If you’re using the claim feature to autopublish Instagram to Pinterest, there’s a major update and I am so excited to share it with you! I’ve actually hesitated telling people to autopublish their content to Pinterest much because the feature was lacking. 

But now, Pinterest just released an awesome fix with this new update, which we are going to get into. Truly, this new feature set within the Instagram claim functionality is going to change the way your content performs on Pinterest. 

Why this Instagram-to-Pinterest update matters

Number one, before when you would autopublish Instagram to Pinterest, the claim feature was always hit or miss. Because before, your content used to link back to Instagram. It made for a lot more leg work of having to update the links constantly.

Autopublishing would also flood your feed, especially if you were posting carousels on Instagram and they were importing over to Pinterest. It used to look a lot like this, inside of the pink box all the different little slides that go with the Pinterest for authors carousel. 

It’s not great when they’re all separated. Each individual carousel page linked back to that one Instagram post, and the customer journey and the overall experience was just lost. Imagine if it was pics of your weekend you didn’t mean to post over too. 

This update finally closes the gap for creators, who are autopublishing their content from Instagram to Pinterest, and want to keep the journey of their users seamless and clean. 

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Update 1: Direct linking to your claimed domain

Let’s get to update number one, which is direct linking to your claimed domain. Hallelujah! This is so huge because it takes people at least to your homepage. Now, you will want to update that full URL to whatever product or blog URL that’s most appropriate.

So, there is still a little bit of editing going on, but at least we’re getting people to your front door and still focused on your content. Now every pin click turns into an opportunity for traffic directly to your website. And this also gives you the ability to repurpose more content each week without having to do it only for Pinterest directly.

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What claiming does for analytics and content

When you autopublish Instagram to Pinterest, it removes the watermark, it mutes the music, and links to your website. Now all of your analytics data will be seen within your claimed domain. So, this truly turns your Instagram content into not only engagement drivers on Pinterest, but traffic drivers as well.

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Update 2: Keyword filtering for publishing controls

Now, as of publishing this post, this functionality is only available on desktop. It’s no big deal because most of us are business owners and we’re working from our desktop computers or laptops anyways. This is for filtering out any specific posts from autopublishing over to Pinterest. 

From your Pinterest account menu, go to ‘Settings’, then ‘Link to Pinterest’, and here is where you can link your Instagram, and specify the board your content is autopublished to. But more specifically, where you add your filtering keywords. These can be hashtags or keyword phrases and when they’re on your specified Instagram post, they won’t publish to Pinterest. 

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Examples for when to use keyword filtering

Some cases for when this might be useful is if you’re an influencer, or doing brand campaigns, and you have not included Pinterest as a channel. Say you’re not getting paid for posting your sponsored content on Pinterest, then you might want to exclude those posts from autopublishing to Pinterest. 

This is especially great if you do create lifestyle or vlog content and you don’t necessarily want it on your Pinterest account. I could see this being a really good use case for someone like me. I can still share my community driven content on Instagram, but it doesn’t have to show up on my Pinterest because it’s really irrelevant. 

Another reason you might want to exclude certain keywords is if you are doing anything that is promotional for a super limited time, that won’t actually make any sense for Pinterest. Things like sales, anything that’s like 24 hours, even like a week or less, that might not make a lot of sense on Pinterest, unless you’re running ads. In this case, the keyword exclusion might be a really good option for you. 

Update 3: Carousel posts converting correctly

Update number three to this new functionality is carousel conversion. Remember the photo above I showed you with the pink box? Instead of carousels turning into individual pins, now they are automatically bringing them over and turning them into carousels on Pinterest as well. This really helps to keep all of that one story in one place. 

I went and tested this functionality of importing the carousels and it works for more than five slides. Previously you could only do five slides even if you built a carousel inside of Pinterest. With Instagram, I just uploaded a seven slide carousel and all seven slides came over just fine.

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Benefits of carousel style pins

Your storytelling posts don’t get segmented out anymore. Overall, carousels do tend to provide some better engagement because people are having to scroll through them. And all engagement on Pinterest, is good engagement.

Obviously, we want to aim for those pin clicks, those outbound clicks, those saves. But these carousel posts do have a high probability of being saved because of the type of content most people put inside of their carousel posts. User experience means better conversions overall. So, thank you Pinterest for at least giving us these three new updates.

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Marketing strategy to autopublish Instagram to Pinterest

Let’s talk about what this means for your marketing strategy now. Previously to me filming this video, my recommendations were to turn off autopublishing from Instagram to Pinterest. 

Now, because of these new updates, I am now advising anyone who wants to, go ahead and turn that functionality on. Then just go in and make those minor edits to your account, to your individual pins as needed.

You can create a secret board where you autopublish everything to get it over to Pinterest. Then you edit as needed when you manually move it out to other public boards. That might still be a really good workflow for the majority of people. If you do want to just let it go live to a public board and edit it later, you can also do that. Find your flow.

And obviously, your audience will feel like you’re everywhere because they’re seeing your content in multiple different places.

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Board setup recommendations

Now once you have claimed your Instagram account inside of Pinterest, you have a few options. You are going to want to hide the board it publishes to. It needs to be a board that is more broad in topic but still fitting for your content to go inside of.

For example, my content from Instagram goes into a board called Pinterest Marketing Tips. That’s because the majority of everything I create on my Instagram account that I let publish over is Pinterest marketing tips. So, for me, that works. You might want to create a more broad or generalized board that you might not already have.

Do not name your board anything with ‘social’ or ‘Instagram’ in the title, please. Also, make sure you give that board a really good description. Just because it might only house pins that are brought over from Instagram, does not mean that it shouldn’t be optimized and treated differently. 

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Maintenance and reconnection with autopublish Instagram to Pinterest

Do make sure you check on your Instagram claiming functionality once every few months because sometimes it will disconnect and you will need to reconnect it. You usually will get an update or notification on Pinterest when you log in and tell you that you need to reclaim your Instagram account. 

If that’s the case, you can go through the same steps and it should just reconnect automatically. It happens, not because you did anything wrong, it’s just tech connections having to be refreshed normally.

Should you auto publish old content?

One of the most common questions that I get with this functionality is, “Should I autopost my old content?” This is completely up to you. If you feel like you have content that is really good and evergreen for your business, then I would say go ahead and autopublish it all. If you plan your content well, most of it is reusable. 

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Final thoughts on how to autopublish Instagram to Pinterest

This update for autopublish Instagram to Pinterest is a real game-changer for creators and businesses. Direct linking to your claimed domain, good carousel conversions, and keyword filtering means your Instagram content can now drive real website traffic, while staying organized and relevant on Pinterest. 

WIth all of these updates, you gain back control and reduce manual work without sacrificing quality. If you’d like more help with next steps in implementing a full proven Pinterest marketing strategy, come join Pin Profit Academy. Use the prebuilt systems and personalized support to take your small business presence to the next level.

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