in: Pinterest
by: Jackie Nees
I love PicMonkey for so many reasons, but mostly because they make it so easy to create and edit amazing graphics that you can use in your social media campaigns, marketing, blog, and the list goes on. Now, my love affair with Pic Monkey has gotten even deeper. Why? Because they’ve now made it even easier to create cool graphics for platforms like Pinterest. They have taken the guesswork out of knowing what size it needs to be (although Tin Shingle Co-founder Katie created this amazing handy size guide for social media graphics that you can refer to if you need to), so all you need to do is choose the Pinterest collage template and you’re on your way to creating something Pin worthy!
Here’s how it works:
Let’s say I wanted to create a Pinterest friendly graphic showcasing the latest press from our Tin Shingle members. Before doing anything else, you’ll want to select the images you want to use for the collage and put them in a folder on your desktop or wherever it will be easy to find them.
Next, you’ll go to PicMonkey.com and select “Collage” at the top of the screen.
Pic Monkey will then open up a window so that you can find your images. I happened to have mine already in a folder so I will choose all of them by clicking [CTRL-A] (PC) or [Command-A] (Mac). The window will look like this:
Here's Where It Gets Pinteresting!
Once you select your images, the PicMonkey editor window will open with a default layout. Here is where you can choose which social network you want to make an image for - it is in the left menu and I have put a red arrow next to it in the picture below.
To change the layout, simply click on the “Layouts” icon on the left side of the screen and you’ll see a variety of selections to choose from. For our example, we’re going to select “Pinter-etsy”. It’s important to note that this particular layout is an upgraded feature within PicMonkey, however, PicMonkey offers a 30 day free trial where you have unlimited access to all of the bells and whistles for a whole month. You could make a lot of images in that amount of time that you could repurpose later, even if you choose not to upgrade after the trial. But upgrading is fun, and if you are using PicMonkey a lot for new images as needed, the upgrade is worth it.
By choosing the Pinter-etsy option, you’ll have several options depending on how many images you have. This one works perfectly for the images I have. Once you’ve selected your layout, you can locate your images by clicking the “Image” icon right above the “Layout Icon” on the left side of the screen.
Start Making Your Big Picture!
Now the fun begins. Simply drag and drop your images from the left into the boxes in the layout. You can rearrange them and resize them by clicking on them. Also, if you discover you want more or less boxes, simply hover over the box and click on the “x” in the corner to eliminate it, or drag an image between boxes to add another box.
Once you have your images where you want them, you can play around with the spacing between the images, creating more or less space depending on your needs. You can also leave the background white or choose a color. When you’re happy with your collage, save it to your computer. You’re done!
Even More Image Editing Options - With Words!
If you want to get even more creative, go back to PicMonkey’s main screen after you save and select Edit, then find the collage you just made on your computer and open it in PicMonkey to add filters, text or whatever you want to jazz it up even more.
Below is the finished product I made completely on PicMonkey, and is ready to pin in PInterest!
TIME ESTIMATE: The whole project took about 10 minutes from start to finish.
Making a collage like this is so much fun and a great way to get your business out there in a visually beautiful way. Collages can showcase your latest products, services, favorite quotes, your office, live events and more! The possibilities are endless.
