Learning how to post videos on Pinterest is a must for small business owners. At this point, we know that video content is king and having a video marketing strategy in place is non-negotiable. To step up your social media video efforts, use this guide to start posting videos on Pinterest.
What You’ll Find:
- Why Use Pinterest Videos for Your Business?
- How to Make a Pinterest Pin
- Pinterest Video Specs
- How to Post a Video on Pinterest
- Best Practices for Pinterest Video
- Final Thoughts
Why Use Pinterest Videos for Your Business?
If you’ve ever been on Pinterest, you know just how full of visual inspiration it is. This is exactly why people end up browsing Pinterest: they want to be inspired. Whether it’s cooking ideas, fashion inspo, DIY projects, or travel tips, you’ll find tons of niches being represented on themed Pinterest boards. That means Pinterest will be a great addition to your marketing strategy no matter what kind of brand you run.
Posting images on Pinterest is fine, but video pins are more likely to stand out to someone simply browsing. This autoplay as users scroll their feed, helping to increase their visibility. In fact, Pinterest has stated that they’ve seen an increase in views of organic video pins of up to 240% year on year. Not only will this get your brand more views, but you can use these pins to direct Pinterest traffic to your website, blog, shop, or anywhere else.
If you’re already posting video content on other platforms, like Instagram or TikTok, you can easily adapt these videos for Pinterest. Keep in mind that successful videos usually focus on teaching something; this can be anything from a recipe walk-through to how to brand your business. Also, most users aren’t looking for branded content but rather specific ideas and tutorials.
⚡️ Pinterest users tend to be high-intent users because they’re browsing the platform for a solution to something specific. Think about what problem your video will be solving while planning it.
How to Make a Pinterest Pin
Now that you know why you should include Pinterest in your social media marketing plans, your next question might be what types of pins to make and how to make them. We’re here to help with all of that as well.
What to Post on Pinterest
Although branded content isn’t what people search for on Pinterest, your pins should still reflect your brand. Incorporating your products, brand voice, values, and general vibe is ideal because people will associate your pins with your brand.
Focus on creating informative or educational pins. These can be product demos, step-by-step guides, how-tos, or even training videos. Keep them short, fun, and visually appealing. You can also incorporate behind-the-scenes videos or other fun content you think your niche audience will enjoy.
You can use a mix of video and image pins and experiment with them to see what gets you the results you want. Look at your Pinterest analytics to get a good idea of what works and what doesn’t so that you can focus on always improving your content.
💡 Try your hand at Idea Pins. This is basically a multi-page video pin that includes a full walk-through of a process. You can include up to 20 pages per Idea Pin, record voiceovers, include detailed pages with instructions or ingredients, and choose music from Epidemic Sound, among other customization options.
📌😊✨Discover how to use Pinterest for blogging to skyrocket your blog traffic and promote your content.
Make the Best Pinterest Pin Design
Now that you have a better idea of what to post, how do you make your ideas come to life? Since Pinterest is a very visual platform, you’ll need amazing photos, quality videos, and maybe even the help of some design templates to streamline your process.
Gather your images, and videos, or look for stock footage on a website like Mixkit to create the pin you have in mind. Figure out what you want your pin to display and what composition you want it to have.
Consider using Placeit’s social media templates to streamline the process. You can use stock images, video, and royalty-free music to create stand-out pins in no time. Play around with composition, fonts, colors, and video length until it’s just right.
Before you download your creation, be sure you’re using the best size for Pinterest pins. It’s recommended that you stick to vertical or square pins to ensure nothing gets cut off when displaying on a user’s feed. Pinterest recommends a 1:1, 2:3, or 9:16 aspect ratio when it comes to image or video pins, but more on that later.
Pinterest Video Specs
It’s super important that you follow the recommendations laid out by Pinterest when creating your video pins. You risk your pins not displaying properly or even not being able to upload them at all if you ignore their specifications.
To ensure your videos have the impact you planned for, follow these specifications:
- Aspect Ratio: Using the correct Pinterest pin size will ensure your videos don’t get cut off and display properly throughout Pinterest. As we mentioned earlier, 1:1, 2:3, 4:5, or 9:16 aspect ratios are ideal. Anything that exceeds 2:4.2 will get cut off and not have the impact you hoped for.
- Video Length: You can upload video pins that are at least 4 seconds long and up to 15 minutes in length. With that said, shorter content tends to perform better. Experiment with video lengths until you find your brand’s sweet spot.
- File Type: Pinterest accepts .mp4, .mov, and .m4v file types. Any other video file types won’t be accepted, so be sure to stick to these.
- Video Size: Your Pinterest video can be a maximum of 2GB in size.
- Title and Description Text: When uploading your video to Pinterest, you can give it a title and write a description to go with it. You are limited to 100 characters for the title and 500 for the description. Don’t panic if your title and description get cut off. These usually only show the first 50-60 characters, so stick the most important information at the beginning of each.
👉 Get even more in-depth video pin specs from Pinterest.
How to Post a Video on Pinterest
You’ll be happy to learn that posting videos on Pinterest is super easy. Have your finished video ready and saved somewhere on your computer or phone where you won’t lose it. Be sure you’re logged into your Pinterest business account, and then follow these steps:
- 1. Click on the Create dropdown menu located at the top left of your homepage.
- 2. Click on the first option in the dropdown menu that says ‘Create Pin.’ This will take you to a new page.
- 3. Click on the grey rectangle and select the video you want to open, or drag and drop your video onto the grey rectangle.
- 4. Once you’ve selected your video, you will see a preview of it on your screen. Below the preview, select a frame from your video to be the cover image.
- 5. Add a title for your pin, write a description, include some alt text, add in some tags, select a board for your pin from the dropdown menu, and don’t forget your destination link!
- 6. You can publish your pin immediately or schedule it for later.
- 7. Hit the red Publish button, and your pin is complete!
Best Practices for Pinterest Video
When posting social media video content, it can be hard to know what works for each platform. To avoid making common video mistakes on Pinterest, stick to these best practices.
- Create branded content, but keep it natural. This may sound contradictory, but hear us out. You can create videos that match your brand (voice, value, mission, etc) but don’t go overboard. Avoid things like putting your logo all over it or other practices that make it look like a paid ad.
- Encourage clicks. Always add a destination link to your video pins! You can link to your website, a specific product page, your blog, or wherever you want to direct traffic. Include a CTA in your video that lets viewers know the link is there to guide them.
- Start your videos off with a bang. People don’t spend much time watching a video if it doesn’t grab their attention right away. You literally have mere seconds to make a good impression and capture a person’s attention. Make sure your videos get to the point quickly and are visually appealing from the start.
- Add text and captions. Most people don’t watch Pinterest videos with the sound on. Because of this, it’s best to include captions or text if your video relies on voiceover or other audio to explain something.
- Short-form is better. The general consensus is that shorter videos perform better on Pinterest. Try your best to create videos that are 6-15 seconds long (if you need more time, maximum of 40 seconds) to avoid losing viewers halfway through. If you have a longer video, post a clip of it on Pinterest and link to the longer video.
- Pick an enticing cover. You want your video to stand out for the right reasons, so take your time choosing the right cover. Consider this when creating your video so that you have something in your video that is visually appealing and informative.
- Experiment with everything. We’ve given you tips about video length, captions, sound, background music, etc, but don’t be afraid to experiment with all of these elements. Try making different style videos and play around with audio, text, and everything in between until you find what makes the most sense for your brand.
- Create multi-part videos. Keep your viewers coming back for more with multiple short videos in a series. Since longer videos tend to not perform as well, break up your videos into smaller bits that are a complete thought, but that are also complemented by follow-up videos.
- Optimize your videos. Always give your video files a proper name that includes keywords, and that is readable by humans. When you upload a video pin to Pinterest, always give it a title, description, alt text, and link. Do your best to include keywords in these text fields as well to increase discoverability.
- Stick to the Pinterest-specified video specs. Repurposing content you’ve posted on Instagram or TikTok is a great idea, but be sure your videos always follow the Pinterest specs before posting. If your video gets cut off in someone’s feed, it won’t have the impact you want, which won’t do much for your brand on Pinterest.
- Stay consistent. Aim to post a new pin at least once a week to keep your audience engaged. You can make content ahead of time and schedule it so that you don’t ever feel like you’re falling behind.
- Check out the competition. Take a look at what your competitors are posting and make note of what content seems to perform well for them. Use this to get ideas for video content to try out. Give it your own unique twist, of course, but don’t be afraid to look at what your competitors are doing.
Final Thoughts
Leveraging social media to promote your brand is nothing new, but there will always be platform updates to keep up with in order to make the most of them.
If you haven’t tried posting video pins on Pinterest, it’s never too late to start. Stick to Pinterest’s video specs and follow the best practices to ensure your videos have the impact you’re hoping for. While you’re at it, check out these social media strategies that can really boost your brand this year.
Let us know if you’re a fan of video pins or if you haven’t yet given them a shot. We’re eager to hear your opinions in the comments below! ⤵️