The Surprising Truth About Pinterest Hashtags 2018

Pinterest Finally Spills the Beans on Hashtags: Sept. 29, 2017

This blog post was originally published on August 23 with a lot of rumors and innuendoes.

Pinterest finally published an official statement on September 29, 2017. These updates are directly below, with my current thoughts as of November 1, with older info below.

What are hashtags?
Hashtags are a word or phrase preceded by a hash (#) used to identify Pins on a specific topic.

NEW! Hashtags on Pinterest work just like they do anywhere else.

When you add hashtags to the description for a new Pin, other Pinners can visit a feed of all the Pins that share that hashtag. The freshest Pins will be right up top. Unlike normal search results on Pinterest, these will be shown in (mostly) chronological order.

How to find Pins with hashtags
You can discover related content by clicking on a hashtag in Pin description. You can also search for a Hashtag, like “#interiordesign” or “#healthyrecipes”. If you search the same phrase without the hashtag, it will pull up the original search results page.

How do I add hashtags to Pins? And how many?

Add hashtags for Pins in the description. To add a hashtag, type “#” and add a keyword or phrase.

As of Sept. 29, I see suggested hashtags pop up with a number following. Many say 0! While you shouldn’t use hashtags that are crazy popular and vague, hashtags with under 100 uses are probably not going to help you get found. I’m going with a selection of tags that are mostly in the 1,000 to 10,000 uses range.

See screenshot: This is in the Pin description when I Save a new Pin. I do not see this when editing a Pin description.

I suggest you search hashtags that you’re considering using (enter “#yourhashtagphrase” in the Pinterest search bar) and check out the content in the search results to make sure it’s relevant to yours.

When inserting a hashtag, Pinterest recommends you be specific and descriptive. Use words or phrases that describe the content in the Pin. Add no more than 20 hashtags per Pin.

I recommend using at least 4 hashtags per Pin. As of October 21, Pinterest is showing 4 hashtags instead of a Pin description under the Pin previews in streams and on boards. If you’ve used more than 4, only the first 4 will show here.

I recommend putting hashtags at the END of your description. You want them to lead Pinners TO your content, not away from it.

If you want to change your hashtag later, edit the Pin description. But since hashtag searches are turning up recent Pins, I don’t see a need to edit old Pin descriptions to add hashtags.

Do add hashtags when repinning a previous Pin. Now you’ve got a fresh one!

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Pinterest Hashtag Hacks: Short Version

Put hashtags at the END of your description to lead Pinners TO your content, not away from it.

If you want to change your hashtag later, edit the Pin description.

Since hashtag searches favor recent Pins, don’t edit old Pin descriptions to add hashtags.

Continue your keyword strategy on Pinterest, as most Pinners will discover your content via keywords.

Be sure to make eye-catching Pins, so that yours get clicked in the hashtag feed.

Hashtags on Pinterest ONLY work in Pin descriptions! Don’t use them elsewhere.

Are Pinterest Hashtags Actually Helping?

I would strongly recommend you continue your keyword strategy on Pinterest. I believe this will be the way most Pinners will discover your content.

However, hashtags give us another avenue to be found – via users clicking hashtags on others’ Pins. Pins in the hashtag feed will show up freshest first, so the more often you Pin with relevant hashtags, the better chance you have of being seen in the hashtag feed.

I personally have been using hashtags on Pinterest for 2 months now. At first, I used 2-3 per pin, and since Pinterest’s announcement, am now using about 6. I have about 1,800 pins out now that are hashtagged.

My repins, views, and website traffic are up. I can’t say for certain it’s due to hashtags. Even before hashtags, I started repinning only content that’s performing, so that could be the reason.

Some users are reporting flat results, and others say they’re helping. I haven’t heard a single user report that their Pinterest results are down since using hashtags.

For me, Pinterest continues (after almost 2 years) to send the most traffic to this one viral post. That Pin has no hashtags. And I haven’t pinned it for months!

I believe we can’t ensure specific results on Pinterest, we can only enhance our chances. So I suggest you do include a few well-chosen hashtags at the end of your Pin description. As Pinners get more accustomed to how they work, their effectiveness will likely increase.

Why aren’t my Pins showing up in the Hashtag Feed?

Pinterest said that hashtag feeds would surface the freshest content first – but you may notice that the feed isn’t showing you all Pins with that hashtag, in completely chronological order.

One woman noticed that most of her Pins were missing, and some of the content was old. She emailed Pinterest and got this response:

What shows up when a hashtag is searched has to do with a lot of different factors including a Pinner’s interests, searches, past history of engagement, etc as well as a vast majority of other signals. In general, our goal is to show the right Pin to the right Pinner at the right time. That means that it actually isn’t possible to force show a specific Pin of yours for the hashtag.

So like I said above, we can’t make Pinterest bow to our wishes – we can only follow suggestions and see what works best for our own accounts.

Pinterest Hints That Hashtags Are Supported: August 2017

I first heard of this in a blog post. The author Vanessa was fortunate enough to visit Pinterest HQ in San Francisco.

She met with Jackie, a Partner Manager.

Jackie explained that brands really wanted to utilize hashtags because they had become so commonplace on other platforms and basically the language of #marketing. Pinterest has started utilizing hashtags in the search as well as linking pins with the same hashtags. Her Pinterest marketing strategy was to include at least one hashtag after the end of the pin description that most strongly represented the purpose of the pin. source

I read that August 21. Then on August 23, I was on a webinar with Pinterest and Curalate.

Tiffany Black is the Head of Content Business Development and Corporate Development at Pinterest. During the webinar, she mentioned both keywords and hashtags, and fielded a couple pointed questions later.

As far as hashtags, she recommends we use a few, relevant ones in our Pin description. “Don’t get carried away or use 100.”

There’s now (Sept. 29) an official recommendation from Pinterest on number to use: no more than 20. Heck, that’s a lot!

Jackie had said 1 or 2, but apparently that wasn’t an official Pinterest stance.

The full quote from Tiffany:

It is true that In the past, I think that we were dissuading people from using hashtags. We are actually changing that such that you can and are often benefited in the future by using hashtags. As far as best practices go, the rule of thumb is use authentic hashtags but don’t keyword stuff essentially. So I know on other platforms you can often see people putting 50 or 100 hashtags on something.

It’s not the volume of hashtags that’s really useful, it’s actually making sure you are using the hashtags that people will likely be searching for. So not trying to do like 100 because actually doing too many will decrease rank in some capacity because we will think it is possibly spam.

So I would say we haven’t figured out exactly what the right number is. I don’t think that we will probably come out with an exact number but you know keeping it reasonable and using ones that are relevant to the content and authentic is the way to go.

When asked whether keywords needed to be used in a sentence, Tiffany responded that it’s “preferred” to be conversational, but not critical enough to go edit past Pin descriptions.

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Overview of the Webinar Where Pinterest Verified Hashtag Use

Here’s the lovely Kate Ahl’s take on Pinterest hashtags. Remember that this feature was just announced when Kate recorded this video. My thoughts are below.

Should You Use Pinterest Hashtags in 2018?

On October 21, 2017, Pinterest made a bold move in favor of hashtags: showing 4 of them under Pin previews in feeds (see screen shot above).

To me, this says you should use hashtags on Pinterest – at least 4 per Pin.

I plan to add four to six hashtags at the end of each Pin description going forward – but I won’t be A/B testing. Let me know if you do!

I understand that you might be wary that hashtags are a bad thing for brands. I was too! And, it’s a golden opportunity for spam, sadly.

Pinterest always said that hashtags can lead users away from our content.

You’ll have to work extra hard at making eye-catching Pins, so that yours is the Pin that gets clicked in the hashtag feed.

I’ve done well being found in keyword searches. Maybe you have, too. But who knows if that will continue? It seems hashtags may be prioritized. That’s why I think we need to jump on board.

Cautiously, though.

Pinterest doesn’t give us a lot of specifics on how to run our accounts – in the webinars, they have. So, I suggest to use four hashtags at the end of your Pin descriptions going forward. Not at the beginning – that has a much better chance of leading users away from your Pin.

I strongly recommend you check out the returns from hashtag searches before deciding which ones to include in your post. While Kate mentioned using #pinterest, returns from that search were 95% reused Instagram posts that had nothing to do with #pinterestmarketing or #pinteresttips. It looks like going more niche with hashtags is more effective – at least for the search results.

What do you think? Leave a comment.

I’ll keep this post updated on how to use Pinterest hashtags 2018. Pin it, and check back!