You just created your Pinterest business account. Ta-dah!
You’re ready and raring to create your first boards and start pinning to attract new leads and customers to your business. You even have a bunch of great Pins at-the-ready with awesome content.
First of all, good on you! With its highly-engaged audience (over 400 million monthly active users!), a wide range of users, and features like Product Pins, you have plenty of opportunities to attract and engage your ideal customer.
But, wait. Hold up.
With the Pinterest landscape wide open before you, questions start crowding in.
When should you post these Pins? How often? Even better question – you see many fellow Pinners posting multiple times, sometimes dozens of times per day – how many Pins should you Pin per day?
This is the eternal question. The problem is, the answer probably isn’t what you want to hear:
It depends. However:
If you’re a small operation and have not Pinned anything yet, start small. Keep it manageable. Kick off with 1-5 Pins on Pinterest per day. (But that’s just the short answer.)
Let’s dive deeper into the hows and whys so you can get the most out of this powerful platform.
How Many Pins Should I Pin Per Day?
Pinterest is home to billions and billions of Pins, with that number growing exponentially on the daily. Needless to say, to make sure your targets actually see what you post, you need to be posting more than once per day. More is more… is more.
As we said, new Pinners and small businesses can start by posting 1-5 Pins per day. However, that’s just a baseline. As you grow both your Pinterest following and your business, you can expand your strategy accordingly.
But how often is often enough? Is there a magic formula, a secret ratio, or some other insider knowledge you can employ to help your account get seen? Can you Harry Potter the heck out of Pinterest?
If only. Instead, look carefully at your particular situation. Every business is different, with different goals, audiences, means, and marketing approaches. What works for somebody else may not be right for you and who you want to attract.
Remember: Growth looks different on everyone. So does success.
With all these in mind, here are some basic guidelines to determine how many Pins you should Pin per day.
How Often to Pin Your Own Content
One key piece of a solid Pinterest strategy is consistently Pinning your own content to the platform. Not just any content will do, though – in their best practices guide on making Pins, Pinterest says high-quality, fresh, relevant content is the most important.
In other words, Pinterest wants freshly baked, early morning donuts, still hot from the fryer. Likewise, they want your Pins coming in piping hot. They do not want your day-old, stale donuts – those old Pins you already served up.
Naturally, to be able to Pin fresh content, you must create content in the first place.
Which, of course, I’m assuming you already do. Content creation is a cornerstone of digital marketing because it connects you with your target audience, builds trust, and deepens your relationship with customers. Pinning your content on Pinterest gives you one more avenue for bringing new visitors to your blog and website and turning them into fans and customers.
How much of your own content should you Pin daily? Again, it depends. Think about these factors when deciding how many Pins you should Pin per day:
- How much new, original content do you create in a month? In a week? If you’re on a slower schedule, you won’t have as much new content you can turn into Pins versus someone who blogs multiple times a week. (Remember, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.)
- How many Pinnable images do you have for each new piece of blog/website content? Try to have multiple if possible. 3-6 is a good range to start with. Try design variations on each image, including different subjects, formats. Add different information (Pinterest calls this “text overlay”) to each pinnable image, like quotes and key points taken straight from the content.
- How much old content do you update in a month? Updated content is a ripe opportunity for creating a fresh batch of new Pins.
As you can see, getting creative with your newly published content will result in more Pinnable images, more Pins that are fresh and unique, and more opportunities to Pin to your boards.
- That means, instead of creating one Pin from your new blog post each week, you might be able to pin 3-4 fresh Pins from that one content piece.
- As a baseline, Pinterest recommends creating new Pins once a week.
What About Duplicate Pins, or Repinning Your Old Pins?
In 2020, Pinterest has said that Pinning duplicate Pins is the antithesis to a good user experience on the platform. That means, generally, you shouldn’t save Pins multiple times to the same board. Focus on fresh, unique Pins instead.
Repinning Others’ Content
Since Pinterest is prioritizing fresh content, creating new Pins each week should be your main focus. However, since repinning may also be helpful and interesting for your audience, you can keep doing that, too. Just make sure whatever you repin is relevant, useful, and curated. If you know your audience will love it, even better.
How many repins should you focus on daily? According to a Pinterest webinar that happened in February 2020, it’s NOT recommended you Pin over 50 times a day. Instead, the sweet spot seems to be 15-25 Pins max.
For best results, stick to Pinning less, not more, and focus on relevance and quality for your audience. Your repins should be about providing value, not about hitting a Pin quota.
General Pinning Rules to Keep Handy
Now that we’ve gone over the basic gist of how many Pins to pin per day, let’s review the key points:
Rules for pinning your own content:
- Create multiple, unique Pins from each new content piece you publish on your website.
- Each pinnable image should look different or provide different information.
- Create these new Pins weekly.
Here’s an example of four unique Pins created to link back to one URL via Mary Lumley:
Rules for repinning others’ content:
- Only repin if the Pin provides value to your audience (and you know they’ll love it).
- Repins should be relevant, useful, or interesting.
- You should be repinning no more than 15-25x per day. Keep it curated and intentional for the best results.
Rules for Pinning frequency:
As you start Pinning for your business, you may be tempted to get all your daily Pins posted during a free hour of your day and be done with it. But, that’s not the best strategy for engaging your audience or pleasing the Pinterest algorithm.
You don’t want to spam, but you want to be pinning consistently so your followers see your Pins. To make things easier for you, try using Edgar, our Pinterest integration makes it so easy to schedule your Pinterest Pins.
Edgar allows you to create a recurring schedule for Pinning, so you’re not spamming the platform or your followers. This helps you pin consistently, spreads out your Pinning over the course of a day, and keeps your Pinterest platform fresh with daily content.
There are lots of other features to help you pin smarter, too, including a tool for creating Pin variations and a post preview option.
How Many Pins…? 3 Common Questions, Answered
Still have some lingering questions over how many Pins to pin per day? Here are some answers to common ones on Pin limits, boards, and pinning frequency.
1. Is There a Pinterest Pin Limit Per Day?
Technically, there is no Pinterest Pin limit per day. BUT – and this is a huge “but” – as we mentioned above, spamming your followers with avalanches of Pins over a short duration is the opposite of a good user experience.
Instead, stick to Pinterest’s own recommendations. 15-25 Pins per day is a good number to shoot for once you’re up and running with your account and comfortable with the platform.
If you’re new to Pinterest marketing, it’s okay to keep your daily pinning on the lower end, though. Start small and work your way up to a comfortable number of Pins that both pleases your audience and works with your content strategy.
2. How Many Pins Should You Post on a Single Board?
Pinterest doesn’t place a Pin limit on boards, either. Your boards can be as vast as you want, but there are some ways to make them more user-friendly (and thus Pinterest-friendly).
- Each new Pin you create should only be posted to the most relevant boards. Don’t repin your old Pins to their existing boards, either. Duplicate content won’t fly.
- Make sure your boards have user-friendly titles that make sense. E.g., “Holiday Recipes,” “Summer Desserts,” “Easy Weeknight Meals.”
- Don’t have multiple boards around a similar theme. E.g., “Cookie Recipes,” “Best Cookie Recipes,” “Sugar Cookie Recipes.” Choose the most relevant one and avoid confusing people who may browse your profile and boards.
- Think like your audience. How would they expect your Pins and boards to be organized? What would be most useful for them?
3. To Grow Faster on Pinterest, Shouldn’t You Post More?
Repeat after me: Quality over quantity.
These days, Pinterest is prioritizing fresh, high-quality Pins with mega-relevance to users. That means it’s far better to post fewer, more awesome Pins versus lots and lots of mediocre Pins.
It’s also better, as they say, to “be the first Pinner.” That means you are the first one to upload the image or video, write the descriptions, and link to your site. Pinterest loves to see this and will prioritize fresh, original Pins over repins.
So, no. Don’t go into a Pinning frenzy. Most content creators don’t produce enough fresh content to do this, anyway. Also, don’t go into a repinning frenzy. This is spammy behavior and will only hurt you.
How Many Pins Is Too Many? Proceed Carefully (with Users in Mind)
Maintaining a Pinterest business account isn’t as straightforward as it seems. You have to be cognizant of best practices for pleasing your audience and the Pinterest algorithm while balancing your own content strategy in the mix.
Don’t start the hair-pulling, yet, though.
With recent changes, Pinterest is leaning further and further toward user-friendliness. Keep your users/target audience top-of-mind, focus on providing value, and you’re already waaay ahead of the pack.
Want to kickstart your Pinterest Success? Sign up for the Perfect Pin Plan, a free 5-day challenge that will have you feeling like a Pinterest expert in no time!
