We absolutely must create our own pins

[Barbara]

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.

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[Jadendreamer13]

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

[WHS_Designs]

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.

[tarasmp]

Hi there,

May I ask a question please: I'm in early days of running my store and trying to increase store ranking and sharing products on social media helps. I do so on Pinterest. But I've noticed for the sharing to count towards my store ranking, it's got to be done while I'm logged in and the resulting pin is NOT editable. It uses my affiliate No at the end of its url and is not editable, so I cannot add an #affiliatelink or #sponsored tag to my pin in lieu of affiliate disclosure. Have you experienced this too by any chance? Thank you very much for your input! 

[WHS_Designs]

@tarasmp yes, I experience these limitations when autosharing from Zazzle, so I go to Pinterest instead and create the pin from there. It's more work, but you have more control over the content, link, and tags.

[tarasmp]

Thank you very much WHS_Designs.

[WHS_Designs]

@tarasmp

you're very welcome! and if you haven't already, check out @HightonRidley (Mark's) bookmarklets below for powerful ways to create manual Pins quickly and easily! 

Two-view Pinterest pin image generator - right fro... - Zazzle
Three-View image generator right from the product ... - Zazzle
The All Product Views bookmarklet from Nifty (tota... - Zazzle

[tarasmp]

Thank you for sharing the links! I'll check them out today. By the way, I have found out how to do this. My problem was that manual pinning may not count towards my store ranking in those early days. So how to get this social sharing to count while also adding my #affiliatelink tags? The answer I found is to share to Twitter instead. If I share to Twitter, then I can add all the tags I wish and that's my store ranking taken care of. Then once I've done this initial sharing of 10 products, I can start manual pinning on Pinterest. Have a lovely day and thanks again for your response! 

[TAngelone]

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. 

[Sandra-]

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. 

[Barbara]

@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.

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[Sandra-]

@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. 

[ievajen]

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

[Barbara]

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.

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[k8hayes]

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! 🙂

[Barbara]

Copy, live long, and prosper!

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[TAngelone]

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. 

[LMGildersleeve]

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.

[angelafuller729]

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)

[TAngelone]

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. 

[TAngelone]

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? 

[waterart]

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

[Barbara]

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.

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[WHS_Designs]

@Barbara 

Yes and yes. Your memory isn't flawed. 🙂

I can usually only do about 4 manual pins before the 5th attempt sends me into hourglass oblivion (I don't actually get to see an hourglass ... the page just gets stuck).

Sometimes I can get away with 5 or 6, sometimes I get stuck at the 3rd pin.

[Barbara]

I've been known to nod off at the computer when something is too repetitive.

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[WHS_Designs]

I've nodded off in front of my laptop, but that's because I've probably done too much Zazzling!

[tarasmp]

ah ah ah ......that's me....and it's not nodding off but making silly mistakes I discover later (trying to correct this tendency to do too much at any given time)

[Sandra-]

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. 

[SkullPilot]

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.

[SkullPilot]

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 

[CreativeLeahG]

The good news is that the pins I do from my forum are retaining the details can see one here. I pinned this members image from the forum a few hours ago.

[tarasmp]

Hi Leah,

This caught my attention 🙂

Is this a course you're currently running?

It looks like it is but I'm just double checking.

Do you still have availabilities on this course?

I'm trying to figure if it's a PDF or something delivered on a platform like Teachable.

Are you able to clarify please?

Thank you very much.

[Barbara]

Today, just to check it out, I tried pinning from the back end of my store. Glory be! All pertinent information ended up on my Pinterest board. Did Pinterest change something? Did Zazzle? Or was I dreaming?

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[Badeesie]

I went to test myself by pinning one wrapping paper from my shop backend, one of my wrapping papers from its product page, and two of other people's wrapping papers from their product pages. Both of my wrapping papers show my descriptions under Product Details. Neither of the others has a Product Details section to expand, and, oddly, one pulled the designer's description and one didn't (I did check a couple times to make sure they both had a designer's description).

[Barbara]

How odd. It's not as if you were pulling from different kinds of products where, perhaps, things might be different in Zazzle's coding.

Yes, I did the same, checking carefully to make sure everything was there. It's difficult trusting anything on the internet, and with good reason.

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[tarasmp]

Very odd indeed. Reading this thread I think I'm inclined to rely on good old fashioned manual pinning in the future or using Tailwind to help schedule a bare minimum daily no of pins to help on hectic days where manual pinning may not be practical

[Badeesie]

I went back a while later and this time, one of the other wrapping papers did have the Product Details section.

[Barbara]

Once again, I guess we have to exercise patience. Phooey on patience.

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[Fizzy]

I have a hate-hate relationship with Pinterest. It's hard to keep on top of all the various changes they keep implementing😂. Just the other day I noticed that Idea Pins (which they heavily promoted) have now gone the way of the Dodo. They are now calling them Video Pins. Go figure.

[Barbara]

I'm glad I ignored Idea Pins altogether.

You may or may not have noticed, but Pinterest is promoting heavily on YouTube. Great ads, though I've no idea if it'll do anything for us little folk.

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