How To Increase Followers And Engagement On Pinterest With Story Pins

As with all social media platforms, Pinterest is constantly changing and evolving. This year they’ve announced a multitude of changes including a new algorithm that’s geared to give users a more diverse and unique experience on the platform. With this change came the introduction of story pins!

The Story pin is the newest pin format to be introduced to the Pinterest platform. Because this is such a new feature, story pins are getting pushed out to users like wildfire and they’re getting a ton of engagement as a result! 

If you’re looking for a new way to increase your reach and get more engagement on Pinterest keep on reading! In this post, you will learn: what story pins are, why you should use them, tips on how to make your story pin totally awesome and get loads of engagement, and how to upload a story pin to Pinterest once you’ve created it.

What Is a Story Pin?

Story pins are Pinterest’s twist on the Instagram story. They give you the ability to tell a “story” through graphics, photos, videos, and text across multiple pages within the pin (between 2 – 20 pages). They’re designed to give creators an outlet to reach and connect with new people, increase engagement, and grow your audience.

At this time, you can not link a URL to story pins (but don’t let this deter you). In order to get the most benefit from them, you want to provide enough value to the user within the pin to want to follow you and find out more! Pinterest offers other unique ways for users to engage with story pins, such as:

• emojis that you can use to react to the pin (similar to Facebook reactions),
• a big “follow” button on the last slide that a user can opt-in to follow your account
• the ability to save a story pin to a board if they want to come back and look at it again later
• the ability to click directly from the pin to your profile if they’re interested in finding more of your content right then and there. 

At the time I’m writing this post, story pins are still in beta and are only available to select users in the United States. If you live in the United States and would like to request access to this new feature click here. They will be slowly rolling them out to other countries over time, starting with Canada next, so be on the lookout

What Do Story Pins Look Like?

You can identify a story pin by looking in the upper left hand corner of the pin. If you see a small card icon with a number next to it, it’s a story pin! The card represents the pages of a story pin and the number tells you how many pages are in that particular pin. I’ve rounded up a few of my favorite story pins to give you a better idea of what they look like and how to interact with them below:

Why Should You Use Story Pins

Pinterest really wants us to use this new pin format and are distributing story pins to its users like crazy! Story pins are seeing giant amounts of engagement in extremely short periods of time. Why is this good? The Pinterest algorithm is wired to show your pins to people who engage with your content, so if you publish a story pin and it sees thousands of views and engagements in a matter of minutes or hours your audience is growing at an exponential rate – much faster than it would grow with a standard pin. This is hugely beneficial to the overall health and authority of your account as well. Here’s an example of a story pin I created for my client, Emily Summer. This is what the pin looked like 20 minutes after I hit publish:

And the next day (about 20 hours later) it looked like this:

Pretty insane right? I think these screenshots speak for themselves. Now that you’re convinced to give story pins a shot… (I mean how could you not at least try them after seeing the kind of engagement in these photos) keep reading for some tips to get you started.

Tips for Creating A Great Story Pin

1. Use at least 5 pages 
   Pinterest recommends using at least 5 pages or more to tell a truly great and complete idea or “story”. Use the space you need, you can include up to 20 pages.
   
2. Keep it simple
   Don’t put too much information on each page. Break the story up into small digestible pieces – try to focus on one step, idea, or action at a time.
   
3. Keep it interesting
   Don’t be afraid to add a mixture of video and still graphics to your story pin. You might also want to consider using video on the cover to grab people’s attention. When using video, be sure to highlight the important points in text somewhere on the video, as most people don’t use the volume on Pinterest.
   
4. Use keywords and tags 
   Use keywords and tags to help you get discovered in search! Remember, Pinterest is a search engine. Pinterest uses the text on story pins to index them for search, so if you’re designing your pin elsewhere, be sure to leave room to add descriptive text natively on the platform when uploading your story pin to Pinterest. This helps Pinterest understand what your story pin is about and allows them to show your pin to the right users. 
   
   Tags help with this as well. Pinterest allows you to search and add up to 10 topic tags to your story pin to help your pin show up when people are searching for similar ideas.
   
5. Add a call to action
   Be sure to add a call to action on the last page of your story pin to tell the viewer what to do next. This can be as simple as “follow me for more ideas” or maybe “follow me on Instagram @ (whatever your handle is)”

Ideas For How To Use Story Pins

There are so many different ways to utilize story pins. They really work for any niche if you put your mind to it. If you’re having trouble getting those creative wheels spinning, heres a few ways I utilize story pins for my clients and some ways I’ve seen other people use story pins in their businesses.

– The preparation of a recipe
– Step by step tutorial
– Outline an online course you’re selling 
– Steps in a DIY Project 
– Display a collection of products
– Show the different uses of a product
– Tip round-up on something relating to your area of expertise 
– Introduce a new product and its features 

How To Upload Your Story Pin To Pinterest

– From your Desktop:

1. To get started click on “create,” then click “create story pin.” If you dont see this option, then you have not been granted early acces to this feature. To request access you can click here. 
2. Next, you’ll see 2 options – “create story pin” or “your latest drafts.” If you want to create a completely new story pin click “create story pin.”
3. From here you can upload up to 20 images or videos from your computer. You can use a design program like Canva or Photoshop to design your graphics or you can simply use images and videos you already have. Images must be less than 32mb and videos less then 50mb. 
4. Once you’ve uploaded your content, use the tools on the right hand of your screen to design the layout, choose your cover image, adjust or resize any of the images or videos, and add text in whatever font, color, or highlight you like. 
5. When you’re done designing, click “next.” Select a details theme from the drop menu and fill in the following: The title of your story pin, description, which board you would like to save it to, and add up to 10 tags (i.e. topics)  that are relevant to your pin. 
6. Hit publish and whala! You’ve created your first story pin.

– From your mobile:

1. To get started, log into your account on the Pinterest app. Click on the “+” at the bottom of the the screen. 
2. Choose what your story pin is about (recipes, diy and crafts, or something else)
3. Next, choose and upload your cover image and then upload up to 19 more images or videos that you would like to include in your story pin. You can design your images in Canva or Photoshop and upload them to your phone in advance or use the images or videos you already have stored in your phone. 
4. Next its time to design your story pin! Use the tools in the bottom left hand corner of the screen to rearrange the photos and videos you uploaded, adjust the videos or images by zooming in and repositioning them to your liking, and add descriptive text overlay to each slide to give context to your viewers. 
5. Next add your story pin title 
6. Add your supplies or ingredients. If its an educational pin, write a short description. 
7. Search and choose up to 10 related topic tags to help your pin show up when people are searching for similar ideas. 
8. Hit Publish and you’re all set! You’ve successfully created a story pin!

The Takeaway

Story pins are killing it right now! Pinterest is pushing story pins out like wildfire and they’re getting 5x – 10x the reach than your average standard pin.  Although you can’t link story pins to your website, they’re great for engagement. Engagement is important because once someone engages with your content, Pinterest will show them more of your content, so this is a great way to amplify your audience! Can’t wait to see all your amazing story pins on my feed!