12 Pinterest Tips to Make Pinning a Breeze

It's easy to see why Pinterest is so popular. With a click here and a pin there, a beautifully curated world of things you love fills the screen.

The Pinterest interface essentially allows for infinite scrolling, meaning you can easily spend hours perusing recipes, home décor inspiration, gadgets, or travel photos. The format seems to be working. After joining the site, 84 percent of female Pinterest users and 50 percent of male pinners stay active on the site, according to Digital Insights.

If it seems that your home screen on Pinterest goes heavy on the cupcakes, you're not just having a sugar-deprived hallucination. RJ Metrics found that the preponderance of pins are about food and drink. Close behind are DIY and crafts. And if you'd have to guess what follows that up, you'd probably venture home décor and you'd be right.

But regardless of your favorite boards and how calming you might find perusing the latest pins, you've probably had some moments of frustration with the platform, whether it's figuring out the difference between mobile and the desktop, sharing a whole board vs. a single pin, or purchasing something with just a couple of clicks.

Check out the slideshow for some tips and tricks to help you make the most of your Pinterest experience. And be sure to check out PCMag's Pinterest boards, too.

Keeping Tabs

You don't have to switch tabs to pin. Installing the Pinterest bookmarklet will add a small Pinterest button to the right of your browser's URL bar. Whenever you find something worthy of a pin, just click the Pinterest button and a pop-up menu will let you post to Pinterest without leaving the page. You can do this on iOS, too. The process is a bit more complicated, but Pinterest has written out a few handy instructions.

Sssssh

There are some boards that are just for you. Whether you're planning a wedding with the guy you've been dating for two weeks or have a secret love of sci-fi, you can keep it private via a Secret Board. On the desktop, navigate to "Your Profile & Pins" and scroll down to find the "Create a secret board option" (above). On mobile, navigate to your profile, click the add a board button, and toggle the Secret option to red. If you feel like coming clean, you can make a secret board public.

Sharing Is Caring

Friends share and so can you on Pinterest. Invite others to pin to your boards by going to Your Profile & Pins, finding the board you want to share, selecting Edit Board and then inviting people by their Pinterest name or email with the "Who Can Add Pins?" option.

Pass a Note

You can send a pin to a friend by clicking on Send and then entering their email.

The Write Way

You can write up a caption for a pin without typing a word. Highlight the text on the page that you want to appear as a caption, then click on the Pinterest bookmarklet and your pin is all set.

Boost Your Popularity

See what's trending by looking at what's popular on Pinterest. Go to the Categories menu on the upper left of any page on the site and from the dropdown choose Popular. You'll see what's most loved and most pinned. (Safe bets: nail art and Benedict Cumberbatch.) You can cater to the crowd by pinning in kind or repinning.

Searching Around

Searching on the go can be rushed. To help users, Pinterest added Guided Search recently. When you type in the search box, categories come up to narrow down what you're looking for.

Vertically Challenged

Pin vertical images. They look better on mobile and the Web.

Let's Make a Deal

Have your eye on something pretty pricey? You can get notified when it's just pretty and no longer pricey. If you pin something that has the price attached, you'll get an email from Pinterest when it's on sale.

Read It Later

There are always those stories that look interesting but will have to wait until later. Pin them to a board and you'll always have something to read.

All Mapped Out

Plenty of pinners plan out their vacations using boards. You can also use them as a travel guide from your phone when you get there. When you create a board, select Add a Map. And to get travel tips, you can visit maps, like this one of vibrant street markets.

Mind Your Own Business

If you have a website you want to promote or are a business owner, sign up for Pinterest for Business. You can add a Pin It button so that visitors can share content to their own boards. You'll also get valuable analytics about activity on Pinterest and to your site. Pinterest recently launched promoted pins so that you can get seen by more people.

About Our Expert

Chandra Steele

Senior Features Writer

My Experience

My title is Senior Features Writer, which is a license to write about absolutely anything if I can connect it to technology (I can). I’ve been at PCMag since 2011 and have covered the surveillance state, vaccination cards, ghost guns, voting, ISIS, art, fashion, film, design, gender bias, and more. You might have seen me on TV talking about these topics or heard me on your commute home on the radio or a podcast. Or maybe you’ve just seen my Bernie meme.

I strive to explain topics that you might come across in the news but not fully understand, such as NFTs and meme stocks. I’ve had the pleasure of talking tech with Jeff Goldblum, Ang Lee, and other celebrities who have brought a different perspective to it. I put great care into writing gift guides and am always touched by the notes I get from people who’ve used them to choose presents that have been well-received. Though I love that I get to write about the tech industry every day, it’s touched by gender, racial, and socioeconomic inequality and I try to bring these topics to light.

Outside of PCMag, I write fiction, poetry, humor, and essays on culture.

My Areas of Expertise

Making incomprehensible tech news easy to understand
Expanding the boundaries of topics covered in the industry
Figuring out tips and tricks in apps and on devices and letting you know about them
Putting together gift guides for everyone in your life

The Technology I Use

All that gadgets is gold for me: my iPhone 11 Pro, my fifth-generation iPad that I use only for streaming videos and music, my iPad mini 4 that I like to take with me whenever I carry a bag that can fit it, and my MacBook Pro. Why are they all different shades of gold, though? What’s going on, Apple?

None of them quite live up to my two past loves: my LG Lotus LX600 phone and my Sony Walkman NW-E005 MP3 player.

I've never given up wired earbuds so I was ahead of all those trend pieces. I use a Mangotek Lightning-to-3.5mm headphone jack adapter to connect them to my phone.

I have had so many ebook readers, but I prefer paper to them all. Still, my Kindle Paperwhite is perfect for traveling or when I’m too impatient to wait for a book to be released in paperback.

Read the latest from Chandra Steele

Read full bio