Hey guys! In this post, I’m sharing the latest news on the perfect pin size according to Pinterest! That’s right, we’re going straight to the source! Oh and I’ll also share what I read could happen if you use the wrong size. Hint: your pin may get cropped or worse…hidden. Yikes!
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The Old World – The Taller the Better
In the old world of Pinterest, tall pins ruled. It was almost like, the taller the pin, the better it was. And some of these pins were getting pretty out-of-control.
Can’t say I’m not guilty of creating a super tall pin myself. Hey, I was testing pins out, so I wanted to see how the taller pin would do. (They did pretty well, too lolz)
And while I still see super tall pins being pinned in Tailwind (a scheduling tool I’m testing out currently) and in my Pinterest Group boards on the regular today, I’m in the process of rolling out a pretty Epic Pinterest strategy to see if I can boost my traffic and monetization.
So while I’m experimenting and creating new pins to test, it’s important to know the best size for a pin to succeed on Pinterest. These things change quickly, so I wanted to know what pin size is best – right here and now – 2018.
The Best Pin Size According to Pinterest 2018
Luckily for me, I found an article with key takeaways from when Alisa Meredith (Content Marketing Manager for Tailwind) went live on Facebook with Sarah Hoople Shere, Head of Product Marketing at Pinterest. This discussion was about Pinterest SEO, Best Practices, and also included a Q&A with session attendees. It’s a great read / watch (you can see the playback!) for general best practices, but I wanted to call out the key takeaways related to pin size for my fellow super pinners out there.
The Recommended Ratio
According to the recap post:
“The ONE ideal ratio is 2:3. Squares are fine, but a taller Pin usually performs better.”
How Does the Ratio Translate to Pixels?
While 2:3 ratio is best, to help illustrate this, some sizes by pixel were shared:
- 600 x 900 px (this is the one Sarah mentioned the most in the video)
- or 735 x 1102 px
- or equivalent
Note: I haven’t heard what the smallest acceptable pin width is, but I personally wouldn’t go less than 600. Why? Because when a pin is expanded (especially on a desktop where there’s generally more screen space), if the pin graphic isn’t big enough to start, when it’s shown as enlarged, it could look pixelated (aka distorted / blurry).
600 x 900 px is the size I use for my standard photos, so I’m pretty happy about this. One thing I’m currently doing is going back to old posts and optimizing older photos as new pins. So this means I can grab any graphic from a previous post and create a new pin out of it. Woop!
Wrong Size Pin? Pinterest May Hide It!
So why should you care about this? Because if your pin deviates too much from the recommended 2:3 ratio, Pinterest may HIDE your pin. Yes. After all the hard work you put into creating your pin graphics, do you want there to be even a chance it will be hidden? I know I don’t.
Here’s what Sarah said about the 2:3 ratio recommendation in the video:
“If you deviate much from that, you might see less distribution or your Pins might be cut off in certain parts of the Pinterest app. Given that, we recommend sticking to that 2:3 ratio or lower.”
“Previously we truncated Pins, but now sometimes we just don’t show the Pin at all if it is super long. Even if currently our best Pins are super long, realize that these are still rolling out, and things will appear differently in different places.”
They noted that even if some of your best performing pins are super tall, some of these pin display variations are still being rolled out in different areas of Pinterest, so you could see changes in the future.
What Do You Do with Old Pins? Delete Them?
If you’re anything like me, you may be wondering how you fix this when you have super tall vertical pins floating around in your boards.
Short answer: never delete old pins.
According to the video/post, you should never delete old pins, even if they’re underperforming.
- Underperforming pins don’t hurt your overall engagement
- Dud pins can eventually take off
Or as Sarah said, “The dud that becomes the cool kid”. Haha. Nice.
Personally, I’m planning to create new pins to replace my super tall high performing pins. That way as the changes roll out, I’ll still have pins for this high quality content that I already know is valuable and highly shareable.
Further Reading
Want 10+ years of my research on the best blogging resources in one short list? Get my complete blog toolkit here (everything I’ve researched and chosen to run my blog based on blogging experience since 2016)
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And if you’re interested in checking out Tailwind to schedule your pins and automate your Pinterest strategy, you can try Tailwind out for free with a free trial here before deciding if you want to sign up for a paid account.
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