Effective Thumbnail Images for Pinterest Success in Promoting Your Articles

Other than on a blog or website hosted on an url that you purchased, you can expect many images to accompany your article. Some of these may be advertisements and some may be sidebar notices about other related articles on the site. Furthermore, you may have used several images to illustrate various aspects of the topic about which you have written.

When you pin an article, pinterest provides the full selection of all images on the page, from which you choose an image to represent the pin. If the article has a thumbnail of the appropriate size, it will generally appear on the top left-hand corner of the layout. If your image also contains a text title, people will be more likely choose this image to represent the pin for your article.

However, if there is no obviously pinnable thumbnail, people may pin any other image that appears in the selection. You may not feel that the images others choose are appropriate for the tone of your article. Therefore, take care to provide the image you want to represent your writing.

Below are two thumbnail images potentially representing an article about removing irrelevant details from a photograph. One has a text title and the other does not. I think it is clear that the image with the text is more likely to attract readers than the one without. Of course, the title of the article will be underneath the thumbnail and there is room to add a description; but repinners can change both of these features, whereas in the labeled image the subject of the article is inevitably repinned automatically.

Here are two examples of possible thumbnails for an article on basic photo enhancing techniques for the beginner. The text is the same in both cases, however I think that the one on the right is a better choice of composition.

According to some social media websites, thumbnail images for pins are 192 pixels in width on the boards and the height will be adjusted according to the height of the image you use. If someone opens a pin, the expanded image can be up to 736 pixels wide and that is the optimal source size for pinnable images. Of course, the actual source size may not be the source website display size of the thumbnail, and these different sizes can be specified in the image code.

You need to pay attention, then, to both the size and shape of the thumbnail on the website where the article is stored and most attractive shapes for pins. The former are often square and the latter can be square or rectangular. To be successful on pinterest, they should not be too much higher than they are wide, according to Rob Russo.