Are you new to Pinterest marketing? Looking for easy, free ways of scheduling your Pinterest pins so your boards gain maximum visibility?
Woah, woah. Let’s back up a second. If you’re a Pinterest marketing beginner, you may not know why on earth you would need to schedule your pins.
After all, Pinterest is a place where folks share recipes and craft projects, right? Well, if you’re considering using Pinterest for business, it’s best to look at this like any other business task. It’s important to understand that to get the maximum exposure, it’s best to pin about 20 – 25 times each day.
And of course, you don’t want to cluster those pins out, but distribute them throughout the day. Or even better, publish them when your followers are most active.
You can begin to see the need for a tool to do this work for you, so that you are not letting your pin queue run dry, nor are you trying to manually pin something every half hour!
This blog post was created in connection with my video linked below. I really recommend checking that out because you’ll get to see both the solutions I’m going to show you in action. This right here is a step–by-step tutorial of me doing everything on this list but in real time for you to learn from. I think you’ll find it super helpful!
Using Pinterest’s native scheduler to schedule pins for free
First off, go to Create > Create Pin in the top left hand corner. It’s also called Pin Builder.
From there, you’ll see an upload screen. You can either upload your pin graphic there, or go to the ‘save from site’ button below the image upload box.
Upload your pin graphics and add pin optimizations
If you upload a graphic, don’t forget to add in your title, description and URL! These are so important to a pin’s success, so make sure you have these already written and optimized. Then just copy and paste!
If you ‘save from site’, the URL will already be there, but unfortunately, Pinterest doesn’t carry over the pin’s description which, if you use WordPress, is in the image alt text.
Then you simply pick a date from the ‘publish at a later date’.
Select your date for pin to be published
Now, there is a limitation here. You can only pick a date that’s a maximum of two weeks out. So if you are OK with scheduling out your content every two weeks, this is likely a good (and completely free) solution for you.
Once you have made your optimizations and picked a time and date, and a board to publish to in the top right hand corner, hit ‘schedule’.
However! There is another limitation you need to be aware of. It’s not actually possible to edit the pin once you have scheduled. This means if you decide to publish at a different time, want to change your title, URL, description or any aspect, you cannot. You can only ‘delete’ or ‘publish now’.
So, there you have it – how to schedule pins for free using the Pinterest platform itself.
Use Tailwind to schedule your Pinterest pins – start for free!
Full disclosure: once you are done with your trial, you can judge whether it was worth it for you. Then you can go ahead and purchase a Tailwind plan.
You may want to check both your Pinterest analytics and your Google Analytics to see if there was a boost in your traffic, impressions, viewers – whatever metrics you are most interested in.
Sign up for your free trial below, then check the pricing page while you’re there to see the current pricing for the basic Tailwind plan.
Upload pins directly to your Tailwind dashboard
This is your Tailwind dashboard. On the right is your schedule with all free timeslots in light gray.
On the left is the list of pins to be published. To add new pins to this queue, you can either upload them by dragging them in (in bulk, if you prefer) or by using the Tailwind Chrome browser extension to schedule pins for any web pages (even if you don’t own them).
Once you’ve uploaded your pin (or curated them from Pinterest or around the web – anywhere really), you’ll have some saved drafts.
You’ll want to optimize these, making sure they have the correct text and URL.
Schedule pins by adding to queue or using an interval
You can schedule out your pins by either 1) adding them to the queue and they will fill up your available time slots in order. Remember to shuffle your queue when you’re done filling it!
A better way is 2) to use the interval feature to schedule them exactly according to your preferences. The maximum amount of time between pin publications to different boards is 90 days, meaning if you publish to 10 boards (the maximum that Tailwind suggests), you have two and half years’ worth of mileage out of that one pin!
Now, you’ll have your own strategy that you will learn and implement in time. But a good starting point is to schedule to at least 5 – 8 relevant boards including group boards if you have found any high-quality, targeted ones.
You will also find the Communities feature of Tailwind super helpful. Formerly known as Tribes, the Communities tab offers ways of connecting with like-minded creators in your niche and gaining re-shares by organically sharing the content of your Communities mates.
Using the Tailwind Chrome browser extension
As touched on, the Tailwind Chrome extension is an even easier way of grabbing multiple graphics or images to pin. Once added to Chrome, every time you visit a page on the internet, you’ll be able to see something like this whenever you hit the extension.
From that view, simply select all the pictures you want, and then hit ‘schedule’ which will take you to the familiar drafts screen.
Once you’re on that screen, you can schedule each little batch as you go along, or add dozens or hundreds or pins to your drafts and then schedule them in one fell swoop.
Remember, whenever you are scheduling you will need to select boards to pin to. So, make sure you have a decent selection or boards to pin to and keep adding to them. Pinterest never shows boards that have just a handful of pins. The key is both quantity and quality!
And that’s really it! It definitely doesn’t have to take all day to fill up your Pinterest queue and know that you’re publishing great quality pins that link back to your own site, and other creators in your niche.
Find this helpful? What would you like to know next? Don’t forget to sign up to Tailwind for Pinterest today using my link below! I love this tool because it makes Pinterest scheduling something I only have to think about once a month. Speaking of which, my queue is looking a little dry – I’m off to schedule some pins! See you on the flipside!
Zoe Larkin
I’m Zoe, a wedding photographer based in San Francisco! My style is candid, capturing authentic moments for my couples all over the Bay Area and Northern California. Creating content is my passion! Follow along the blog and Insta!
Awesome stuff Zoe 🙂
If anyone needs an alternative tool, you can also schedule Pinterest Pins for free with OneUp
That’s great info. Thank you!