how your Loops are doing with the easily accessible sharing and save metrics within SmartLoop.
Instead of resurfacing the exact same pins, it would be even better to update the Pins in some way to make them more timely or try a slightly different spin. This will lead to better distribution and more engagement!
SmartLoop makes it easy to spot these opportunities to improve your account:
Remove Pins that are past their shelf life or no longer relevant
Experiment with new images for Pins that haven’t performed well
Refresh images for Pins that are your best performers
When to consider resharing your content
Not all content belongs in SmartLoop. There are 2 primary reasons to reshare your Pins:
Sharing timely seasonal Pins once a year. This can surface seasonal content when it’s most relevant, meaning more engagement and distribution for the content people are ready to act on now.
To engage new followers with your best content. You can reshare your Pin once or twice a year to surface it in the following tab of your newest audience members. You’ll see even more distribution when you refresh the images in your Loops!
Can I still use Communities while staying within best practices?
Yes! Communities remain a great way to connect with peers who share your interests! Just remember to use it judiciously by authentically sharing content you’d want to save.
Like your own audience, your Community Members will most appreciate when you share your latest, fresh content rather than Pins they’ve seen in the past.