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2022 Design Trends for Social Media

Kristie Hill on February 3, 2022

Social media for businesses is not simply about selling products or services. It’s also a powerful tool for connection, inspiration, and building relationships! To do this successfully, part of the mission on social media becomes speaking to your audience in a language they understand – and on visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, that’s accomplished through design.

Graphic design language evolves year over year, with many trends coming and going, and a select few standing the test of time. The trends that do become popular for a time reflect what people care about most, and by using these elements of graphic design, brands can build recognition and familiarity with their audience!

That’s why we undertook the work of forecasting what’s coming up next in the realms of graphic design and social media design, and translating these trends into ready-to-use, easily customizable template packs, color palettes, font pairings and more in Tailwind Create!

Below, you’ll see the painstaking research the Tailwind team collected from 70+ resources translated into color, patterns and textures, elements and motifs, photography and styling, and typography to use to stay relevant with your social media designs. Enjoy!

2022 Color Trends

Every year as December approaches, designers the world over breathlessly await influential companies like PANTONE and Sherwin-Williams to release the Color of the Year. Palettes, swatches, and mood boards stream from these colors, sparking imagination in home decor, fashion, and graphic design. Here’s what’s coming up this year!

1. The Outdoors Are In  

Blame it on the pandemic, or a desire to be more connected to the outdoors, but this year’s major color trend is all about cool, misty greens and rich clay tones found in nature.

Paint company BEHR announced Breezeway as their color of the year – “A relaxed and uplifting sea glass green expressing peace and tranquility for forward movement.”

Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore were not far behind with Evergreen Fog and October Mist respectively.

Color of the year paint swatches from BEHR, Sherwin-Williams and Benjamin Moore in shades of green

These wispy greens inspired by silver-green flower stems and foggy evergreen forests partner with palettes of clay earth tones, watery blues, and granite neutrals to bring organic hues to the forefront of design.

Need some color palette inspiration? Check out our new 2022 Design Trend Color Palettes to capture these tranquil shades for yourself!

2. Bold Possibilities

After 23 years of choosing colors that would influence product development, fashion, and design, Pantone took an unexpected step this year: the company didn’t choose a color, they created one.

Veri Peri, the 2022 Pantone Color of the Year is a new red-violet color laced heavily with blue. It’s meant to represent the excitement and boldness of the future and “helps us embrace this altered landscape of possibilities, opening us up to a new vision as we rewrite our lives.”

This confident, curious color that stands at the crossroads of color in the digital world and the physical world shines in palettes with bold hues, energetic blues, and moody neutrals.

Need some color palette inspiration? Check out our new 2022 Design Trend Color Palettes to capture these futuristic shades for yourself!

3. A Touch of Nostalgia

Even as color stories begin looking to the future, retro shades from the ’60s and ’70s linger on. Groovy Daffodil, vintage Harbor Blue, and funky Coca Mocha shades paired with soft pastels like Spun Sugar and Gossamer Pink to dominate Pantone’s Spring/ Summer 2022 NYFW Color Palette.

These retro shades reminded us of the famed Jet Era and vintage travel posters, reflected in our 2022 custom color palettes that are now available in Tailwind Create!

4. Bubblegum Pop

Did someone say Y2K? The upbeat colors in Pantone’s Spring/Summer 2022 London Color Palette are the perfect complement to your favorite throwback playlist. Youthful Bubblegum pink, acidic lime Fragile Sprout, and feminine Orchid Bloom are bringing us back in the best ways!

Whether your head is stuck in the clouds, or you’re just an imaginative day dreamer, our Vivid Dreams curated color palettes will make your sparkle shine ✨. 

Try it out now in Tailwind Create!

Patterns, Shapes and Textures

1. Check It Out

‘Check’ yes Juliet to the reinvention of this classic emo/scene style! Checkerboard is not just for your vintage slip-ons – in fact, new life can be found in this timeless classic by reviving it with the playful pop colors and fresh plastic florals currently trending today!

2. Stenciled Blooms

Ever since the cozy, countryside-themed aesthetic we know as “cottagecore” first received its official name on Tumblr in 2018, the doily, wildflower-laden lifestyle has steadily dominated fashion and social media.

In 2022, Cottagecore’s dreamy wildflowers are receiving a vibrant upgrade as florals are reduced to their simplest forms and washed in bold contrasts and vibrant hues!

3. Rounding It Out

Find your future (or simply push past your funk) by rounding out your edges into soft orbs, half-moons, and semi-circles.

In 2022, rigid boxes and angles are being phased out in favor of soft feminine curves in the home, office, community spaces, and more. Round out your own edges for inviting signals of virtual and inner peace!

Use this template in Tailwind Create!

Elements and Motifs

1. Zen – Inspired Lines

Not only do these patterns remind us of Japanese rock gardens and mindfulness, but there’s also an important pop culture phenomenon at play here. With influences from technology and Sci-Fi resurgences (Dune, anyone?) minimal line style with futuristic elements is on the rise.

Source: Society6

2. Matisse Motifs

Organic motifs are out-pacing rigid geometrics in 2022 design, lending an air of freedom, movement, and familiarity to graphics. Matisse inspires one to find their inner peace, as the hallmark organic and balanced shapes create freedom-centered designs. 

Source: Society6

3. Plastic Florals

Trends are all about styles of years past being revived. In 2021, we saw the 90’s come back front and center. These small blocky florals may remind you of that decade, but trust us, that wasn’t their first time around!

Small florals with simple edges actually first saw their rise in the ’60s and 70’s, and seem to continually refresh their image for coming generations.

Photography & Styling

1. Subtle Dimension

Texture is becoming more prevalent in graphic design in 2022, as design programs begin pursuing 3D rendering in everyday graphics. Adobe Capture is making great strides in this area!

2. Natural Shadow

Where light, bright and crisp photo styles once reigned, photo stylings are shifting more towards softer, dimensional shadows and interrupted light to showcase products.

3. Two-Tone Glow

Flat, crisp backdrops are being replaced with luminous gradients in photo and product styling, tantalizing the eye and drawing viewers into the frame.

Source: Studio Zelden

1. Catch Me If You Can

There’s a note of nostalgia in the air, with mod fonts that remind us of the glory days of Pan Am, summer resort vacations, and striped bathing suits. New-old serif fonts like Airplane and Fairview are inspired by the golden age of air travel, while decorative headline fonts with a throwback twist remind us of days gone by. 

2. Styled Geometrics

This 1920’s revival style is the bee’s knees! Art deco-inspired geometric Sans Serifs updated for the modern world will make you fall in ‘green-glass’ love. Daydream in Cuba with fonts like Habana or wander the bygone streets of Miami Beach with Governor for a new take on a timeless classic.

3. Heartfelt Detail

Charming, simplistic fonts that remind us of our favorite small-town cafe are in this year, lending a down-to-earth, cozy feel to branding and design. For a crash course in using organic-feeling scripts and serif fonts like Viktor Script and Futura PT, check out this curated collection from Adobe! 

4. The Energy of Youth

Oh to be forever young! Design trends are tilting this way with chunky, fat-pen display fonts and zesty handwritten details that will remind you of the days of fuzzy journals and Limited Too shopping trips! 

To get this look, try a big, bold display like Beautiful Freak or cutesy fonts like Adorable or Teashop!

Putting It All Together: Ready-to Use Designs

Itching to use some of these top trending design elements in your next social media posts? Don’t worry, we’ve done the work for you! 

Drawing inspiration from the top trends in design for 2022, we’ve launched four exclusive social media template packs, sixteen curated color palettes, and more right inside Tailwind Create.

Check out each set and prepare to be inspired! 

Jet Set

Inspired by the golden age of air travel in the ’50s and ’60s, Jet Set is chock full of vintage washes, modern lines with a retro twist to wow your followers. 

Check out our brand new vintage travel-poster-inspired color palettes: Secret Island, First Class, South Seas, and Hibiscus Colada, and ready-to-use designs here!

Vivid Dreams

Did someone say the 90’s? Our exclusive Vivid Dreams template pack is inspired by bright pops of color, plastic florals, patch art, and all the things we loved most about Y2K. Warning: this template pack may cause you to hang boy band posters on your office wall. 

Get a sneak peek of our brand new Vivid Dreams color palettes: Dreamhouse, Lip Smackers, Wind Breaker, and Spice World here!

All Organic

Inspired by the soft and simple charms of nature, our All Organic template pack and color palette set is inspired by muted shades, florals, and foliage paired with playful organic shapes!

Get a sneak peek of our dreamy All Organic color palettes: Sedona Sunrise, Fresh Laundry, Meadow Cottage, and Favorite Quilt here!

Look to the Future

Although many trends surging in popularity this year focus on where we’ve been, we’re also collectively thinking – and designing for – where we’re going.

Our Look to the Future template pack is inspired by glowing gradients, sound waves, and the boundless possibilities of the Metaverse. Are you in?

Check out our brand new futuristic color palettes: Neon Sky, Dune, Fiber Optics, and Cyberbike here!

Use Trending Social Media Designs in Tailwind Create

Say bye-bye to boring beige and bland monotonous palettes. And in 2022, let’s start experimenting with bold, energizing colors and designs!  

This new innovative direction is so exciting the Tailwind team wanted to bring our versions to Tailwind Create with curated easy-to-use templates – straight from our designers to you! 
Whether you want to be ahead of the curve and Look to the Future, make your Vivid Dreams a reality, you’re ready to Jet Set to better social media analytics, or you’re feeling pulled to an All Organic approach.

Whatever your design goals are for 2022, Tailwind Create is prepared to take you there!

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Update your social media designs and stylings with our exhaustive list of 2022 graphic design trends in colors, fonts, styles and more!

The Mother-Daughter Duo Serving Recipes to 7.8 Million Pinners

Stephanie Mayberry on November 10, 2021

Savor the Flavour case study header

Brooke and Emma, a mother-daughter duo, wanted to start a business together once Emma turned 18. After years of finding recipes online and trying new ones together, they decided to launch a food blog of their own. 

Their blog, Savor the Flavour, incorporates two different English spellings to tribute their Canadian roots and current American home. And through their consistency, willingness to learn, and different yet complementary skillsets, Savor the Flavour has grown and reached the eyes of millions of people!

While not everyone wants to start a business with someone else, let alone a family member, Brooke and Emma share how incredibly convenient it has been for them. And how being in business with someone you live with gives you the convenience of working in an office while still working from the comfort of your own home. 

They share a unique perspective that if both people have a strong work ethic and similar passion, then launching a creative business with a family member can absolutely be worth the growing pains. Starting a business with anyone can be a big commitment, but as Emma says in the interview:  

“Choose someone you like spending time with. You’re going to be with this person for a lot of time, over many years, so make sure you get along.”

Emma blair

There’s no one you have more experience communicating with than a family member, so if it makes sense, then go for it!

From picking recipes, grocery shopping, making food together, and doing the dishes afterward, Brooke and Emma have made their blog a family-run business, even eliciting the help of Brooke’s other two daughters as their official taste testers.

Between photography tips, task management, and helpful advice for starting your business on the right foot – Emma and Brooke have tons of useful information to share with this lovely audience. 

Enjoy!

Savor the Flavour case study website screenshot

What lead to starting Savor the Flavour and deciding to share your recipes with the world?

Brooke: We started over four years ago after thinking of a home-based business the two of us could do together so we could have flexible hours. I always liked having people over and planning a menu. And I’ve gotten my recipes online since Emma was about one or two years old.

I would spend a lot of time reading recipes online, in magazines, and cookbooks. And I just thought it would be fun to do a food blog. 

At that time, Emma was 18. And I thought, yeah, let’s do it. She’s old enough now to do it.

Savor the Flavour case study Instagram screenshot

How long have you been coming up with recipes together?

Emma: Since August of 2017, so back when we started this blog together.

Lauren: Which recipes do you each prefer to make?

Emma: I like baking, and mom does more of the savory dishes. But we both do drink recipes and a lot of copycat recipes too.

What is each of your favorite recipes you’ve come up with?

Brooke: I gravitate towards soups and stews and that sort of stuff. We have quite a few on the website, some copycat, some not, and I enjoy doing those the most.

Emma: We have over 450 recipes. So, it is hard to choose just one. But I have a top three I like to eat frequently. The English coffee and walnut cake is a top favorite. Scottish steak pie and, of course, the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte is always a good choice. Those three are popular among our family.

Brooke: As far as recipes from the blog that I’ve done in the past year, I think I’ve been focusing more on copycat. I like the firecracker chicken from Panda Express. It’s a stir fry—lemon kale caesar salad from Chick-fil-A. I love the vinegarette! And sofritas with chipotle. Emma likes to make it way spicier than I have it in the recipe.

Savor the Flavour case study Pinterest screenshot

What are some advantages of starting a blog as a mother/daughter duo?

Emma: It’s just easier, I think, because we live in the same house. We don’t have to email every little thing. You can just say, okay, I’ll do X, Y, Z right now. It’s easier and faster to get the workflow done. I just came back from a trip, and we were communicating via text, and it was a lot harder because we’re used to communicating in person. It’s definitely slower communicating through technogoly.

Savor the Flavour case study Instagram photo screenshot

What are some tips you’d have for anyone starting a creative project or business with someone else?

Emma: I’d say choose someone who has a strong work ethic to work with you. That’s really important. And someone who has traits that compliment yours. We work so well together because my strengths are not necessarily my mom’s strengths, and her strengths aren’t my strengths. We complement each other well in a lot of ways. And also, choose someone you like spending time with. You’re going to be with this person for a lot of time, over many years, so make sure you get along.

Another crucial thing is to keep each other accountable. It’s so easy to get distracted, especially when you work from home. There’s so much that crowds your attention as a business owner. So just keep each other accountable and always be willing to learn something new. That’s especailly important.

Savor the Flavour case study YouTube screenshot

How do you break up and organize your tasks between two people?

Emma: Mom is more the office manager role for our business. The organizer and planner. She creates our schedules for the day. She does the bookkeeping, she tracks analytics, and she oversees content planning. 

She also writes our twice-weekly email newsletters, whereas I do more of the computer work. I’ll do basic WordPress support for our website, social media scheduling, pin creation, newsletter scheduling, video creation. And I do our food photography and styling as well. That includes photo management and photo editing.

Brooke: But we both write blog posts and help with the grocery shopping.

Savor the Flavour case study Twitter screenshot

Emma: And dishes. 

What are each of your favorite parts of co-owning and managing Savor the Flavour?

Emma: I like having a job where I can stay at home a lot because so many kids my age have to work and always be away from home. I love being at home. So I’m happy to be able to be here a lot. I can spend a lot of time with my younger sisters, and it’s nice to see them during the day. 

I also have a piano blog, and I’m an online piano teacher. I really like that I still have time to do other endeavors that I enjoy.

Brooke: I like being able to set my hours and have a lot of flexibility. I like to get up early and do stuff before anybody wakes up. And then I also like to have that flexibility and the variety. I get bored fast.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Brooke: With Pinterest not driving as much traffic as it once did, I wish we would have focused more on SEO. Right from the get-go, we focused a lot on making a cool pin to get traffic from Pinterest instead of SEO. We used to think SEO wasn’t that important, but it is.

Emma: Make sure you have a good web host and theme. That’s so important. We lost a lot of traffic during our first year or two because we were with a slow host. Go with an excellent host that’s reliable and fast because you’ll lose people if your site takes too long to load. Choose a theme that is really solid and well recommended by the experts. And that will help you a lot.

“If you start with the right foot, it makes it so much easier.“

Emma blair

Brooke: With food blogging, you’re always fixing things. It’s like owning a house. You’re always cutting the grass, fixing things inside, outside. And as soon as your yard’s perfect, you get a windstorm.

Savor the Flavour case study Facebook screenshot

Do you have any tips for staging, taking, and editing pictures?

Emma: I’ve done a lot of different art throughout my life. So learning basic photography composition skills wasn’t too hard to catch on. It was just a natural next step. 

“One thing I would recommend is to develop your style. A lot of people try to change every photoshoot and do something creative, and that’s fun. But if you’re trying to do a business, you have to be practical.”

emma blair

Emma: Pick props, your background, your basic dishes, and even your basic poses. And you can reuse that stuff over and over again. Not only will that brand your photos, but it also saves you a lot of time. And you don’t have to think of something brand new every single week for your photos.

Don’t worry about an expensive camera. You only need an entry-level DSLR. And I shoot all of my photos with one lens, a 50 millimeter, 1.8 lens. That’s all you need to take good photos. 

Make sure you stick with either natural or artificial. Because if you flip-flop your lighting sources, people will notice that. 

And then, as far as post-processing, I would say create your lightroom presets. That has saved me a lot of time. So when you import your photos into your lightroom catalog, you can actually apply the preset you’ve custom-created right to those photos as soon as they’re dropped in. You don’t even have to go through and click the preset on each one. And that saves so much time. Then you just have to do a few tweaks for each individual one.

Savor the Flavour case study Lightroom preset
Savor the Flavour photo before and after they use their custom-created Lightroom Preset

Always back up your photos. Have at least two, if not three, copies of your photos. That’s really important. You’ll be surprised how often a hard drive can fail on you. We’ve had that happen in the past. Fortunately, not since we’ve had our business. Do USB backups, a cloud backup, and a hard drive backup. At least two or three backups. 

And also, make sure your photos are well organized on your PC. I like to have yearly folders, then 12-month folders, and then day folders. Then I label my photos and the folders with the recipe name. Because then if you’re trying to find gumbo photos from two years ago, you can search the word gumbo, and all your gumbo shots will pop up. It’s really handy if you’re trying to search for something really fast. 

Savor the Flavour case study photo albums screenshot
Emma’s photo organization folders

Why did you decide to use Tailwind?

Emma: We first heard about Tailwind through Food Blogger Pro with Bjork Ostrom. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. We also wanted a tool that Pinterest and Instagram approved.

Brooke: But we signed up because we wanted it to do our Pinterest scheduling because we had so many pins that we were doing, and then we also ended up using it for Instagram. But we definitely needed it for Pinterest too.

 What’s your favorite Tailwind feature and why?

Emma: I love being able to schedule and forget about things it’s so simple and freeing. You can do it a week, a month in advance and you don’t even have to think about it anymore. I love that. 

I also love Tailwind Create because it’s really neat to just drop in some photos and there are already presets there. You can just put your text in there, drop your link, and you’ve got your pins made, and that saves so much time.

Savor the Flavour case study instagram photo screenshot 2

What’s next for Savor the Flavour?

Brooke: We’re getting an audit with Casey, he’s pretty big in the food blog industry, and he’s going to tell us everything we need to fix on our website.

Emma: I would recommend that any other food bloggers listen to the SEO for publishers’ webinars that Casey Markee does with TopHatRank and Andrew Wilder. It’s such good information for SEO and just getting your blog really, really in shape.

Where you can find Savor the Flavour! 

Want to try Brooke and Emma’s recipes? Check out their website and read the raving reviews! 

Be sure to pep their beautiful feed thanks to Emma’s photography skills and Tailwind Create on Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest. You can stay up-to-date with them on Facebook and Twitter!

And don’t forget to check out Emma’s personal business where she teaches virtual piano lessons!

Until next time, friends!

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Brooke and Emma share the benefits of running a business with someone you share your home with, along with tips they wished they'd known starting out!

Lifelong Hobby to Profitable Business: Meet Nana’s Crafty Home!

Stephanie Mayberry on October 29, 2021

Nana's Crafty Home Case Study header

When Tonya Bush from Nana’s Crafty Home was growing up with four younger brothers, her mother enlisted the help of their neighbor and family friend, Dorthy, to teach Tonya how to crochet. And little did any of them know that Tonya would not only fall in love with crochet, but one day she’d take that lifelong passion and make a bustling career out of it entirely on her own.

Between making innovative designs for her children and grandkids, Tonya’s entrepreneurial spirit knew she had the talent and drive to take it far if she tried. And so, when the time came, she decided to bet on herself and leap into the unknown.

In Tonya’s words, “It was one of those moments where this is now, and if you don’t try, you’re going to regret it. I didn’t want to be looking back in 20 years and think, gosh, why didn’t I ever take that risk?” 

And so she went for it, and her biggest piece of advice – don’t wait so long to follow your dreams!

Tonya not only figured out website design, SEO, and marketing on her own (which she doesn’t recommend ), but she left her career of a 9-5 job managing two family practices with the goal of replacing her income within 5 years. A decision her prior employer questioned and half-jokingly said, “we’ll see you in a year.”

But as these interviews prove time and again, when you’re pursuing your greatest passion, something you have a raw talent for, you tend to be even more magnetic as the tenacity and enthusiasm helps give you an outcome that’s even better than you expected. 

It didn’t take Tonya five years to replace her income; she did it within one year and never looked back!

Tonya is fun, bubbly, charismatic, and you can feel the passion behind her business as she talks about her creative ideas, the friendships she’s made within her industry, and her desire to help everyone else succeed by following their dreams too. 

She believes that as long as we’re all following our dreams and pursuing our passions, there’s plenty of room for everyone to sit at the table. 

From a little girl with four younger brothers to a wife, mother, grandmother, and employee to a successful small business owner, I hope you find Tonya’s story as motivating and inspirational as I did.

Enjoy!

Nana's Crafty Home Case Study website

How did you first get started crocheting?

Tonya: I started over 40 years ago. So I’ve been crocheting for a long time. I had four younger brothers, so my mom, to help me escape the dinosaurs, He-Man, and GI Joe, wanted me to do something outside the home and learn something. We had a really good friend that lived down the street from us who we called Aunt Dorothy, and I would go over there every week and learn to crochet. She was a master seamstress, and she taught me how to sew and knit as well.

 I kind of got away from it when I graduated from high school. I got married, had kids, then grandkids, and I was like, wow, I really enjoy crocheting, so I started making gifts, blankets, baby blankets, all that good stuff. And it blossomed into what I’m doing now. So it’s been a journey.

How long did it take for you to start experimenting and making your own patterns?

Tonya: I’m a rule follower, and I never designed anything until the very first pattern that I released on my blog, and I designed it a month before my website went live.

Never having designed anything, I went straight for apparel. I went right from zero to 360 miles per hour.

It was a plunge, but it’s been a real learning experience for me. I’ve learned a lot about design, I’ve taken many classes, and I’m always learning more about how I can improve my craft. I think that’s what we should always be doing, trying to learn new things. I had never done a website before, and I had never done any of those things. So everything was new all at the same time. So that was a little stressful.

Nana's Crafty Home Case Study Facebook

What’s your favorite type of pattern to make?

Tonya: I tend to get quickly bored with doing the same thing over and over again. I don’t want to make the same thing more than once or twice. So this niche really fits my personality, but I tend to only want to design a certain type of thing once, and then I want to go onto something else. 

I tend to go all over the place, but I gravitate towards making things for my grandkids. Also, I love to make fashion accessories for myself. I love fashion. I love bags. I love all that stuff. 

So I kind of tend to gravitate toward designing those things. I like making works of art and blankets, tapestries, that type of thing, like telling a story. So those are the things I tend to gravitate toward, but I make all kinds. 

Nana's Crafty Home Case Study twitter screenshot

What lead you to start a blog and selling your patterns?

Tonya: Well, I worked in customer service for 30 plus years. And then, for the last 15 years or so of my career, I managed two family practice clinics. 

So I had a lot of computer experience. And I had a lot of experience working with people and building relationships. And I really felt like I wanted to do something for myself. 

At the time, I was 46, and it was one of those moments where I always wanted to have my own business, and it’s like okay, either you do it, or you shut up about it. It was one of those moments where this is now, and if you don’t try, you’re going to regret it. I didn’t want to be looking back in 20 years and think, gosh, why didn’t I ever take that risk? 

I worked full-time in my day job for the first year. And then doing this on the side is kind of funny because on the side is like 30 hours a week.

Getting your blog started, the domain, and learning SEO and all of the terminology behind all of it was like another language for me. It was hard that first year. It was really tough because you’re not really making any money, so you’re doing all this work, and you’re not seeing a lot of return or perceived return. 

And after a year, my husband and I sat down, I’m like, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep doing a stressful job like that and then try to come home and still have a home life and still see the grandkids and still do all of those things. It was just too much. So he said “look, just quit. I want you to quit your job, and I want to support you while you’re doing this.” 

We had a plan that I would hopefully replace my income within five years of quitting my job. And it only took one.

Tonya Bush

Lauren: That’s incredible. I love that you said you’re not much of a gambler, but if you’re ever going to bet on something, bet on your passion because that’s probably what’s going to bring you success.

Nanas Crafty Home Pinterest screenshot

How did you start your business and what did that process look like from beginning to now?

Tonya: So I was actually kind of amazed at how inexpensive it was to start. By the time I went live, I had spent like $200 total. I was trying to keep things as inexpensive as possible in the beginning. Trying to do everything as manually as possible, not paying a lot of money on different things. But then I started taking classes, and that’s where I invested my money.

I took a class on blogging and different things that I knew I needed to learn about. My photos were horrendous in the beginning. I’m just going to throw that out there. So I took a photography course which was a game-changer for me to learn how to use my camera.  

Those were probably the best things I did for my business, just constantly trying to learn as much as I could about the process. I knew nothing in the beginning, so I did a lot of things wrong, but you learn from those wrong things, right?

I don’t advocate people to do wrong things, but sometimes that wrong thing can help you learn how to do it the right way and once you’ve done it the wrong way, you’re like, I’m not doing that again. That first year, I learned so much about social media and how to cultivate that connection with people that I had learned throughout my customer service career. Making connections with individuals helped create a loyal following for me, particularly on Facebook. 

You can get sucked down the rabbit hole of social media. But I learned that you could make connections with people. You respond to people, and I started doing Facebook lives, and I would have regulars who would show up and share my patterns. And they’d ould sign up for my newsletter and send me emails. Every single person who ever emailed me I would always respond to.

And I think that’s what really helped grow my business was developing those relationships with people early on, and that loyalty just made it grow.

Tonya bush

I’m big on relationships, networking with other people, learning from other people as much as possible, and creating relationships in the business, whether they’re your colleagues, people from Tailwind, or just people. Relationships matter. 

How do you avoid burnout while wearing and maintaining so many hats? 

Tonya: For me, it’s trying to disconnect. I have a set work time, but I do like to be somewhat flexible for family. If there are appointments or activity  I want to participate in, I can work around that. 

But for the most part, I have a designated work schedule. I try to spend as much time as possible disconnecting to have a normal life outside of social media. And outside all of the business stuff.

And I do things for myself too like spending time with my mom, sister, family, and grandkids, just enjoying that time and trying to forget. 

It’s hard, though because there’s always stuff going on in the background as a business owner. It can be difficult to put that barrier between our personal and work life. But I do think it’s crucial.

I could be working 24-7 and still have things to do. There’s always something. 

Nana's Crafty Home Instagram screenshot

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Tonya: Probably started sooner. I wish I had done this like five years earlier. 

I would say the biggest thing would be not to get discouraged by the mistakes. You’re not going to do things perfectly, especially at the beginning. I mean, even now, I’ve been doing this for four years, and I still do things wrong. 

But if we get lost in the weeds of constantly regretting things that we’ve done in the past, we’re never going to be looking toward the future.

My biggest advice would be to learn as much as you can. Knowledge in your base, in your craft, whatever it is that you’re doing, whether you’re a food blogger or whatever, taking classes, investing your time and energy in learning how to make yourself better, even self-help. 

Learn how to be encouraged by the things that are going on in your life. I think that’s really probably the best thing that you can do for your business to be knowledgeable and learn.

You’re here and you’re doing this because you have an entrepreneurial spirit, and that’s big. I mean you’re just not willing to go with the flow, you want to do more, and I think that’s awesome.

Tonya bush

What do you like most about owning your own business?

Tonya: I love the flexibility of it. We touched on that before, too, working around my family’s schedule, spending time with my grandkids, fitting those things in that are important to me. 

From a personal standpoint, knowing that my success or failure is entirely dependent on me. I don’t get to blame anybody else for what happens. The harder I work, the more I do, the better I do, it’s all because of what I’m doing, and that is really empowering. There’s a lot of confidence-building in that, and I think when you start seeing the results of your labors, there’s so much confidence that you can gain from seeing those positive results, like wow, I’m making money doing this, I’m doing something that I’ve never done before. I took my passion, and I’m making money with it. 

It’s going to make you feel good about yourself, it’s going to make your relationships with your family better because you feel better about yourself. That’s probably the best thing about my business is that it made me really confident in who I am and where I’m at in my life, and I love it.

tonya bush

What advice would you give to someone starting a B2C business?

Tonya: I would say find others that are doing what you’re doing and make connections. This business can be isolating. We sit at a computer, I’m at home with my dog and my cat every day. I only know one other person personally that does this for a living. 

It’s difficult because we’re used to having those conversations with people in social settings. You talk about what you do at work, and you can bounce things off of others because even if they’re not doing exactly what you’re doing, it’s similar enough that you can have a conversation. Most people look at me with this quizzical look on their face like, you do what now? You make money doing that? Someone pays you to do that?

One of the best things I did at the beginning was finding other crochet pattern designers in groups that do what I do. They design patterns, blog, sell patterns, do all of those things, and so you feel like you can have a conversation with them, ask questions, and get their opinion. You’re able to build relationships with people who are in a similar niche and spend time really picking each other’s brains about becoming successful at what you’re doing.

From a business perspective, what made you decide to use Tailwind?

Tonya: So remember I talked about how cheap I wanted to go initially, and how that can be your detriment? Honestly, I resisted Tailwind for the first year of my business, and I was manually pinning on Pinterest every day.

It was insane. I would set my timer, and because I didn’t want to do like 30 pins at once, I would do five in the morning, ten in the afternoon, and then again in the evening. But I was spending way too much time doing that, and a lot of people in my crochet group talked about Tailwind and how much it had helped them. And they were networking a lot with the communities that Tailwind had, and I thought, wow maybe this is something I need to do. I need to figure out a way to free up more of my time, so I’m not wasting it.

Tailwind was an instant game-changer. I was like, what did I wait for? The ability to schedule out pins, pin to multiple boards. One of the things I couldn’t figure out, in the beginning, was why I couldn’t get any of the other crochet pattern designers to follow me on Pinterest? My Pinterest account was growing, but it was usually individual people, three, five, ten followers, whatever. But I kept wondering where all the crochet pattern designers were? None were following me, and they don’t pin any of my stuff. 

Well,, it’s because they were all in the Tailwind tribes, and they would only pin from Tailwind. So if you weren’t in Tailwind, they didn’t see your stuff, and it was like you didn’t exist to them because your pins weren’t where they were looking.

And that was like a game-changer, because then well-known designers who had been established were now pinning my things, and they were pinning them to these larger boards that had tons of followers. Some of these designers had a million followers, and that really grew my account too. 

I really started gaining a lot more followers when I went to Tailwind because my pins were being seen by a lot more people.

That’s actually one of my regrets, not joining Tailwind sooner.

tonya busH

What’s your favorite Tailwind feature and why?

Tonya: Oh, definitely Create. That was a complete game-changer for me. I am not a graphic designer. 

That was probably one of the worst things for me was trying to figure out what a good pin looked like. When that create feature came out, it was like the sky opened, the sun shone. I was like, where has this been all my life?

I started using it immediately, and it was so fast and easy. I could download the pin I wanted, send it to my communities for them to access, and schedule it all simultaneously. 

From that standpoint alone,, I think Tailwind is worth it just for the Create feature because I spend so much less time worrying about my Pinterest pins and the design aspect is just so easy. 

My biggest trouble now is which pin to pick. There’s all these choices, and you can arrange the photos differently and everything, so oh my gosh, which one am I going to pick?

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What’s next for Nana’s Crafty Home?

Tonya: The sky’s the limit. I’ve had some great things happen over the last year with my business. Two of my designs have been featured on the front cover of a magazine. So that brought me a lot of exposure and more into mainstream media, which has been awesome. 

And because of that relationship with them, it blossomed into their social media manager reaching out to me, so now I’m doing a Facebook live tutorial for them every month, and that’s helping me reach a lot more people. 

So I’m really just hoping that I continue to have those opportunities to show what I do and teach people. That’s really my passion to teach people who want to learn more about crochet and to find them wherever they might be.

Where you can find Tonya Bush from Nana’s Crafty Home

Want to check out Tonya’s one-of-a-kind patterns? You can find them on her website. And she even has a lifetime membership where you can have access to every single one! 

You can also stay up-to-date with Nana’s Crafty Home on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. 

I hope you all found Tonya as inspiring as I did. 

Later, alligators.

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Tonya Bush left her 9-5 job with one goal - replace her income within five years and she did it in one! Find out how she built a thriving business!

How to Design Your Social Media Posts Like a Pro (with Tailwind!)

Kristie Hill on July 14, 2021

Without formal design training, creating social media designs for multiple platforms can seem like a really intimidating task. Especially if it’s up to you as a small business owner or marketer (without a design team to back you up) to have a presence on these digital marketing platforms!

The good news is that it’s not as hard or as time-intensive as you might think to generate consistent content across all your favorite platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. 

In fact, all it takes is a few clicks in our Tailwind Create tool!

Let’s dive into exactly what it takes to fill your social media content calendar with branded designs for each of your platforms.

But first, we’ll spend some time on why branding on social media is so important for small businesses – and how establishing your branding guidelines early on will make this process even faster!

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Why Brand Your Social Media Posts?

We’re so glad you asked. Most people know that from a business perspective, your posts should be branded. But you might not understand exactly why it’s important! That’s okay, we’ll break it down:

Branding Your Social Posts Helps Communicate Your Story and Personality

Humans take visual cues from just about anything they look at. For example, color psychology is a very real science studying how people react to different colors and the emotions that they invoke.

Fonts also evoke emotion and give people a very real impression of who you are and what you’re about from their computer or phone screens. Careful choices in color, font, and design elements can act as a calling card for your personality, without you ever saying a word!

Branding Your Social Posts Creates Brand Recognition and Awareness

Think for a moment about how many posts you see scrolling through your timeline or feed on social media platforms. 

Now, think of one or two of your favorite brands or accounts. Can you immediately pick out a post from one of these accounts in the feed without reading the caption? Chances are, you can. This is because you’ve been exposed to this brand often enough to immediately recognize their signature designs!

Firming up your branding and sticking to it will create this same instant recognition among your followers. That in turn builds trust and loyalty.

Branding Your Social Posts Helps Prevent Content Theft

Honestly, it’s a bummer that this has to make it on the list, but it’s true. When you hit publish on your designs, that means they’re ripe for the picking on the web. Other users on social media can easily save and use your unbranded designs as their own content.

When you add your website, your company logo, and even recognizable details from your branding like fonts and colors to the social media designs you publish, it becomes a lot harder for other people to pass them off as their own.

If you’ve worked hard on your designs, your content, and your business, you definitely don’t want someone else to get credit! That’s why we recommend branding your social posts – especially graphics.

How to Brand Your Social Media Posts with Tailwind

So now you know why you should be taking the time to brand your social media posts – now let’s talk about how you do it with Tailwind! It all happens in just a few quick steps. 

Once you’re in your Tailwind social media management dashboard, take a look at the left-hand menu. You should see a paintbrush icon – this is our powerful design tool, Tailwind Create!

Before you dive into designing your social posts, you’ll want to set up your branding tools. Click the paintbrush icon, and then select Brand Settings from the top menu.

Step One: Add In Your Website or Brand Name

You can enter your company name (ex: Sample Company) or website (ex: www.samplecompany.com).

This will be automatically generated on all your designs in Tailwind Create, as well as your logos (more on that later!)

Brand Settings view in Tailwind Create

Step Two: Select Fonts, Or Upload Your Own!

Tailwind Create has dozens of fonts to choose from to craft the perfect font pairings for your social media designs.

Just browse our available fonts for your title font and subtitle font.

If you need inspiration, check out our curated font pairing choices! Or, upload your custom brand font files if you have them handy!

Step Three: Choose Your Brand Colors

Now that you have your fonts all squared away, you’ll want to add your brand colors into Tailwind Create. This ensures that all of the designs in Create are personalized with your brand colors – talk about cutting down design time!

Choosing your four brand colors in Create is super easy to do. If you know the Hex or RGB codes of your colors, just click on each colored circle and copy and paste. You can also move the dropper tool around until you find the perfect shade!

Tailwind Create also has tons of curated color palettes to browse! If you’re a big believer in seasonal color theory (we are!), you’ll love the curated palettes for the seasons!

Step Four: Upload Your Brand Logos

The final step in your journey to creating perfectly branded social media posts in Tailwind Create is to upload your logos. This is an optional step if you don’t have a logo, but gives you more flexibility with the presentation of branding on your designs!

Upload 200 x 200 pixel logo files by clicking the grey plus sign icon. Make sure your files are .pngs, so the backgrounds of your logos are transparent and can be overlayed onto your design with ease!

Pro Design Tip: Upload your logo in a few different colorways so that you have plenty of flexibility. For example, Tailwind has a blue and a white version of our logo, so that we have plenty of contrast and visibility on every design!

How to Design Your Social Media Posts with Tailwind

Now that you’ve done all the legwork of inputting your brand settings into Tailwind Create, it’s time for the fun part! Creating the perfect social media designs with Tailwind is so easy. In fact, you’re starting from almost done with each design already personalized to your brand as soon as they cross your screen!

Here’s how it works!

Step One: Upload Your Photo

Head on over to Design Gallery, and upload the photo or photos you want to create designs for. If you don’t have a photo handy, you can browse our library of Stock Photos!

If you want to use photos from your website, enter the URL of the page you’d like to pull from.

Available images from that page will populate below, and you can select the ones you’d like to use!

You’ll notice designs start to populate in the gallery with your selected images. You can select any that catch your eye or use the smart filters in our design gallery to find designs matched to your industry, type of content, number of photos, and favorite social platforms.

Step Two: Filter Designs By Your Industry (And More!)

With your photos in place, it’s time to personalize your Tailwind Create designs even more! Take a look at the top menu options above your Design Gallery. You’ll see Post Types, Photo Count, and Categories.

Post Types allows you to see your designs for specific platforms – you’ll find options for Instagram Feed Posts, Instagram Stories, Pinterest Pins, and Facebook Feed Posts here.

Photo Count allows you to preview your creations based on how many photos will be included in the design. You can see design options for “multiple photos”, “one photo”, “no photos”, or “any number of photos” here.

Category is where you can narrow down your design styles based on things like:

  • Content (is your post about a product, a blog post, a quote?)
  • Promotion (is this an ad design, an announcement, or a contest?)
  • Industry (are you in the animals & pets, entertainment, fashion, or travel niche?)
  • Style (is your brand modern, minimalist, artistic or festive?)
  • Seasonal (are you designing for Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter?)

Choose the filters that best fit the content you’re looking to create on social media, and watch personalized designs based on your choices fill the screen!

Step Three: Review Your Designs and Make Necessary Tweaks

Now that you’ve got hyper-specific social post designs customized to your brand needs, it’s time to pick your favorites and make any tweaks!

Hit the Photos button to see the design with your other photo selections, or to rearrange the placement of multiple photos in a design.

Hint: this will only work if you’ve selected more than one photo in Step One!

Hit the Layouts button to see the design in different layouts. You’ll see several different options for text placement, picture placement, and justification.

Hit the Colors button to see the image with different combinations of your brand colors. To the right, you can see the different choices from the uploaded brand fonts being used in the element and overlay colors!

You can also click the Edit button to make more in-depth tweaks to your design. You can add additional text, add or remove design elements, or make changes to your photo if your original selections just aren’t working the way you want them to.

In this screen, you can also physically move around any elements of the design!

Step Four: Review Your Branding

Before you’re done creating your social media designs, check your branding one more time. Thanks to the work we did putting in our brand settings above, you should have some options in your Design Settings!

Click on the Branding heading to see branding options for your designs.

You can set your Website or Brand Name to automatically populate on all your social media designs. If you’d rather use your logo, select Logo and the version you’d like to work with.

The designs in your gallery will automatically update with your choices, so you have full power over how your social media post is branded, every time!

Step Five: Select and Schedule Your Social Media Posts

As you finish reviewing and tweaking each of your favorite designs, you’ll want to hit the Select button under each to save them! You can search for new designs, edit and select them one after the other – no need to interrupt your workflow to review and download until the end!

Once you’ve finished designing to your heart’s content for all your platforms, hit the big green Review button in the bottom right corner of your screen. This will show you all of your selected designs, and allow you to do a final check.

If you feel like you need to just move that one thing in order to have a picture-perfect post, just hit the edit button and get that tweaking out of your system! Your designs will still be there waiting for you on your Review screen.

When you’re ready, return to this screen and either download all your images by hitting the download button, or tap the green Go Schedule button to seamlessly send your designs to your Tailwind social media scheduler drafts. It couldn’t be easier to create your social media posts, schedule, and post them with this workflow! ✨

Have any questions about branding your social designs or using Tailwind Create? Drop them in the comments below – we read every one!

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Read our guide for in-depth tips on branding and designing your social media posts - and find out why branding social media posts is so important!

Essential Guide to Pinterest Templates (Make Your Pins Pop!)

Susan Moeller on May 18, 2021

An image of an editable purple Pin template in Tailwind Create with a girl in a purple shirt sitting on a ledge

Pinterest templates are an incredible resource for marketers looking to promote their products, ideas and content on Pinterest without spending a ton of time branding and styling Pin designs from scratch.

This isn’t to say all your Pins should look the same; you should always be creating fresh Pins and content for Pinterest. However, a set of well-crafted templates can help you create beautiful Pins that showcase your photos and content while keeping your branding intact.

A good way to think about this is having a set of templates for every type of content you produce.

Whether you’re designing Product Pins, promoting a blog post, or sharing a quote, you should have at least 1-3 Pinterest template designs suited to that format. That way, you can customize a set design around your photo and content – not the other way around!

Plus, having multiple Pinterest templates available (for, say, promoting your blog post) means that you’ll have visual variety for your created Pins. If you have just one template that you use, your Created tab on Pinterest is going to look awfully boring!

Ok, now you know why Pin templates can really help your boost your Pinterest marketing. Let’s dive into the specifics of what to include in Pin templates. We’ll also go over where and how to make them!

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What to Include in Pinterest Template

One of the main advantages of creating Pinterest templates is that you have branded resources for promoting your content and products on Pinterest at your fingertips! And, they’re fairly easy to make!

Here are the main elements you want to include a space for in your Pin design:

  • Pin image
  • Pin Title
  • Subheading and room for copy
  • Background
  • Additional Design Elements
  • Branding 
  • CTA

You’ll also want to make sure that your branding is emphasized throughout your template.

This means incorporating your color palette, branded fonts, and a logo or website!

Created by Brooke Facjz

How to Create Pinterest Templates

There are a lot of design tools out there you can use to make beautiful Pin images, like Canva, PicMonkey and editable templates purchased from Creative Market!

You’ll simply choose a design you like, and customize the elements of the Pin to match your image and branding. In order to create a robust Pinterest template library, you may have to spend a few hours hunting for your favorite designs that work for your content types and then customizing each with your branding.

Or, you can start from almost done with Tailwind Create! 

Our smart visual designer will generate templates in one click based on your industry, branding, or even the color palette of your photo!

It’s a huge time saver, and helps you generate thousands of personalized designs for Pinterest (and your other social platforms!) in half the time. 

Here’s how to use a personalized Pinterest Template in Tailwind Create, step by step and save hours of design time:

Designing multiple Pin templates with Tailwind Create tool
  1. Add Your Pin Title
  2. Add the web address you want to pull your photos from or upload them from your computer
  3. Click Create in the bottom right corner
  4. Browse thousands of curated Pinterest templates generated with your images, title, and branding
  5.  Filter the list by photo count and/or category to find the perfect template for your Pin
  6. Click Edit to make changes to photos, text, color, or branding on any Pinterest template
  7. Select your favorite personalized Pin designs, and hit Review Selection in the bottom right corner when you’re done
  8. Download your Pin images or click “Go Schedule” to add them to your Tailwind Pinterest scheduler

It couldn’t be easier to create personalized social media posts in half the time with Tailwind Create. See what others have created with our tool!

How to Stand Out on Pinterest with Beautiful Pins

When building or using Pinterest templates, there are a few tips and tricks you’ll want to keep in mind on how to make your Pinterest Pins beautiful!

1. Choose a Professional-Looking Image

Image quality is key when it comes to Pinterest Pins. After all, would you click on a Pin with blurry, pixellated images, or snaps taken in low-quality lighting?

Clear, crisp images draw Pinners’ eyes, and showcase your products or topics really well in the busy Pinterest feed! They help tell a story – maybe even before your viewer reads the Pin Title – and can make or break the decision to click.

And, did you know that you can get professional-looking pictures for your Pins right on your phone? Check out our FREE phone photography webinar for more details!

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2. Choose Your Pin Background

Next, you’ll want to choose the background of your Pinterest template. Generally, when you create a Pin with a large block of text, you want to choose a background that doesn’t distract from the text or make it difficult to read – like a solid background color. Minimalist Pin designs work particularly well for this! 

Images can also make for good backgrounds to Pins without a lot of text. You’ll want to choose a simple photo for your background, with plenty of white space for your copy.

If your photo doesn’t have white space, consider adding a text overlay to your Pin so that the text is clearly readable. You should also make sure your text is high enough contrast to be easily read on a screen.

This not only helps your Pinterest audience, it helps Pinterest itself understand exactly what your Pin is about!

3. Draw Users in With Pin Titles

Pin Titles tell your users exactly what your Pin is about – and did you know they tell Pinterest what it’s about, too?

Pinterests’ visual AI tool can read the text on your Pin – well, some text. It really struggles with script and handwritten fonts, so even though these are cute, they don’t help Pinterest SEO.

And trust us, you really want to optimize your Pin designs with Pinterest SEO in mind. When the algorithm (and your users) have a clear understanding of what your Pin is about, it will surface in relevant search results for Pinners interested in that topic. That’s more eyes on your content, and more traffic to your site!

To make a design-friendly Title that hits the points of Pinterest SEO, include your main keyword or topic in your Pin Title, and fight the urge to make it too long. A short, snappy title doesn’t detract from your Pin image or take up too much space in the design, while getting the point across.

You can use up to 100 characters in your Pin Title! 

4. Include Your Branding on the Pin

If you think about it, the Pinterest feed is filled with hundreds of Pin images side by side, each inviting Pinners to click and learn more. If you’re interested in building engagement and a loyal following on Pinterest, subtle branding touches on your Pin can help!

If you have a brand logo, consider including it on your Pin in the corner, or at the bottom of your Pin. 

If you don’t have a logo, include your website address. This helps users know who made the content, and where to go for more things like it!

Want more information? Read our in-depth guide on creative best practices for Pin design!

Pinterest Pin Template Examples from Tailwind

How Often to Post on Pinterest?

You may be wondering how often to post on Pinterest, and looking for information on the best days to post on Pinterest. Well, we have some good and bad news for you here!

The bad news is there is no best time to post on Pinterest. The good news, is that any time could be a good time to post on Pinterest. The key is not posting at the right time and date, but perfecting your Pinning consistency. Here it is from Pinterest themselves:

It’s a good idea to save Pins regularly—consistent, daily activity is better than a once-a-week flurry. Be patient and stick with it.

Unlike social networks where all of your audience reach typically happens in the first 24 hours, the reach of your content on Pinterest will continue to grow over time as Pinners discover and save your Pins. Publishing consistently over consecutive months is the best way to build a dedicated audience.

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Our recommendation is to look at how much time you have to commit to generating content to Pin, so that you always have a consistent flow of Pins to your boards.

“There’s no point in pinning 100 times per day if you don’t have the time and content to fill those slots from week to week. You want to be able to set yourself up to maintain a flow of relevant and quality content.”

Taylor Hall, Tailwind Customer Success

That’s where our Tailwind Pinterest scheduler comes in handy – so that you can experiment and find the pinning schedule and cadence that works best for your audience.

If you have the time to publish 10-15 new Pins every day, try it for a while and monitor your engagement with our Pinterest analytics tool. From there, you can make the choice to scale your Pinning rate up or down, or make changes to your Pinterest content!

The sweet spot may take some sleuthing to find, but you’ll be rewarded with more engagement on Pinterest and better performance of your Pins – and Tailwind is here to help!

Plus, our Tailwind Create tool enables you to publish all your freshly designed Pins to your Pin queue in one click of a button, saving you a ton of time! Curious? Try it out today!

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Everything you need to know to turn your Pinterest templates into traffic and generate interest in your brand is here in our guide!

5 Ways to Create Inspiring Pinterest Content

Paul Johnson on October 28, 2020

Pinterest Pin on red background

Creating inspiring content on Pinterest that engages audiences and drives clicks is every Pinterest marketer’s dream.

After all, Pinterest is a platform where people come to be inspired. Whether searching for the latest recipes, home decor ideas, or even must-have products to buy, there’s no doubt that Pinterest is the place where people dream.

And if you want to be a part of that dream, there are five core inspirational ideas to incorporate into your Pinterest content strategy.

The best part is, you don’t have to use all of them. Even two of the five will make a big difference!

Want to create beautiful Pins optimized for Pinterest success in less time than ever? Try Tailwind Create now!

Ready to learn the five ideas for creating inspirational content on Pinterest? Let’s dive into all of them below! And stick around for a bonus that has people saying things like,

“This is wonderful! I used to dread making my pins………..now it is as much fun as making the jewelry AND I am now inspired to take more creative photos! This is amazing…………..thank you so much!”

Or, don’t stick around to the end – jump right to Tailwind Create if you can’t wait. We won’t judge!

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Pinners in Search of Inspiration

Pinners use Pinterest overwhelmingly to plan, make and DO.

In fact, Pinterest is overwhelmingly positive for this reason. People visit Pinterest to escape negativity, current events, and dream about their future.

In fact, it’s such a positive environment that Pinterest actually blocks political ads and hate speech. Instead, they champion mental health support resources, inclusivity, and body positivity.

Now you know why Pinterest is our happy place!

In order to create Pins that tap into these happy feelings and inspiration, you’ll want to use a few of the five strategies below. These are Pinterest’s Five Dimensions of Inspiration:

  • Visually Appealing
  • Original
  • Positive
  • Relevant
  • Actionable

We’ll lay out the five dimensions below in more detail, with actionable tips to help you master each!

1. Make Your Pins Visually Appealing

Don’t be afraid to be bold with your Pin design and strategy. Visually appealing Pins stand out in the Pinterest feed and make viewers curious to learn more!

Experiment with beautiful, aesthetic images and eye-catching colors in your Pin design and photography. And make sure your lighting, composition and focus are top knotch.

Related : Basic Photo Editing for Beginners

Pro tip: Don’t be afraid to experiment with colors and design, even if they don’t consistently match your regular company branding and color palette. As our Pinterest expert Alisa always says, “are you on Pinterest for branding or for traffic?”

Try making your branding a little more subtle in favor of a show-stopping Pin design that highlights your product or topic. A small but legible URL or logo will do!

Another tip? Make sure to extend your image to the edges of your Pin, leaving no margins around your Pin image. The result is more visual impact to grab eyes in the Pinterest feed.

2. Make Your Pins Original

Some of the most inspiring Pinterest designs are original. Have an out-of-the-box idea that you haven’t seen on Pinterest before? Go ahead and try it out – it’ll probably be just as refreshing to your target audience as it is to you!

Above all, seek to make Pinterest designs fresh and exciting when strategizing your next Pin design. And if you want to take your Pinterest marketing strategy to the next level, experiment with making your Pin appeal to different audiences and test your results.

Here are some additional ways to get the most out of your Pinterest content without feeling overwhelmed.

3. Make Your Pins Positive

Remember, Pinterest is a place for positivity! This is a great opportunity to gut-check your Pin copy. Are you using positive, inviting phrases, or does it sound a tad negative when you read it aloud?

For example, a post titled “Why You Never Reach Your Fitness Goals” can quickly become inspiring by calling it “10 Ways to Reach Your Fitness Goals This Month” on your Pin.

In the positive environment of Pinterest, Creators should focus on offering solutions, rather than focusing on problems. This tactic will improve your Pin copy and resonate with audiences looking to be inspired.

You should also try to be as relatable as possible when crafting your Pin copy, Pin titles, and descriptions. After all, your Pinterest community is diverse and they want to relate to you and the solutions you offer.

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4. Make Your Pins Relevant

To keep Pins relevant, don’t forget about seasonal content and current Pinterest trends!

Consider how you might put a seasonal spin on an everyday interest. Scan over current Trends and think about how you can tie your content into upcoming seasonal holidays or themes, as well as what audiences are interested in right now.

Need a little help? Check out our free guide to help you get the most out of your content with trends.

And here’s a great list of Pinterest interests and moments to consider when creating inspiring Pinterest content.

5. Make Your Pins Actionable

Making your Pins actionable works for everyone involved. Pinners understand what action they’re supposed to take clearly (whether it’s saving your Pin for later or clicking through to your site). And you get the benefit of reach and traffic from those actions.

When you tie a CTA on your Pin to inspiring designs and copy, Pinners will feel confidence to create and try new things. That’s some serious Pinterest magic.

Need some CTA ideas?

Try adding a short, concise CTA to your Pin design with an arrow pointing to it. Try a two-word CTA like “view recipe,” “find yours,” or “learn more.”

And remember to tie in the dimension of relatability here. Inspiring content needs to be doable. People won’t take action on a Pin that doesn’t look achievable!

BONUS: Create Inspiring Pins with Tailwind Create

There you have it – the five ways to create inspiring Pinterest content! Start creating Pins with a purpose by including at least two of these five characteristics in your next Pin design:

  • Visually Appealing
  • Original
  • Positive
  • Relevant
  • Actionable

Don’t have a lot of time to spend on brand-new Pinterest designs? With the click of a button, you can create inspiring Pinterest Pin designs with Tailwind Create!

Tailwind Create - design beautiful Pin images - demonstration

Tailwind Create offers thousands of designs made and curated with Pinterest creative best practices in mind. Save time and create inspiring Pinterest content with Tailwind Create.

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4 Simple Ways to Add Text to Your Pins

Paul Johnson on October 8, 2020

Four Pinterest Pin Designs on a blue background

You’ve heard using text overlays on your Pins is ideal, but how do you arrange text on your Pins correctly?

The truth is, there are many ways to do it – but if you’re unsure where to begin, we recommend starting simple with four ways to arrange text on Pins that follow Pinterest creative best practices below.

We’ll also go over the dos and don’ts for arranging Pin text, examples of text on Pins, plus how to utilize white space to your advantage!

Ready? Let’s get started!

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Adding Text on Pins on Pinterest: Do’s and Don’ts

Here’s the deal, the arrangement of your Pin text overlays matter! Rather than just throwing some text over your Pin, make sure you are keeping these important dos and don’ts.

  • DO fit your text to your image, not the other way around!
  • DON’T overcrowd your Pin with too much text. Pinterest is a visual platform!
  • DO keep your Pin text short and to the point.
  • DON’T use script fonts for text containing important keywords– the Pinterest visual search engine can’t read them!
  • On that note, DO include keywords wherever they fit naturally.

4 Ways to Arrange Text on Pins (with Examples!)

In this section we’ll go over some design methods that you can use to arrange text on your Pins. These methods will keep your design attractive and aesthetic.

Need some inspiration? Each method below includes examples Pin designs to get you inspired!

Center Titles Over Your Image

To add an eye-catching title, you can add a centered text overlay onto your Pin.

Always follow creative best practices when adding text overlays to Pins! Here are a few tips:

  • Centered text works well on landscape images or those without a central focus.
  • If the text is the focus on the Pin, a centered text overlay works great!
  • Centered text is great for Pins focusing on quotes or a background.
Example Pin with centered text overlay

Add a Vertical Text Overlay

We love using vertical text overlays! It’s a great way to use less space around the image and gives your Pin design a modern look.

Here are some tips for adding vertical text to Pins:

  • Try using vertical text overlays for non-keyword text such as branding or subheadings.
  • Add your URL as a vertical text overlay to add some dimension.
  • Place vertical text on the edges of the Pin, with some room around it to breathe!
sample Pin with vertical text overlay

Offset Your Text

Without disrupting the focal point of your image, you can offset text overlays on your Pin!

Just remember these best practices when offsetting your Pin text:

  • You can add offset text on the corners or bottom of your Pin without covering the image.
  • As you’re working with offset text, make sure important elements aren’t covered in the feed by Pinterest buttons (especially in the bottom right!)
  • Offset text looks great when there is space in the photo on either side or corner.
Pin example with offset text overlay

Work in White Space

White space is your friend! You can use or create white space with frames to give yourself room to add text overlays.

Here are some tips for utilizing white space on your Pin:

  • Add your Pin image into a frame or shape cutout to emphasize the focal point of your Pin, leaving plenty of white space around it for text.
  • Use white space to separate text using graphic elements. Sometimes lines or dots can give your Pin a minimalist look.
  • When using square images, this allows for more white space around the image.
Pinterest text example with white space overlay

Create Perfect Pins with Tailwind Create

Creating stunning Pin designs can be hard. We get it!

Between understanding Pinterest creative best practices, knowing how to arrange text on Pins correctly, and choosing the best design elements, it’s a lot to juggle.

Tailwind Create Pin Design Tool

That is why we’ve introduced Tailwind Create!

It takes the guesswork out of Pin creation with thousands of editable Pinterest templates built by Pin experts and designers.

Tailwind Create allows you to scroll through templates and sort them by industry and niche or Pin format.

You can also edit and customize every design! Favorite your most-loved templates to use again and again!

Creating fresh content has never been easier! We add new templates and designs all the time to make crafting fresh, exciting new designs stress-free.

Want to be one of the first to test out Tailwind Create? Sign up for our exclusive public beta!

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Pin Me For Reference :

Stumped on how to make your titles and Pin copy work with your image? Here are four ways to arrange text on Pins with tips!

How to Make Irresistible Pinterest Images in Seconds [Free Templates]

Greg Starling on August 29, 2019

Maybe you’ve heard about all the traffic people are getting from Pinterest and you’re wondering – how can I get some of that – without adding to my already too-long to-do list?!? 

The secret to Pinterest marketing success is simple – it’s about the images. Yup, it’s all about the design, the text overlay, the description, and even the quantity of images you create!

The best news is that you when you learn to create high-performing images for Pinterest FAST, you don’t need to have a huge backlog of content to see results. You don’t need a degree in design. And you DEFINITELY don’t need to spend hours and hours on Pinterest marketing every week for it to pay off. 

Let’s get down to how to make irresistible Pinterest images in seconds. It’s so easy, you’ll be an image-creating machine, taking over the Pinterest feed with image after image that Pinners are powerless to resist!

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What Makes an Irresistible Pinterest Image? 

It’s part art, part science, all fun! Remember, people are on Pinterest to open to new ideas and products and are excited to find inspiration as they search and browse. Pins help people decide what to do and buy next – planning their best future, sure, but looking for items and ideas to help improve their day-to-day lives TODAY.

Pinterest analyzed over 21,000 Pins across several verticals to look at over 25 attributes on each (whether it had a logo, whether the Pin shared a new product, etc.) to find out what was consistent across Pins that generated awareness, email signups, and online and offline sales. What they found can help you create the perfect Pin.

How to Make Irresistible Pinterest Images:

  • Using a striking visual – a professional, in-focus image where your product or service is the focus.
  • Emotional resonance – make a connection by providing inspiration and information.
  • Branding – add your logo at the top or bottom of the image in the center. Make it noticeable but tasteful.
  • Provide context to show how to use your product or service – is it central to a time of year, time of day, a special occasion? 
  • Bold, clear use of a text overlay to convey your main message and help with SEO – provide some context. Make sure it’s legible on mobile!
  • Vertical format in a 2:3 or 1:2.1 ratio (600×900 – 600×1260 or 1000×1500)
  • Get our free templates which incorporate all these elements and more!

Check out this beauty by Smucker’s!

Irresistible Pinterest Pins Start with Striking Images

Whether it’s a product photo you’ve taken yourself, images from a custom lifestyle shoot, or the perfect stock image, the background image for your Pin sets the stage for success – literally. If you’re selling a product, you’ll want to feature it prominently, but probably won’t want to use all product images on a plain white background. Try putting them in a real-life setting, photograph it from different angles, or simply show someone enjoying it in their lives. 

If you’re selling a service, you’ll often have to be a bit less literal in your image choice. For instance, it may be tricky to try to visually represent something like tax services, or a blog post that will promote your services. However, in this example, the Creator thought about their audience (bloggers) and created something that would appeal to them and used a strong text overlay to convey their message!

The Best Pinterest Images Make an Impact with Emotional Connection

Pinners love the platform and often cite the fact that it’s an oasis from the negativity of social media as one of the top reasons it’s their “happy place.” It’s a place people go to look for inspiration and ideas. Make sure your images foster those feelings. 

This Pin has me ready to pack my bags!

Include Branding on Your Pinterest Images

While 98% of Pinterest searches are unbranded, Pinterest consistently reports that subtle branding increases overall Pin effectiveness. While no reason has been given to explain this effect, it could be that seeing that brand name prepares the person clicking on the Pin for the site they’re about to visit, builds trust and awareness, making them more likely to take action on the site.

Provide Context for Your Pinterest Images

Show people how to use your product or service. Show it in use in real life; and whenever possible, tie in a connection with an event, season, or an everyday moment – like dinnertime with family, homework with the kids, or starting your workday. 

Add Bold, Clear Text to Your Pinterest Images

Since most of your Pin description isn’t visible in the feed, let people know what your Pin is about with some helpful text on your image. Give them a reason to click.

Did you know that Pinterest reads the text on your images?!?! It’s true! So, make sure to incorporate keywords on your image. 

And while Pinterest can read your text, make sure humans can as well! Skip the curly, fancy fonts and stick with easy-to-read text while using plenty of contrast with the background. Remember, most people will see your Pin on mobile where script fonts can be hard to make out.

The Ideal Size For a Pinterest Image

Pinterest has provided clear guidelines:

  • 2:3 ratio is recommended. That could be 1000x1500px or any equivalent ratio
  • You can go up to a 1:2.1 ratio before your image may be cut off in the feed or not distributed. That works out to be 1000x2100px or equivalent.

It’s easy to see why you’d want an image that is portrait aligned rather than horizontal – they just look better and take up more room in the feed. The quest for more real estate in the feed has lead to some verrry tall, or “giraffe” Pins, however. Pinterest determined that those didn’t provide the best user experience, and so has either truncated most of those extra-tall images or prevented their distribution.

What If I Don’t Have Enough Content for Pinterest?

Make more. 🙂 Pinterest gets specific about what they’re looking for when it says,

“You should create new Pins linking to your claimed accounts at least once a week. Consistent, ongoing activity is the best way to build a dedicated audience on Pinterest.”

For those of us strapped for time, the good news is that “content” can just be a new Pin on Pinterest! 

Make More Pinterest Images for Each Blog Post and Product Page

Isn’t one enough? 

I know, I know. When you hit “publish” on a blog post, the last thing you want to do is spend MORE time thinking about it. But you know as well as I do that your content is only valuable if people see it! In fact, many professionals suggest you spend as much time or MORE promoting your content as you do creating it.  

Fortunately, creating multiple Pins for each post or product can be quick and easy, and there are compelling reasons to do so!

“When it comes to increasing content mileage, solving traffic problems, and keeping Pinterest happy, images offer the highest ROI when compared with other, more labor-intensive tasks.” Tina Gammon, Creative Director at Simple Pin Media shares her reasons

That’s right, the easiest way to multiply your Pinterest traffic is to multiply the number of new Pins for each page or post on your site or blog!

What Makes a “New” Pin on Pinterest? 

For a while, we were told that simply changing the description on a Pin would make a “new” Pin, possibly increasing your opportunities for exposure and distribution. Many people consider a “new” Pin to be anything other than a Repin. While it can all seem rather confusing, the actual answer is quite simple.

A new Pin is a new image/URL combination. So, you could make 10 images for one blog post or product listing and have 10 new Pins! Or, you could make 10 new blog posts with an image for each and have 10 new Pins. I think it’s pretty clear which is easier to do!

6X Pinterest Traffic with When You Make More Pin Images!

A new image for an older post can breathe new life into your content on Pinterest and bring in more traffic, too. It’s not simply the result of giving Pinterest what it wants (new Pins!) either. New designs can appeal to different people, giving your content a better chance at attracting the all-important click!

For example, Jessica Boschen of What I Have Learned took a post from way back in 2015 and created a new image for it. Her new Pin has generated over 10,000 visits to her site in the past 30 days, compared to a (still-impressive) 2,000 clicks!

Original:

New:

Tina and and Simple Pin Media team noticed something very similar in one of their client’s results. Here, the original Pin got 779 clicks, but when they save the new image, it received 5.5K clicks in the same time period. That’s an increase of over 600%!

Original:

New:

And remember, Jessica and Simple Pins’ client enjoyed meaningful traffic increases from creating just ONE Pin. You can create as many as you like!

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How to Choose Content for Creating New Pins

Naturally, you want the best return for your time spent, so you’ll want to choose carefully which content gets a fresh new Pin (or five). Here are three different methods to try:

Tina at Simple Pin Media says they use Google Analytics to look at winners and losers for traffic. If a post or page is doing really well, they capitalize on that trend with a new image. If the piece never really took off or the traffic is sliding, they’ll make a new image to try to revive it. Here’s an image they tested for a client. Can you guess which performed better?

(The one on the right!)

Jessica of What I Have Learned has a different approach. “I chose posts that were seasonally popular in the next month (back to school).  I knew these posts had gotten a lot of traffic in the past.“

Here at Tailwind, we’d be interested in creating new images for content that we know encourages people to sign up for a free trial. Whether that content is a week old or three years old, if it still works, we can give it new life and new traffic with a new Pin image!

How Many Pins Should I Make for Every New Post?

The answer is…as many as you reasonably can! But it also depends on the volume of content you have and your publishing schedule. For example, if you have 10 blog posts and you only publish one new post a month, creating 4-5 images for each post will keep you adding something brand new to Pinterest every single week. Consistent activity is a signal Pinterest watches for and rewards with greater distribution.

If you have 300 blog posts or product listings, you might just choose the ones that convert the best or the ones that are most relevant this time of year and create 1-2 new images for each. 

Tailwind Tip: Add the variations on your seasonal Pins to SmartLoop and they’ll get shared at the best times each year without you having to remember to do anything!

Going forward, if your publishing schedule is say, once a week, aim to make 2-3 images for each post and share them a week apart (remember to schedule with Tailwind!).

Jeff Sieh, of Manly Pinterest Tips says, “Since Pinterest mentioned that they want new content, we’ve initiated a “Fresh Pins Strategy” at KimGarst.com

For every blog post, we create at least 5 different variations on the image, as well as the Pin description, then use Tailwind to schedule out those Pins using interval Pinning.  At the same time, we pick which image we think will work the best and add that to our Tailwind Communities. All these Pins are tracked with UTM codes and the versions that perform the best are added to Tailwind’s SmartLoop to Pin evergreen content throughout the year.”

Very smart!

How to Make New Pins for Existing Content – Fast

Don’t feel like you need to start from scratch every time. Some savvy Pinterest marketers have image templates on hand that they can reuse for every single post. And you don’t always need to start from a completely different main image, either. You could:

  • Zoom in on your product or stock image
  • Rotate the background image
  • Change the text on the image to highlight a different benefit or feature
  • Change colors and filters
  • Change text fonts and sizes.

The idea here isn’t to “trick” Pinterest into thinking you have a new Pin so they’ll increase your content reach – it’s to present your content in a fresh, new way that inspires people to click. 

Pinterest does look for continuity between Pin image and the images on your page, so you might find you have better results if you stick with a similar style or color scheme, but test it out for yourself!

Jessica says, “So far, I have always used a new base-image, of some sort. I want the image to look entirely different.  In the future, I may consider using older photos as the base-image and reworking the elements around it.” For example:

As we discussed, a new description on an old image doesn’t make a Pin “new,” but some people like to try new descriptions when creating new images for content. While this doesn’t allow for a true “A/B” test, it could help you get found for different key words, or the call to action you use in the new description might prove to be more motivating than the last. 

Try Templates for Faster Pinterest Image Creation

Tina is a big fan of templates, saying, “We currently have ten templates in play for Simple Pin Media Content. These branded templates make it super easy to test both a new image and Pin copy (separately of course – one element at a time!) in a relatively small amount of time.”

Speaking of templates – we’ve created a bunch to give away as part of the Perfect Pinterest Pins Toolkit. In it you’ll get:

  • 16 Pinterest image templates in PhotoShop and Easil formats.
    • Available for four popular business niches – select yours or grab them all!
    • Designed for four different business objectives – awareness, email signups, online sales, offline sales.
    • Endlessly customizable with PhotoShop or Easil!
  • Perfect Pin description guide.
  • Irresistible Pin image checklist.
  • Exclusive Easil Discount.

Haven’t tried Easil? It’s a super-easy drag-and-drop editor we think you’ll love. Here’s how to remix an image using image editing software Easil.

In Conclusion: How to Make Irresistible Pinterest Images in Seconds

There IS, in fact, a magic formula to creating irresistible Pinterest images that drive traffic:

  • Start with striking visuals in a vertical format
  • Make sure you elicit an emotional response
  • Feature your branding
  • Provide context and play into seasonality or everyday events
  • Use a clear text overlay to provide context and help with SEO
  • Make use of templates to make more images in less time.

So, what do you say? Have a few seconds to make great Pins this week? Grab our Perfect Pin Toolkit! We’d love to see what you do with the templates – please share a link to your creations in the comments!

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