A beginner's guide to Pinterest

Creating an account

Like most social media platforms Pinterest is free to use, but you’ll have to set up an account to do so. You can create a free account at Pinterest.com with an email and password, or if you want to make the process quicker, you can choose to create one from an existing Facebook or Google account.

Once you’ve spent some time setting up your profile and you have a brief understanding of how Pinterest really works, you can start the fun part – saving pins to your boards.

Creating boards


Your Pinterest profile gives people a glimpse into the kind of content you enjoy. You can arrange the layout of your boards in any way you choose, giving you the chance to ensure that if you have a collection you want people to see first, you can simply drag it to the front of your page.

You’re also able to invite friends to collaborate on your boards with you, which is a great feature if you’re planning something with a group of people, such as a fun day at school, a birthday party or a hen do.

Saving pins

To save a pin that you found while browsing Pinterest so that you can refer to it later, simply hover your cursor over the pin and click the red ‘save’ button that appears in the top right corner.

You'll be asked which board you want to save it to, as well as offered the chance to change the name of the pin or add some tags to make it easy for you to find afterwards.

If you’re looking for a particular photo to add to a board but you can’t seem to find it on the website, you have the option to add it yourself from your device, meaning other people searching for that image will instantly come across your profile.

Interacting with other users

If you find specific users who post similar content to you and regularly check their boards to save their pins, you can make the process easier by following the user. Their stuff will then begin to show up on your personal homepage feed, enabling you to save any interesting pins to your own boards with one click.

If you’d rather follow specific boards instead of the user so you can be sure you’ll only see themed content you’re interested in, simply visit the relevant boards one at a time and click ‘follow’ at the top of the page.