topic Re: We absolutely must create our own pins in Promoting

We absolutely must create our own pins

Barbara — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 00:27:09 GMT

When pinning from Zazzle first began to disintegrate, at least we retained the title for the pin. Then it sank lower, and the title turned into something like "Create Your Own [Whatever]." I pinned something earlier today, just now checked it, and it's an utter blank. No description, no title, not even any mention of Zazzle. No nothing. The only way to get everything needed is to create and upload our own pins. Has Pinterest stopped pulling info from web sites altogether? Sometimes I just want to do a quick pin, not an entire production.

Phooey.

Colorwash's Home

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

Jadendreamer13 — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 01:17:00 GMT

I pinned about a dozen products to Pinterest today. I didn’t have any issues with my pins.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

WHS_Designs — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 01:24:54 GMT

I create manual pins when promoting my own products and have also done so when promoting the designs of others.

Or else my descriptions will suffer the wrath of a generic writeup, or worse, none at all.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

TAngelone — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 05:42:40 GMT

Can any of you elaborate further on how you actually manually pin? What steps do you take and what URLS do you use. Being armed with this information would help others like myself who read this thread who are still learning Zazzle and Pinterest.

My store and it's product lines are set to PRIVATE or HIDDEN while they are in development. I also have a live domain with a website that is still NOT set up. It is just a landing page with my brand's logos and states that I will be opening soon. I have hired a company called FIXWIX who are going to help me build and set up my WIX website where I intend to sell and promote my own Zazzle and Redbubble product designs.

I myself am a graphic designer/artist, photographer and all around creative.

That all having been stated. Would any of you be so kind as to post in detail your methods for manually pinning?

I myself have a paid subscription to TAILWIND for PINTEREST which I still haven't used yet.

I am also equipped with paid subscriptions to Canva and Place-It for making my promotional materials.

Any and all information you can provide is needed and appreciated. Again our discussion will also help others who read this thread and need guidance about manually pinning to Pinterest. Thanks in advance.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

Sandra- — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 07:14:09 GMT

Hi @Barbara Scott mentioned re missing titles when pinning is being looked into in this thread https://community.zazzle.com/t5/technical-issues/trouble-uploading-to-pinterest/td-p/75959 so hopefully will soon be fixed. I noticed that this is only happening when pinning my new products in the last week or two. The title still appears when pinning older items.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

Barbara — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 12:58:43 GMT

@Sandra-: I wondered about the fact that mine was a brand new pin. Let's hope this problem ends up being fixed. I really don't want to have to create my own pin each and every time. It sure doesn't help that Pinterest allows us to supposedly edit a pin, but what we enter there simply goes poof.

@TAngelone: To create your own Pinterest pin, design it in whatever image editor you're using. My favorite poison is Photoshop, but the process is certainly basic. What I do is download my product's mockup from Zazzle, which is 2048 x 2048 pixels. I reduce its size to 1000 pixels square, then extend the canvas to 1500 pixels in height. My preference is to put those 500 extra pixels beneath the Zazzle image, giving me a place to describe or write anything I wish. I now have Pinterest's preferred dimensions of 1000 x 1500 pixels. I flatten the image, save it as a JPG, then go to Pinterest where, in the Create link, there's a choice to Create Pin. You're presented with a popup that has everything you need, from uploading the image you created to putting in the product's URL. This is also where you choose into which of your boards you want the pin to go. Note that, when you copy and paste your product's URL, you have to add your associate number unless you're part of Zazzle's Promoter program.

Here's an example of what I've been doing: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/94505292174250279/

I'd tell you to test it, which is easy, but it sounds as if you're not ready to do so since everything you currently have is private.

Colorwash's Home

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

TAngelone — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 13:52:37 GMT

Barbara - Let preface this by thanking you for thoroughly outlining the steps you take. I myself am a CREATIVE CLOUD Subscriber which does include PHOTOSHOP CC. I am also equipped with paid monthly subscriptions to CANVA and PLACE-IT. So as you can clearly see I am well equipped to make pins of any type for my Zazzle store and product lines. I will be sure and follow you on PINTEREST. I have an active PINTEREST account. Your wisdom and guidance is needed and appreciated. Thanks again.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

LMGildersleeve — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 14:23:51 GMT

Canva (paid service) has pin sized templates you can use in Pinterest AND pin right from Canva. Check out their Help pages to learn more. My suggestion is educate yourself with the sites you use's Help pages for best practices on how to use them for Pinterest. Pinterest also has Help pages for business you can use.

This goes to anyone reading this... take ownership of your POD business and educate yourself using the sites you use.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

Sandra- — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 14:43:05 GMT

@Barbara yes it’s time consuming for sure manually creating pins, so hopefully this will be fixed soon as I always pin every product as I create it and time doesn’t allow for making manual pins each time. I occasionally do manual pins for anything I want to especially promote, but on the whole I’ve been pinning direct from Zazzle as well as using Nifty.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

TAngelone — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 14:48:03 GMT

Barbara - I am a PROMOTER as well. I believe I am a PROMOTER 2. Thanks again. And yes I will test this out once I am ready to do so within a couple of weeks. I will also try to post my progress to help others on this thread.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

TAngelone — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 15:17:53 GMT

LMGIildersleeve I appreciate your response to my posts. I am also learning how to use these applications. I am actually designing everything from scratch so it is all original. This is also how I am creating and setting up my Zazzle and Redbubble brand and product lines.

I create all of my own design elements as I am a full on creative. I live and love to create.

That stated again I appreciate your suggestions.

You are very right that we should all educate ourselves. I myself have viewed a plethora of YOUTUBE videos on said topics PINTEREST, CANVA ETC. I myself also have TAILWIND for PINTEREST.

That is why these threads are so invaluable. They make the learning curve less steep and daunting. We are all new to something at some point in our respective journeys. However it is here on the Zazzle forums that I learn the most. There is a lot of surface information that does NOT produce any real results.

On the Zazzle forums I have found that I get very real results from these types of threads. Thanks again.

Does anyone use the TAILWIND App for PINTEREST?

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

waterart — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 15:58:01 GMT

I've read that manually created pins get more views than pinning directly from a website, anyone of you find that to be true?

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

Barbara — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 17:06:57 GMT

My sense of it is that, yes, they seem to get more views...at first, but then there's a drop-off. However, I haven't done much of a consistent study of it. Did I hear somewhere that Pinterest is more likely to push manual pins than the automatic ones we do from POD's? Also, there's something about not doing too many in one shot. My flawed memory is saying only five at one time.

Colorwash's Home

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

Sandra- — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 18:03:14 GMT

Hi @waterart I’ve not personally noticed my manual pins getting more views than those I pin directly from Zazzle, although I’ve made a few of Pinterest’s Ideas pins and the views are much higher on those.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

ievajen — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 18:56:07 GMT

I see your musical clock pin doesnt show any info - not title nothing, only zazzle.com

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

Barbara — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 19:08:05 GMT

That's the pin that alerted me to the problem. I pinned it directly from Zazzle, and as soon as I get the chance (when I turn on my computer, which I'm currently not using), I'll be remaking it from scratch.

Colorwash's Home

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

angelafuller729 — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 11:58:49 GMT

Canva is awesome! If you are a pro member you can create multiple variations of your pin resized to fit specific social media. Also, keep in mind you can create a pin for a single product, a collection or a store category, with the same Canva template, just by dragging/dropping the image files and changing the URL. Animate the pin and download both the animated version and the graphic only version. Each of those counts as "unique" on Pinterest and makes it a lot easier to create a variety of pins (I use this technique a lot during the holidays)

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

SkullPilot — Thu, 18 May 2023 07:50:22 GMT

Your question is what got me searching the forum here for info about Zazzle's own "red button" pins versus making our own. I usually get zero impressions for all pins if they are direct-pinned from Zazzle. And after about 8 months of doing this (with maybe one or two of my own), I finally got back to making a new one of my own yesterday, and found it got 4 impressions overnight.

I think - according to this experience, if somebody finds me via one of my own pins, they might wander around one or two of my boards, as they often get a single impression (but only usually if they found something else to look at first).

Having said that, I did find that a couple of my recent direct-pinned from Zazzle pins got 70+ impressions and 30+ impressions over the first 24 hours, quite randomly. Maybe adding a board description helped them. I usually leave board descriptions blank, planning on going back to them! (I never do, usually.) So maybe that's important, too.

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

SkullPilot — Thu, 18 May 2023 12:19:25 GMT

I've been digging around and found the @HightonRidley blog post, where he describes the way Pinterest handles the Zazzle pin-it Pins. If the info is still current (blog post from Nov 8, 2022) Pinterest shows the generic product type description - NOT our own product descriptions. This will explain lack of impressions for me, as I assume Pinterest uses an algorithm to demote pins with constantly identical descriptions. And (circling back to the Original Poster of this thread) why we absolutely must create our own pins as well.

Here's the blog post (if the link works): Learn how to create Pinterest pins that get 20 X the impressions

Re: We absolutely must create our own pins

k8hayes — Thu, 25 May 2023 19:25:45 GMT

Thanks, Barbara! I love your method of creating your own pins. And the result (in your example) is fantastic. I've copied your idea to my notes! 🙂