A Visual World: Getting Pinned, Blocking Pins & Image Optimization

According to Patrick Murphy, CEO of Brand Thunder, Pinterest is the “social media darling” that has finally earned its right to be considered a “certifiable hit.” Even if you don’t have an account yet, you still might be on Pinterest. You can see what has sparked people’s interest on your website by going to https://pinterest.com/source/*domain* and replace *domain* with your domain name.

When you try this you may be shocked to see there are many pins from your website without you even promoting it, or you may be a little disappointed that there isn’t much there. That’s okay because different content will generate different engagement levels. You could have a product or service that falls out of the range of “typical” pins. However, this can actually be used to your advantage. For example, if you sell Golden Sombreros and you are the only one on Pinterest who has pinned about Golden Sombreros, you will have monopoly over that product on Pinterest until someone follows suit.

Why do I get an error message when I try to pin on my website?

The theme gallery GetPersonas.com is a highly ranked site that’s product is nothing but images. So, one would think that pinning would be a breeze for this awesome image haven. However, there are pinning size restrictions. If you have images that have a height or width less than 80 pixels, Pinterest won’t see them.

The Pinterest Limits

Even if your images meet the size requirements, these restrictions will ensure that Pinterest won’t register the images:

• Background Images
• Images Embedded in iframes
• Images within Flash websites
• How to Block Pinning from your Website

You can also block Pinterest’s access to pin images from your website if you need to due to copyright obligation or any other reason. All you have to do is add this code to the head of any page on your website:

</p><br /><br /> <p><meta name=”pinterest” content=”nopin” description=”Sorry, but the images on this page are not available for pinning.”/><br /><br /> <p>

If anyone tries to pin something from your website, they will receive this error message. So, you can customize it in a way that best works for you and your community.

Sharing and Making Pins Discoverable

If none of your images are shareable but you want them to be, Brand Thunder experienced this problem when they launched their browser themes for Major League Baseball. They had a page built to show off the themes, but none of the images were pin-able. If you are experiencing a similar problem, it could be because of the Pinterest Limits. When the Pin It Bookmarklet ignored their images, Brand Thunder set out to learn how to make a Pinterest-friendly page without impacting the design.

If you adjust the opacity with this code, it will allow Pinterest to pick up the image without affecting of the layout or your images.

<img style=”opacity: 0;position: absolute;top:0; left:0″ src=”image_for_pinterest.jpg”>

The benefit of this code is that it will give you control as to what image appears first. So, you can encourage users to share a specific image that you think will bring people to your store.

Check Your Pins Out

If you website already has pins, it could be worth taking another look at. Pinterest allows images with unlimited height; however, it will resize the width to 192 pixels. This is great for a certain size infographic. However, if it is too lengthy, it will turn out looking like this:

It is generally better to have vertically-oriented images because the content will be more visible than a horizontal images in the news feed.

The Optimal Image Size of a Pin

The optimized image size is 600 x 800 pixels which will then be resized down to 192 x 256 in the feed. This size ensures that it will not get lost in the crowded pin world and will be fully visible when opened.

With social media changing rapidly and new strategies being employed constantly, it is important that stores use this new media to engage and interact with their customers, and to promote sales and loyalty to their brand. Make sure that you have the right tools to share your images and that you are up to date on your Pinterest Goodies.

If you implement these practices for your business, you will have a higher rate of Pinterest traffic, the quickest social media avenue out there. So, get your pins right!

This information was extracted from www.Kissmetrics.com. and the original version can be viewed here

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Patrick Murphy is the founder and CEO of Brand Thunder (BT). You can follow him on Twitter @brandthunder or Facebook. The team at BT creates interactive browser themes that help brands enjoy a consistent connection to their online consumers.