Rebecca Portsmouth

HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST BOARD NAMES ON PINTEREST IN 2023

by Rebecca Portsmouth | Jun 3, 2023 | Pinterest

Knowing how to choose the best board names on Pinterest in 2023 is an essential part of being found on the SEO-based platform, alongside creating the best pins and best strategies. In this article, we’ll be covering everything you need to know about naming Pinterest boards so you get more re-pins and traffic.

HOW DO I START A BOARD ON PINTEREST?

You start or create a board on Pinterest in three easy steps. These are:

1. Making sure you’re logged into Pinterest, click on your profile photo on the top right-hand side. This will display your boards.
2. Click the + button on the right-hand side and select ‘create board’ from the dropdown menu.
3. Name the board, choose if you want to make it secret and press the red ‘create’ button. You’re done!

How do I start a board on Pinterest screenshot from Pinterest showing how to press the + button and create a new board for your account.

WHAT SHOULD I NAME MY PINTEREST BOARDS IN 2023?

Your board names on Pinterest should use words that people are already searching for inside the app, so that your board has the best chance of being found. You can find out the best terms – often called keywords – by searching yourself and seeing what Pinterest suggests for you.

As an example, if I put ‘yoga tips’ into Pinterest, there are suggested terms just below including ‘for beginners’, ‘for beginners 30 day’ and ‘for beginners flexibility’. I can also see a range of pins below these suggestions. In the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the search bar, you can also set it to ‘boards’ and see what boards are called ‘Yoga tips’. There are a LOT of results!

So while you CAN name your board ‘Yoga tips’, it’s going to be difficult to set it apart from all the other boards with the same name. If you niche down more in the name, perhaps with ‘Yoga tips for beginners’ as Pinterest suggested, that would help beginners find your board.

To target more advanced yogis, you might type ‘Advanced yoga’ into the search bar, which will suggest terms like ‘advanced yoga flow’ or ‘advanced yoga poses names’. If your board names on Pinterest are these more niche terms, they’re more likely to be found and your pins are more likely to be re-pinned and clicked on. In other words, you’re competing for terms with less competition.

HOW LONG TO MAKE A PINTEREST BOARD NAME

A Pinterest board name can be up to 50 characters long. You want the most important words at the front, because those are the ones that will show on your profile or in a search for boards.

Here’s what that looks like:

HOW MANY PINTEREST BOARDS CAN YOU HAVE?

You can have up to 500 Pinterest boards including secret boards and group boards you didn’t create. Secret boards are those that only you and other Pinterest users you invite can see (Pinterest calls these other people ‘collaborators’). Group boards are public boards that have more than one person able to add pins.

HOW TO WRITE GREAT PINTEREST BOARD DESCRIPTIONS

You have 500 characters for your Pinterest board descriptions. That gives you room to describe clearly what your board is about, using keywords near the beginning of the description. These can be a mix of popular, broad keywords and long-tail phrases. Long-tail phrases often start with ‘how to …’ or ‘how can I …’.

Mention if the board serves a particular niche, such as Etsy sellers or what transformation they can expect eg ‘learn how to take your own product photos’. Use keywords you found when searching Pinterest for your board names. Although writing a board name in capitals can make it appear bolder, it’s also more difficult to read, so using upper and lower case text is best.

HOW TO EDIT A PINTEREST BOARD

Edit a Pinterest board by:
1. Clicking on your board to open it and selecting the three dots for board options. It will show you an option to ‘Edit board’.
2. Here, you can change the board name, board cover, description, collaborators, make it secret, show pins inspired by the board in your home feed or delete the board.
3. Click the red ‘Done’ button to save your changes.

HOW TO CREATE PINTEREST BOARD COVERS

You can manually assign one of your pins as the board cover or Pinterest will choose a pin itself. This means you can make a board cover graphic and pin it to the board. Give it the board URL as its link.

Once you’ve saved the pin to your board, edit the board and choose ‘CHANGE COVER’. Choose the pin you have just saved as the cover. The pin you have chosen as a cover will usually appear as a square

The jury’s out as to whether this has an impact on gaining followers or repins, but speaking for myself, if someone has gone to the trouble of creating board covers, I’m more likely to think they’ve curated pins with some extra thought as well and am more likely to look at their content and follow them.

HOW TO ORGANISE PINTEREST BOARDS

Arrange your boards on your profile in a way that works for you. Pinterest offers automatic arrangements based on the alphabet or showing boards in order of boards where you saved your last pins. A third way is manual – you drag and drop your boards in exactly the order you prefer.

You can set which of the three options you want by looking at your boards and finding the ‘settings’ icon with two circles on two lines. Click on this to select your option.

I recommend you choose the drag and drop option, putting the most important boards for your ideal clients first. Click on a board and drag it to a white space between other boards. The first board will automatically contain all your pins or all saved products. You cannot move this board.

How to rearrange Pinterest boards with drag and drop.

HOW MANY SECTIONS CAN A PINTEREST BOARD HAVE?

Pinterest boards appear to have unlimited sections. You can have at least 20 sections in a Pinterest board, which should be more than enough for one board.

HOW TO DELETE A PINTEREST BOARD

You can delete a Pinterest board in three easy steps. These are

1. Making sure you’re logged into Pinterest, click on your profile photo on the top right-hand side. This will display your boards.
2. Move your cursor over the board you want to delete. An option to edit with a pencil icon will appear.
3. Scroll down the board editing options and click on ‘Delete board’. Click the red ‘Delete forever’ pop-up button that appears.

WANT TO UPGRADE YOUR PINTEREST ACCOUNT?

To upgrade your Pinterest account easily and quickly, I’ve created this set of Pinterest pin templates you can download and be using in minutes inside online design tool Canva. The set of 31 minimal pin designs opens in one click inside your Canva account. All the fonts and design elements contained in the pin templates are free, so you don’t need the pro version. Just add your brand colours, drop in your own photos and swap the fonts/text and you’re done!

FACEBOOK HEADER SIZE – THE PERFECT PIXELS FOR DESKTOP AND MOBILE IN 2023

by Rebecca Portsmouth | Apr 27, 2023 | Facebook

If you’ve ever wondered how big to make your Facebook header or found your uploaded photo looking pixelated, here’s the complete guide to the perfect Facebook header size and making sure it works across desktop and mobile in 2023.

FACEBOOK HEADER DIMENSIONS IN 2023

The Facebook page header size is a horizontal image in a 16:9 image ratio. Facebook recommends the image is at least 400 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall and suggests it be 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels high for the fastest loading time.

However, this image shows up differently in computer browsers to the Facebook mobile app. On browsers, you can see most of the header clearly; on the mobile app, the profile photo overlaps the the header significantly.

Here’s what that looks like:

As you can see, the image needs to have its essential elements on the top left or top right. In this example, there’s text on the top left and an example of the products on the top right. If a text-free photo had been used, it also would need to make sense with the central area missing.

BEST IMAGE FORMAT FOR FACEBOOK HEADER

Facebook suggests that the fastest loading header image is a JPG file that is less than 100 kilobytes. For header images with your logo or text, you might get a clearer result with a PNG file. Facebook also suggests using the sRGB colour space for accurate colours.

YOUR PAGE’S PROFILE PHOTO DIMENSIONS

Your page’s profile photo appears as a circle with a 176 pixel diameter on computer browsers, as a 196 pixel diameter circle on smartphones and 36 pixel diameter circle on most feature phones.

Like your Facebook header, you may want to double these dimensions to keep the images sharp. Many business owners choose to use a logo in this place rather than their face. Although this may be appropriate for larger businesses, using a friendly headshot is more welcoming.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR FACEBOOK HEADER

You can simply upload a photo that is the right dimensions and you’re done. You might also choose to add your logo and/or text that explains more about your business or what you currently have on offer.

To create either option in the correct size, you need a photo or graphics editor. My favourite for this is free online graphic design tool Canva. It has built-in Facebook templates and it’s easy to compare layout variations with one-click layout duplication.

KEY FEATURES OF A PERFECT FACEBOOK HEADER

Ideally, you want your Facebook header photo to give as much information as possible, as quickly as possible. This usually means very simple photos or layouts.

You want your photo to be super clear because Facebook users are often scrolling quickly on their phones while they’re out and about. You only have a few seconds to make it clear what you offer and most of the time, on a small mobile screen.

For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, you want a photo of you working with a couple on their wedding day, so you’re visible. Simply having a photo of newlyweds says ‘wedding’, but could also be promoting a make-up artist, florist, venue, planner or dress designer.

Apply the same principle of clarity to text or a logo. This means using five words or fewer for text and only using a logo if it’s clearly legible at a small size. Use your branding colours and fonts if possible. It helps existing fans of your business recognise you and helps build brand recognition for those who are new.

WHERE TO FIND PHOTOS FOR YOUR HEADER

The best photos for Facebook are authentic ones – some would say ‘messy’ or believable, rather than perfectly taken, photoshopped commercial images. Your clients might share perfect examples of this with you, using your product or sharing how they benefitted from your services. Just get their permission! This is also known as user generated content or UGC.

If you are going to use stock images, try to avoid the very common ones that have been seen multiple times across other businesses, especially those from free stock sites. If that’s not possible, then take a little time to think of less common search terms. For example, look for ‘designer-makers’ rather than ‘creative business owners’. And spend some time scrolling through the search results rather than picking one from the very top – it makes it less likely that the photo you choose is already familiar to your page visitors and associated with other businesses.

Also, make sure your header fits Facebook’s terms. This means avoiding misleading claims, swearing and being appropriate for all ages as the page is open to everyone on Facebook.

That’s everything you need to create a Facebook header that works flawlessly across desktop and mobile and clearly shows what your business has to offer in a few seconds.

7 WAYS CANVA TEMPLATES CAN HELP YOU GROW YOUR BUSINESS

by Rebecca Portsmouth | Jul 17, 2022 | Marketing

When you start your own business, you need to learn so many new skills: financial, social, motivational and beyond. Given that you’re the one responsible for making everything happen, it’s easy to think that you need to do it all yourself, but that’s just not true. In fact, experts say you need to build systems for others to follow as soon as you can, so you can stay doing the thing you love and let others do the rest. Doing this prevents frustration and burn-out. One of the easiest systems you can introduce to your business are Canva templates for your social media graphics. Here are seven reasons why you might want to use them to grow your business and stay sane at the same time.

1. SAVE YOUR VALUABLE TIME WITH CANVA TEMPLATES

Time is one of the scarcest resources of a business owner. Do you really want to spend hours creating graphics, when you could take a short-cut with templates, updating with your branded colours, fonts and text in a few minutes? And once you have your favourites updated with your branding, simply duplicate pages in your design and swap out the text and photos. It’s that easy!

Using brand fonts and colours consistently means your followers recognise your posts as soon as they appear in their feed – an easy way to build your brand. And templates make it possible to batch weeks or months of content at a time and schedule out your posts, so you have time and bandwidth to work on other parts of your business, secure in the knowledge that your social media posts are going out when they should.

Even if you ‘like’ designing social media graphics, is spending hours on them a great use of your time? Is there something else that would be a better use of your time? Hint: it may be something you don’t want to do and designing social media graphics is a displacement activity. If you really need a break from work, you could choose an activity that is completely unconnected.

Canva business templates - an example of a carousel template for Canva that could save you hours.

2. STAY IN YOUR ZONE OF GENIUS

We often start a business because we want to work in a particular field on our own and we’re passionate about that – or certainly about the freedom that working for yourself can bring. What can remove the shine from that vision are the other tasks that are not part of your chosen profession. For instance, if you’re a yoga teacher who loves helping their clients build stronger and more flexible bodies, it doesn’t automatically follow that you also love running an Instagram account, learning to set up an online shop to sell classes or completing tax returns. You may not be skilled at these either.

Give yourself the gift of freedom and outsource or minimise those tasks where possible, so that you can spend most of your time connecting with your clients. Canva templates are an easy stepping stone that give professional results for your marketing without needing to learn design principles yourself. Just add in your own fonts, colours and text.

3. KEEPS YOU IN TOUCH WITH DESIGN TRENDS

It can be easy to be stuck in your own design world – the way it’s always been done. By tapping into Canva business templates, you’re staying current with trends and your business reflects it’s moving with the times.

This can be simple updates such as using a gradient rather than a single colour or using trending elements. And because someone else is doing the designing, you don’t have to stay on top of the latest looks. Win-win!

You can still retain your brand colours and fonts most of the time, with the trending elements or designs swapping in to keep your social media graphics and other marketing visuals fresh.

4. LEVERAGE YOUR HOURS

In order for your business to earn more, your average hourly rate has to increase. Whether that’s raising what you charge for professional services, or spending your time creating products that can be sold multiple times to leverage your time, your hourly rate matters.

Given this, you need to ask yourself if it makes any sense to spend hours creating a graphic that someone else – an expert in THEIR field – has already 90% created. This is their leveraged product that is available at a much lower price point than it would cost to have a custom design created.

Unless your outgoings need to be as close to zero as possible or you’re outsourcing your social media completely, Canva business templates are the efficient middle way to create marketing graphics efficiently.

5. READY TO PUBLISH IN MINUTES

Yes, we’re talking about your time again and how to make the most of it. Canva templates can help you publish in minutes rather than hours. This can mean you’re able to create and schedule a social post in a small pocket of time between meetings or at the end of the day.

And because you’re not wasting time thinking about text size or balancing elements, you never end up taking five times as long as you planned to work on your socials, abandoning other important tasks in your schedule. Apart from anything else, having your daily plans hijacked by a marketing graphic is discouraging.

6. TEMPLATES HAVE THE LATEST FEATURES

Many Canva business templates make the most of recently added functionality and new additions to the library. They could feature animations, text variations or simply using the latest elements, which add the ‘ooh’ factor to your social posts. It also means you don’t have to ‘stay up with the latest trends’ – as they’re already baked into the templates.

7. TEMPLATES ARE SYSTEMS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

When starting your business, you want to create systems for efficiency. It also means that when you’re ready to delegate tasks, they’re ready to hand over. In the case of creating weekly Instagram content, for example, this could be tasks that include reviewing the past week, choosing topics (based on your content pillars), writing posts, recording and editing video, creating graphics, scheduling and daily engagement.

You might make these into a checklist, a set of Trello cards or a section in Notion, depending on how you like to run your business. You can link the URL of your Canva templates quickly and easily into any online system – even a PDF checklist.

Once you’ve built your systems, you can see easily which parts – if not all – you can delegate to others. Systems also keep you on track: it’s easier to work through a checklist than remember what you need to do and in what order every time. Systems also mean knowing how long a set of tasks take, so you can plan enough time in your diary.

What do you think? Do any of these points resonate with you and your business? Have you tried using Canva templates for your marketing? There are a range of them available in the shop.

HOW TO CREATE AN INSTAGRAM CAROUSEL THAT GIVES YOU BETTER ENGAGEMENT

by Rebecca Portsmouth | Mar 16, 2022 | Instagram

Creating an Instagram carousel – the grid posts with multiple photos/videos – can be a challenge and yet the upside is so high: greater engagement, content that serves your audience and is perfect for sharing and saving. Here’s what you need to know about creating a carousel for your business that gives you the most saves, likes and shares for your time. There’s even a free PDF checklist at the end of this post you can download.

WHAT IS AN INSTAGRAM CAROUSEL POST? HERE’S THE DEFINITION.

Carousels are the way you post multiple photos on Instagram on the grid. This grid post can have up to 10 photos, videos or a mix of the two. Viewers swipe through from right to left on the screen to view each slide, one at a time. A series of grey dots under the posts shows how many slides are in the carousel, with a blue dot marking the position of the current slide.

Carousels are the same as regular posts in other ways including captions, the ability to share, comment, like and save. Instagram introduced them early in 2017 as an ad format, extending that to all users soon afterwards.

WHAT SIZE TO MAKE YOUR CAROUSEL POSTS?

You can make carousel posts any size from square to a 4:5 ratio vertical or portrait image, as long as they have matching dimensions. If you try adding differently sized photos or videos, they will crop to the same shape as your first slide. If you’re choosing a non-square size, you might want to consider what your first photo will look like cropped in your grid.

In pixels, a 4:5 ratio for Instagram is 1080 pixels wide by 1350 pixels high. This format takes up the most amount of screen space available, so is the best format for impact in the scroll.

You can also use horizontal images or videos up to a 1.91:1 ratio, which is 1080 pixels wide by 566 pixels high. This is not an ideal format, because it takes up so little space in the feed, which means it’s easy to scroll past without noticing it. If you want to keep your images wide and narrow, you could use a photo or graphics editor to add white space above and below your image, helping it stand out in the feed.

Videos can last up to 60 seconds and need to be smaller than 4GB.

Be aware that your carousel will show in your Instagram feed as a square, with the top and bottom of your first slide hidden, so make sure that your design and any text you want seen is in the centre of the carousel’s first slide.

HOW TO CREATE AND POST AN INSTAGRAM CAROUSEL

How to create a carousel inside the Instagram app

Tap the + sign on the top right, next to the menu.
Tap the post option (with a grid icon).
This will bring up the ‘Recents’ album. Navigate to another album if needed and tap the multiple photo option.
Tap on the photos or videos you want to include in your carousel, in the order you want them to appear.
Tap ‘Next’ on the top right of your screen. Select any preferred filter options.
Write a caption, adding tags and other details as you would for a regular grid post.
Tap ‘Share’ on the top right of your screen!

Scheduling an Instagram Carousel in Facebook - screenshots of how to upload your carousel slides and schedule to publish inside Creator Studio. You can rearrange all the slides or delete and replace slides.

How to create a carousel inside Facebook Creator Studio on desktop

Navigate to Creator Studio inside Facebook (find it in the options down the left of your screen on a desktop). This assumes you have a Facebook page attached to your Instagram account.
Create a new post and upload your carousel slides. They will automatically display in the order you uploaded them. You can drag and drop the slides into a different order if needed.
Add your caption and hashtags to the text area. Add your location, if wanted.
Schedule or publish your post. There’s also an option to save as a draft.

Please note: Facebook is replacing Creator Studio with Business Suite, on a gradual worldwide rollout. You can also create and schedule carousels inside third party apps such as Planoly and Later.

WHAT ENGAGEMENT DO CAROUSEL POSTS RECEIVE?

According to Social Insider, Carousels have an average engagement rate per post of 1.92%, compared to 1.74% for images and 1.45% for videos. The engagement rate hits 2% for posts where all 10 carousel slides are used – a great reason to think about using them all! However, most carousels have between two and four slides. Other studies suggest that carousel post engagement rates are even higher than this.

WHY DO CAROUSEL POSTS RECEIVE MORE ENGAGEMENT?

There are multiple reasons why carousel posts receive more engagement. One is time spent to see all of the post: looking at multiple photos or videos simply takes longer than looking at one.

Another reason for increased engagement with carousel posts is that Instagram can show your post multiple times in the feeds of your followers. If the first slide doesn’t stop the scroll, Instagram may show the second or third slides, to encourage swipe-throughs to the rest of the slides. This increases the chances of followers engaging with your post.

There’s also the fact that a post with multiple photos or videos is more likely to contain more value than those with a single slide, especially if you know your followers well and cater to their interests. This might be photos of a product and multiple details, a variety of styling for clothing or inspirational quotes on one theme.

Regina Anaejionu uses carousels for mini-lessons that lead into her courses for thought leaders. She’s creating huge value for her ideal clients, without even leaving Instagram. If they like what they read, they’re primed to click her bio and check out what else she could offer them.

INSTAGRAM CAROUSEL IDEAS

Multiple photos or videos can show many aspects of one product or idea or you can tell a story in bite-sized chunks spread across the slides. Curiosity is key here – make sure at least some of the information is shared in later slides, so viewers swipe all the way through your slides.

Carousel posts can act as cornerstone content for your feed, providing valuable information for your ideal audience. This can include:
User generated content, possibly with a cover image, so they fit your feed’s aesthetic.
An introduction to a product or service
A list of tips
A range of testimonials
Transformations: showcase ‘before’ and ‘after’ your service or product
Tutorials
Features on others in your niche
Your origin story

Want a list of 27 carousel ideas that work for any kind of business? You can download the list by clicking the image below and adding your email address.

Instagram Carousel ideas list in a PDF as an instant download. Written by a social media manager for any niche or any business.

INSTAGRAM CAROUSEL TEMPLATES

Instagram carousel templates help you create a set of cohesive slides which work together, without taking hours or needing a professional designer. This also allows you to concentrate on choosing your words and images or graphics carefully, to tell the story that best works for your business.

Instagram carousel template example with 10 slides, overlapping elements across the slides, a cover slide that will be seen in the Instagram feed and a call to action at the end. Carousel templates can save you time when creating your Instagram content.

I’ve created multiple carousel templates for free online design tool Canva. You can find the templates here. Canva templates can be swapped out to your own brand’s colours and fonts in seconds, ready for your own text and photos or video.

Hopefully, you now have all the details you need to create your own engaging carousel on Instagram!

USE THE ARCHIVE INSTAGRAM POST FEATURE TO CURATE YOUR FEED

by Rebecca Portsmouth | Jul 20, 2020 | Instagram

You always want your Instagram feed to show clearly what you or your business is about. One of the best ways you can do that is by regularly curating your feed using the archive Instagram post feature: here’s a step-by-step guide to archiving posts.

HOW TO ARCHIVE INSTAGRAM POSTS

The first step is to learn how to archive Instagram posts. To archive a post, click the three dots on the top right of the post and click the second option – to archive. Your post will disappear from your Instagram grid but the post and its insights are kept in the archive, where only you can see them.

HOW TO FIND ARCHIVED INSTAGRAM POSTS

You can find archived Instagram posts by going to your Instagram profile and clicking on the three lines at the top right of your account and clicking on Archive. It has a drop-down menu for you to access either posts or Stories. Click on the post option to see all your archived posts.

To move an archived post back to your grid, select the relevant archived post and select the option to ‘Show on profile’. It will automatically move back to your grid, showing in date order and containing all of its likes and comments.

INSTAGRAM ARCHIVE FEATURE INTRODUCTION

Instagram introduced its archive feature in mid-2017 after testing it several months earlier. At the time, many Instagrammers were removing posts that didn’t get the number of comments or likes they wanted, sometimes leading to moments of regret

Posts that are archived are only able to be seen by the account owner. They’re especially useful when you want to create Story highlights on a particular theme – just go into your Story archive and add the relevant Stories which expire after 24 hours.

HOW TO CURATE YOUR INSTAGRAM FEED

Now that you know how to move Instagram posts into the archive and back again, have a good look at your grid. What does it say about you or your business? If someone glanced at the photos without reading the captions, would that give a clear picture of what you have to offer and your style – especially for creative businesses?

Try removing any posts that detract from the main message or style of your grid to leave behind a well curated feed that tells visitors in a few seconds what’s on offer. If your feed has a pattern, it may take a couple of rounds of changes to curate your feed so that it maintains an aesthetic look while showing only the very best of your work. This can work especially well if you’ve updated your brand or feed colours and want to phase in the new palette.

You could even try archiving some of the colours or content in your grid to test the look. If you don’t like it, just un-archive the posts In fact, any time you want to curate or freshen your Instagram feed, you can use the archiving feature, knowing you can always return a post if you change your mind.

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