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A Pinterest Video Marketing Strategy

Pinterest is a visually engaging social media platform. It helps marketers connect with their audiences using creative and innovative options relevant to their offerings. With more than 367 million monthly active users, Pinterest is quite valuable to marketers and business owners [1]. People use Pinterest to decide what to buy next or what they need for a project.

The number of people who shopped from Pinterest grew by 50% in the first half of 2020 [2]. With the recent lockdowns around the globe, it’s no surprise that people turned to shop from a platform that shares ideas and inspirations.

The video pins and board features on the platform offer businesses a unique proposition and are enough to further inspire online shopping. When incorporated into your social media marketing strategy, your Pinterest video pins can show up first in searches when you use the right strategy. This presents a massive opportunity for business owners and marketers to reach a wider audience.

Why Video Pins Not Images?

Pinterest video pins are perfect for brand storytelling. Static images are usually scrolled past, but pinners often stop to watch a video pin. In 2020, the organic views of video pins went up by 240% compared with video views from 2018 [3]. That is a 6 times growth in how video pins reach and inspire pinners. The best part of video pins is that you can use them to drive audiences elsewhere, such as your website, YouTube channel, or product pages.

Best Practices

Grab viewers’ attention early

Everything on Pinterest is about visuals. So, you should create high-quality and original video content that grabs your viewer’s attention and stops them from scrolling past your pin. The first few seconds should be intriguing. This will make your viewer want to see the ending of your video.

Add a text overlay to your video pin

You should work to enhance your overall message by adding text overlays to your video pin. Place the text overlay somewhere at the beginning or end of the video.

Keep it short

Pinterest allows you to publish 15 minutes long videos, but they also recommend that 6-15 seconds short videos are best for marketing [4]. Shorter videos are more captivating on Pinterest. It is a strategic way to leave your audience wanting more. If your video gives them everything that they need, then there is no need for them to click on your link to find out more.

Audio may work against you

Unlike other social media platforms, people scroll through Pinterest with their audio on mute. Therefore, you should add text overlays and captions to your video pins. Your audience needs to understand the message without sound. Add subtitles, text intro and outro slides, and text overlays to your video. This is also a great way to make your content suitable for the hearing-impaired community.

SEO for video pins

Just like every other platform, you need to set up your video pins SEO for success. Use clear descriptions, titles, and hashtags that will improve your video’s discoverability in search results. You should use its auto-suggest tagging keyword feature. Also, categorize your video pins so that it’s easy to find them.

Stick to the recommended video dimensions

80% of pinners use Pinterest on mobile [5], which is why you need to use vertical dimensions for your video pins. If you don’t want to use vertical pins, you should use square pins (1:1). They are the next best dimension. Horizontal pins don’t attract much attention on Pinterest.

Square 1:1
Vertical 2:3, 4:5, 9:16
Horizontal 16:9

Keep them engaged

You should make a mini-series that keeps your viewers engaged over time. This is a great way to consistently show off your brand and get more viewers looking forward to the next series. Instead of putting up a 15-minute-long video pin, cut the video into mini-series and focus on your product’s different features.

For each series, delve into the features and give more meaningful details about that feature. Keep your series tidy and neat by saving everything to one board.

Schedule your video pins

You can schedule your video pins using third-party apps. This will save you time and make your posting more flexible.

Promote video pins

If you are looking to drive more traffic, you should use Pinterest for business to create video ads. These ads will likely be placed where more pinners can see them. Before you set up a Pinterest video pin ad, you should check out Pinterest Advertising Guidelines.

There are so many ways to reach a wider audience using Pinterest video pins. You can repurpose a YouTube video and share it on your Pinterest board. Another unique way is to cross-promote your video pins from other social media platforms, embed video pins on your blog or website, send your video pins to Facebook and share the video pins on Instagram stories. Pinterest offers businesses flexible options to promote their brand on the platform.

References

[1] Pinterest. Pinterest Media Agency Advertising Guide

[2] Pinterest. Pinterest announces new global shopping and ad features ahead of holiday season

[3] Pinterest. How to use Pinterest to master inspirational video

[4] Pinterest. Make Pins that perform

[5] Pinterest. It pays to be positive

If you’ve been hesitating about getting started with Facebook video marketing, this article has given you everything you need to get the ball rolling. We hope that we were able to provide some useful tips and tricks for creating a successful strategy for your business. To learn more about how our team can help make your videos work harder, visit, Why Create Brand Awareness with Facebook Video Marketing Strategy!