Going through the endless streams of creative blogs, the one thing I’ve found prominent with their images, is a branded pin it button. A custom or branded Pin It button makes a blog look fun and gives the blog character. It tells me 2 things about the blogger: they love their blog and they love Pinterest.

You don’t have to have the same boring button that everyone else has, right? Take a look at the below showcase of 2 of my most favorite branded Pin It buttons and become inspired to create your own branded Pin It button.

 

As you can see from the Pin It buttons above, they’re quite different and lovely in their own way because they go with the branding of the sites.

My blog friend, Marianne Manthey, from Design Your Own Blog, has a fantastic tutorial on getting it done in PicMonkey. But if you know me! I had to give it a whirl in Canva plus I’ve had some requests so here’s how to create a branded pin it button in Canva.

Questions to Have in Mind to Create a Branded Pin It Button in Canva

1. Branding Colors
   First things first, what are your branding colors? Do you have 2 main colors that can be of contrast?
2. Size and Shape
   What are the dimensions? Will it be a circle or rectangle?

My Creative Thought Process and How to Create the Pin It Button

I wanted my button to be large so the eye can see as people scroll down my blog post. I chose a 150px x 150px dimension.

I knew I wanted to incorporate the flower from my logo. Then realized it could get lost on the image. Then I chose a circle for my background, however I went through my branding colors to see which one I liked best. I wasn’t sure about it. That’s what’s great about Canva, you can just click on the colors from the Brand Kit (Canva for Work feature) and give them all a try. Each time you create something and you’re not 100% satisfied then click on the copy button to alter the first creation.

This is what I came up with from my original thought then to the final pin it button:

Now it’s your turn!

Go to Canva and click on Custom Dimensions.

Make sure to click on the px units before entering in the numbers for the custom dimension. You can do 150px x 150px or if you want it bigger than try 200px x 200px or more.

When you have your blank square in front of you, think about the different elements about your blog that makes it stand out and unique from others. Are there any design elements or shapes that you use often? Perhaps it’s a pastry or cake blog, maybe you can use a cake icon.

First, search in the Elements tab and click on the Icons button or Illustrations button. Take a look to see if there are any icons that would represent your brand. Sometimes you’ll have to search in the search bar and scroll down to really find what your need. I finally found a cupcake that would be adorable for a pin it button for a pastry blog. Remember most illustrated icons that you find in Canva, the colors can be changed so it can easily match your branding.

Once you select the icon that you want, then place it on the square and add text like “Pin it” so people will know what it is.

When you’re ready with your image, then you’ll want to download it as a .png or .jpg. Sometimes you’ll be able to use the transparent background option in Canva at the download button but it doesn’t always work for me. 😦 If you don’t want all the white space in the squared image you can use a tool called Lunapic to remove the white background (if Canva gives you any trouble). If you’ve never tried it, it’s quite easy just upload your image and go to Edit to use Transparency. You can learn more about it in this post.

When Your Custom or Branded Pin It Button is Ready for Your Blog

Now your pin it button is ready! Almost done. Now go to Pinterest, to find out how you can add it to your specific platform where your blog is. I have WordPress.org, the plugin that they suggest did not work for me. I had a hard time with it, matter of fact, the pin it button was up on the top corner of my site which was crazy looking! Then thankfully on Marianne Manthey’s blog post, the one I mentioned in the beginning of this post, someone had stated they used a plugin called JQuery Pin It Button for Images. It’s been working perfectly! You can adjust it to be enabled on pages or only on blog posts. I just had to upload the pin it button to the plugin and BOOM it was done. I was nearly tearing out my hair with the Pinterest plugin it suggested and the coding to do it manually. The nice thing about is that it allows you to pick the placement of where the pin it button will be shown on images (right corner, left corner, or center).

Of course depending on your blog platform, it will really all depend on how you can add it to your blog.

Is a Branded Pin It Button for you?

Well if you don’t use Pinterest often then probably not. If you have a large vertical image on your blog posts then those would be the ideal pinned images, and yes the branded pin it button would be great for you. If you have your blog post title image in a vertical position, then yes you’ve created an image for Pinterest. If you use infographics on most of your posts, then yes the pin it button is worth the time.

Sometimes readers need a bit of instruction and if they like your post a whole lot then they’ll share it. Why not let them know you’d like the article to be pinned with the direct call to action on the ‘pin it’ button. I think they’ll be more inclined to pin it. Do you agree?

[tweet_box inject=”Give readers a direct call to action – a branded ‘pin it’ button. They’ll be more inclined to pin. @tigerlilyva11 #pinterest #branding”]Give readers a direct call to action – a branded ‘pin it’ button. They’ll be more inclined to pin.[/tweet_box]

Let me know in the comments if the pin it button would be something you’d like to do. If you have it already, share a post with the branded pin it button you’ve created in the comments. I’d love to see it!

Take care,