Auto-publishing Instagram posts to Pinterest promises an easy shortcut to visibility. But like most shortcuts, it doesn’t always take you where you want to go.
I learned that lesson the hard way in Heathrow Airport a few years ago. I landed late at night, smugly confident in my travel plan: slip between terminals, crash at the in-airport hotel, wake up with a Pret latte in my hand before my transatlantic flight. Easy.
Except it wasn’t.
The train between terminals wasn’t running. The Heathrow Express was down. I wandered echoing halls, boarded empty trains that spat me back where I started, and got more delirious with every minute of lost sleep.
Eventually, I gave up and called an Uber — £22.95 for a ride from one terminal of the airport to another.
What I thought was a smart and easy plan ended up costing more time, money, and energy than if I’d just done things the long way. And that’s exactly how auto-publishing from Instagram to Pinterest works: it looks simple, but in practice, it rarely delivers the results you actually want.
Wait, you can automatically post your Instagram posts to Pinterest?
Yes! In 2024, Pinterest reintroduced the ability to connect your Instagram account to Pinterest and automatically post your IG content over to the platform.
If you’ve been around for awhile, you might remember the ability to claim your Instagram account on Pinterest used to exist. Pinterest took it away for a few years, but now it’s back and even better!
How to claim your Instagram account on Pinterest
If you want to connect Instagram to Pinterest, you’ll need to claim your account first. “Claiming” your account is Pinterest’s way of verifying that the Instagram account belongs to you.
- Open Pinterest and go to your account settings.
- Find the “Claim external accounts” section
- Click “Claim Instagram” and follow the prompts to log in with your Instagram credentials
- Approve the connection, and boom — your Instagram is now linked to your Pinterest profile.
Once that’s done, Pinterest will ask if you want to enable auto-publishing. You can either:
- Toggle it on so every future Instagram post automatically appears on Pinterest
- Import the last 90, 180, or 365 days of your Instagram posts in one go
- Or skip the auto-posting entirely and just enjoy the benefits of having your accounts linked
Speaking of benefits…
Should you claim your Instagram account?
Yes! Claiming your Instagram (if you have one for your business) is a good move. Even if you never touch the auto-publish feature, there are two benefits worth having:
Attribution in analytics
If someone saves your IG content to Pinterest, it’ll be credited to you instead of floating around anonymously.
Previously, if someone were to save an image or video from your Instagram account, you would have no clue! Now, you can see those saved pins in your analytics and get the account-boosting benefits of people saving your content.
Clickable profile link
When you claim an Instagram account on Pinterest, your Instagram handle will show up right on your Pinterest profile next to your website link. Any user on your profile can click that handle and go directly to your IG account.
Those small signals help tie your platforms together, create a cohesive online presence, and build trust with your audience and the algorithm.
You might have noticed that auto-publishing isn’t one of the benefits I’ve listed. That’s because while claiming your account is a no-brainer decision, auto-publishing isn’t always the right move.
How does auto-publishing from Instagram to Pinterest work?
Now that you’ve claimed your Instagram account, it’s time to deal with the auto-publish setting.
The feature connects the two platforms so your Instagram content gets automatically cross-posted to Pinterest.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Every new Instagram post (including photos, carousels, and reels) is automatically shared to your Pinterest account
- You can choose to import your previous Instagram posts all at once, or not
- Each post is published as a pin with the same image and caption you used on Instagram
- All pins get saved to the board you select when you enable the feature
That’s it — no extra steps, no manual uploading. It really is hands-off, which is why a lot of creators are tempted to try it.
But before you decide if it’s right for you, let’s walk through both the benefits and the drawbacks.
The Benefits of Auto-Publishing Instagram to Pinterest
Before I get into why I don’t recommend automatically pushing your Instagram content to Pinterest as a long-term strategy, let’s give some credit where credit’s due. There are some genuine upsides to connecting your Instagram account to Pinterest and letting your posts get pinned there automatically.
You get consistent pinning without extra effort
The number one reason people love auto-publish is simple: consistency. If you’re already active on Instagram, those posts will automatically show up on Pinterest, too. No need to create a whole new content strategy and graphics and schedule everything out. Did someone say two platforms for the price of one?
For business owners in busy seasons, it can be the difference between having something on Pinterest versus nothing at all.
You can easily repurpose content you already have
Repurposing content is the cheat code to saving time on your marketing. This isn’t a new concept. Auto-publishing Instagram posts to Pinterest makes that process instant. Every photo, reel, and carousel gets duplicated on Pinterest without you lifting a finger.
Sure, it’s not optimized, but sometimes done really is better than perfect, especially if your alternative is radio silence. This is best when you have other Pinterest content going out that’s more optimized for the platform, but you don’t want to let your Instagram content just go to waste.
You can test if Pinterest is right for you
If you’re brand new to Pinterest and feeling overwhelmed by talk of boards, keywords, and SEO, auto-publishing from Instagram can work kind of like training wheels. It gets your content onto the platform with zero effort, letting you get more comfortable with how it works before you start being more strategic.
Or, if you’re having doubts that Pinterest will work for your business / audience and want a proof of concept before fully committing, this is a low-stakes first step to test the waters.
However, it’s not a foolproof or comprehensive test of the platform’s real potential. There are some limitations and drawbacks to the auto-publish feature.
The Downsides of Auto-Publishing Instagram Posts to Pinterest
Instant content repurposing and multi-platform marketing with the switch of a toggle? Who wouldn’t want to try that? But once you scratch beneath the surface, the cons start piling up. Here’s why I don’t recommend relying on just auto-publishing Instagram content if you want Pinterest to be a real traffic and lead generator for your business.
Instagram posts aren’t optimized for Pinterest SEO
Pinterest isn’t just another social platform you can rinse and repeat on. It’s a search engine, and to succeed, your content needs to be optimized for how people search, save, and engage on the platform.
Instagram captions are often long, story-driven, and full of hashtags. They’re designed to keep people scrolling on Instagram.
Pinterest descriptions, on the other hand, should be concise, keyword-rich, and descriptive. Your descriptions, along with your titles, help your content surface in relevant search results and tell the Pinterest algorithm where your pin belongs.
When you auto-publish, your Instagram caption gets used as the pin description as-is. That means captions cut off at weird places due to character limits, emojis taking up space unnecessarily, and the introduction of hashtags to Pinterest.
Fun fact: copying and pasting Instagram captions as pin descriptions is how hashtags were first introduced to the platform. Despite differing opinions on hashtag functionality, I still don’t recommend using hashtags on Pinterest in 2025.
Auto-published Instagram posts also don’t have a title at all. Without a Pinterest-optimized title or description, the algorithm is left to guess at your content based purely on visuals, and you miss a huge opportunity for visibility.
Instagram formats don’t work well on Pinterest
Pinterest favors tall, vertical images in a 2:3 ratio (minimum 1000×1500 px). This format fills more screen space and stands out in the feed. Instagram, meanwhile, leans on squares or shorter rectangles.
Auto-published IG content often looks small and less engaging in the Pinterest feed putting you at a potential disadvantage.
Carousels are an even bigger issue. On Instagram, a carousel tells a story slide by slide, and the value is often in the sequence. But auto-publish breaks that format apart. Each slide gets posted as its own pin, without context.
Instagram content doesn’t always suit a Pinterest audience
The kind of content that thrives on Instagram isn’t always the kind that performs on Pinterest.
Pinterest users come with intent. They’re planning, searching, and looking for ideas they can act on. Instagram thrives on personality, thought-leadership, and quick-hit trends.
That means your “day in a life” posts, memes, or thought-leadership rants may get great engagement on IG but fall flat on Pinterest. Auto-publish doesn’t let you be selective. Everything crosses over, whether it’s a good fit or not.
You can only post to one board for everything
The Pinterest algorithm relies heavily on board relevance to understand what your content about. Saving a pin to the most specific, relevant board tells Pinterest where it belongs and who should see it.
Auto-publish forces you to pick one board for all of your Instagram posts. The result is a catch-all board that weakens your SEO signals and confuses both Pinterest and your audience.
See also: How to Use Pinterest Boards Strategically
All cross-posted pins link back to Instagram
Instead of sending valuable clicks to your website, auto-published pins link directly back to Instagram. That means:
- Users see the same content twice
- Non-Instagram users may hit a login wall
- Once on IG, they can get easily distracted and never return to you
Pinterest’s biggest strength is driving traffic to your site. This effectively gives that away!
A Clunky User Experience
As citizens of the digital age, we expect a seamless click-through experience. Pins from Instagram disrupt that flow.
Jumping from Pinterest to Instagram often means switching apps, logging in, or fighting with browser quirks. You know the experience when you click “Open in app” and you end up in the App Store? Yeah, no thanks.
Those little moments of friction add up to most users just abandoning the journey. Not only do you lose that potential click or client, but it could signify a “short click” to Pinterest, which is a negative engagement signal.
By automatically posting your Instagram content to Pinterest, you miss the chance to optimize for search, tailor content for the audience, and maximize visibility.
Even if you wanted to go back and edit the title, description, board, and/or link, it’s usually not worth the effort. At that point, you’d be better off taking the time to create content for Pinterest in the first place.
Will auto-publishing hurt your Pinterest account?
This is where my soapbox gets a little wobbly. I firmly believe that there aren’t enough benefits to make up for the many drawbacks of auto-publishing Instagram posts on Pinterest.
However, as with all things, there’s nuance. Auto-publishing won’t penalize your account. Nothing catastrophic will happen if you leave it on.
But it also won’t help you grow. At best, you’ll maintain a presence. At worst, you’ll waste clicks, frustrate users, and miss out on traffic that could have been building your business.
And the biggest catastrophe of all is if you think you’re doing the right thing to grow on Pinterest only to be disappointed by the results.
In short, auto-publish won’t tank your account, but it will waste your potential. You’d be trading long-term traffic and intentional results for short-term convenience, and that’s not a trade I’d recommend!
What to Do Instead of Auto-Publishing
If you want to repurpose Instagram content to Pinterest, you absolutely can! Just not through a blanket automatic feature.
Here’s how to do it right:
- Select the right content — Repurpose posts that align with Pinterest’s evergreen, search-driven nature: tutorials, tips, resources, etc.
- Resize for Pinterest — Use a vertical 2:3 or 9:16 format. Tools like Canva make this super quick!
- Write keyword-rich titles and descriptions — Swap out conversational captions for search-friendly Pinterest keywords.
- Pin to the right board — Match each post to the most relevant board to maximize SEO.
- Link to your website — Send traffic to a blog post, freebie, or sales page, not back to Instagram.
This approach may take a few more minutes per post, but those minutes compound into much better long-term results.
Easy doesn’t always equal effective
Auto-publishing Instagram posts to Pinterest feels like the clever shortcut you’ve been waiting for your whole life. In reality, it’s the after-midnight Heathrow Uber ride of marketing — more trouble than it’s worth.
If your goal is visibility, leads, and traffic, don’t settle for auto-posting. Treat Pinterest as the uniquely powerful search engine it is, and your content will reach further than you thought possible.
And if you don’t have the time or capacity to do that now, you don’t have to! If you’re tempted by the auto-post feature just because you feel like you “should” be on Pinterest, trust me, you’re better off waiting. The best Pinterest results come when you have all the right pieces in place.
See also: What You Need to Have Before Starting Pinterest Marketing
Sustainable marketing isn’t about doing all the things all the time. It’s about finding the balance between ease and effectiveness so you can keep your business moving forward in every stage and season of life!
Looking for a marketing strategist who actually gets it? Hi, I’m Sarah! Pinterest is my bread and content marketing is my butter. Book a Press Pass today to start strategizing what truly sustainable marketing looks like for you!
