What are Pinterest Story Pins?

Over the last year, Pinterest has worked to roll out its Story Pin feature for iOS and Android devices. Introduced to select markets and currently open as an “early release” to a limited number of U.S.-based Pinterest business accounts, Story Pins give users a new, in-depth way to display content on the social platform rather than just a snapshot.

How do Story Pins work?

As Story Pins have become available to more and more users, bloggers have used them to share creative ideas like recipes, DIY projects, curated product lists, and more. All of this content lives in a single Story Pin, in which users can provide 2 to 20 pages of images or videos (often overlayed with text) that can be flipped through much like an Instagram story.

When a Pinterest user views a Story Pin for how to bake a pizza, for example, they might see step-by-step photos with explanatory text printed on top. This gives them little motivation to click the article link as they might with a normal Pin. This is a key disadvantage of Story Pins over traditional Pins.

However, when viewed on an Android or iOS device (the pins look different on a desktop computer), each Story Pin includes a prominent icon showing the creator’s profile photo in the upper right corner. This makes for easy following and is one way for Pinterest business account holders to effectively grow a fan base. Reeling in new followers and repins with content-rich Story Pins may cause followers to click through to their back catalog of traditional Pins, driving traffic to their site.

Identifying Story Pins

Viewers can quickly recognize a Story Pin by an icon in the top left corner. It may say “Story” (if viewed on a desktop computer) or show a number of pages (if viewed on a mobile phone) that sets it apart from standard Pins. This is similar to the time marker that appears in the upper left corner of Video Pins.

Determining if you have access to Story Pins

If you are a Pinterest Business User with early access to Story Pins, you can find this out by logging into your account. From your browser, click in the upper right corner and choose “Create Story Pin.” Because Story Pins can only be created or edited on iOS or Android, you’ll need to grab your phone and update the Pinterest app.

Creating a Story Pin

Once you’re in the app, tap the + symbol and select “Story Pin.” Choose from a Recipe, DIY, or Freestyle template. Select images and add text to each page of the story if desired.

The spirit of Story Pins is to tell the complete instructions for your project or recipe through colorful photos and clear text, so don’t leave anything out!

After your Story Pin is created, you can go back and edit the text, add more images, and utilize keywords to help people find it via search.

Pinterest provides specs for each Story Pin. They recommend portrait images over landscape, at a minimum size of 900 x 1600 pixels. A title screen must include at least 1 character of text but is limited to 42 characters. The files types that are accepted are BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, TIFF, WEBP, .mov. and .mp4, with a max file size of 16mb for all files.

Need to change something?

Story Pins can only be edited on your phone. To edit, open the Pinterest app and find the Story Pin you need to change. Click on the pencil symbol to make changes. Note that the main title of Story Pins cannot be edited.

The sign-off

Many bloggers create a final page of their Pin that introduces them as a blogger and encourages readers to follow them. This can include a personal photo, logo, a home page URL, and a call to action (“Follow us for more creative inspiration!”). You can see examples of this by Living Locurto in her Story Pin for Frozen Watermelon Margaritas and Sarah Hearts in her Story Pin for DIY Colorful Organization.

Story Pin inspiration

When they were originally rolled out, Story Pins could include multiple outbound links. You can see an example of this in Clever Bloom’s Story Pin called Get Rid of Fungus Gnats. More recent Story Pins do not have outbound website links, and there is not currently a way to add them. Pinner Kessler Ramirez added a general URL to her blog’s tutorials in the description field for her Story Pin called How to Paint on Your Jeans. For more examples of well-crafted Story Pins, check out DIY Wall Art by The Crafted Life and DIY Hummingbird Feeder by The Crafting Chicks.