Every so often I see a pin on Pinterest that someone’s uploaded and it has comments from others. Yet when I look at pins I see the “repin” and the “like” button, but no comment button. How do you add a comment to a Pinterest pin?
That’s a quite reasonable question and given that I think the cornerstones of any social media are liking, sharing and commenting, it’s curious that Pinterest’s design makes the first two quite easy, but the third difficult. Yes, you could argue that the goal is to streamline things, but if they can have magically appearing buttons for both repin and like, as you note, why not have a third button for “comment” too?
In fact, to add a comment you have to leave the pin stream view (what is it called? the view you have as your ‘main’ view of Pinterest) and click into a specific pin image. Then the comment box is at the bottom.
Well, rather than just explain it, let me show it.
That’s kinda what we do around here. 🙂
So here’s a typical Pin as you’d see it neatly displayed with all the other pins your friends have posted on Pinterest:
Move your cursor over the image and, of course, the two buttons magically appear:
But where’s that pesky “Comment” link?
Turns out, as I said earlier, it just isn’t accessible from this view.
To add a comment, you need to click on the image so that it’s the only thing you see. Now it’ll look like this:
There it is, at the bottom of the image. Still pretty subtle, and if the image itself is large enough, it might well be below the bottom of the Web window, forcing you to scroll. But it’s there.
A closer look and, what the heck, I’ll add a comment too:
Now in that original view, the pinboard / pin stream, the comment shows up too, even though there’s still no way to add another comment without going onto the specific pin’s page:
Ultimately not the most complicated thing in the world, adding a comment, but it is odd how the path is so different to repinning and liking images. It’s almost as if they don’t want you to leave comments on pins but simply share them without any additional input.
Hmmmm….
Tip: Find me on Pinterest as d1taylor and if you’re looking for Pinterest help, I have tons here too: help on Pinterest.
Hello,Dave,
I have a problem with Pinterest. I had my comments under every picture, but now they all have disappeared. Where all have they gone and who diced to change things, can I bring them back and if yes how do I do it.
Thank you for your response
Pinterest has moved away from descriptions and comments. I’m not a fan of this change either.
Well my Pinterest page has SEND in gray box and Save in a re box with apin. I click on the image and it will give me a site to read more info. on. or it will just give me the picture again. This is so frustrating. I would really like to comment on some thing. Can you help me please? Thank you so much,
Catherine
Are you using a PC? What Web browser? Or is it a tablet or smartphone? Need a bit more info…
Nope. There are plenty of Pins where commenting is not available.
My guess is that this is involved, Janet: http://www.craigfifield.com/pinterest-bookmarklet.htm
Ok,just figured something out. If I switch my phone from mobile version to desktop version, I can now see where to click to see the comments, and can leave one. However, is a visible line to the right hand side that cuts the comments in half, not letting me read all of them. If i highlight and copy and paste the individual comments elsewhere, I can read them. Ridiculously troublesome.
Thanks for sharing. That’s a good thing not sharing to much information on the image. Only when you comment you can see other comments 🙂
Thanks a lot for the blog post. Really looking forward to reading more.
Hey Dave! I used to be able to comment on Pins, but I no longer can. Did they change something?? When I click on it, it no longer shows the comment image. In fact, the whole thing looks different. WTH??!! I googled it, (leading me to you) and found your article. I figured I was having a brain cramp but even after following your instructions the comment image just isn’t there. I know other people are commenting on pins because it says so in my messages. Why can’t I? Any suggestions??
Me too, it started for me on Saturday, Sept 3, and its the 5th today and still no comment box.
what was the problem ? looks like ppl got the answer but I don’t see it! 🙁
That was very helpful because I don’t meet many people and thi we is my only means of human contact.
Thank you for pointing this out but when I try to comment it says I need to rewrite my email address.. Please help me!
Thank you so much for this kind and generous explanation. I felt like I should know this, but you made me feel ok about my lack of knowledge. I wish you could answer every tech/social media question I have, but that would be a full-time job and you probably already have one of those and I can’t really support the salary. But thanks a million for this!
Thank you, Dave. I had been wondering about that for ages! :-))
They could make this a lot clearer.