Here’s All You Need to Know About Using Pinterest Video
Pinterest videos are a great way to market your brand, service, or product. Pinterest is a good tool for influencer marketing too. Pins show up in Google search results making Pintetest a valuable tool for a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.
New Pinterest Video Pin Features for Businesses
Pinterest recently added new features for videos including an improved video upload interface, a video tab on business profiles, and lifetime metrics. You must have a Pinterest business account, which is free, to access the new video Pin features. With a personal account on Pinterest, you can only add a video if you’re commenting on a Pin that you’ve tried, sort of like a review.
To upload a video Pin, you’re going to need a business account to take advantage of all the new features. Because video is a bit new to Pinterest, it’s use not (yet) over saturated and not fully utilized even by larger accounts. It’s a good opportunity.
Pinterest user viewers are willing to watch videos and they are shoppers. Pinterest users are affluent, educated, and willing to spend. In general, they are using the social media channel to shop, so there is not as much concern for businesses about overwhelming followers with too many shopping related Pins. Pinterest users are not averse to being sold to.
Pinterest Video Best Practices
Like any other marketing channel, there are several best practices for using Pinterest video Pins to get the most out of your video strategy.
Repurposing Videos for Increased ROI
Repurpose videos in order to get an increased return on investment (ROI.) Use your videos on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, in emails and on website landing pages. There is of course the difference in optimal aspect ratio. For Pinterest Pins, taller is always better. For Facebook and YouTube landscape orientation looks the best. To accomplish this, you will need to use a B roll camera or record the video twice.
For a Pinterest video Pin, portrait (taller) aspect ratios looks the best. This is also a format that works best for Instagram videos – stories and posts.
Why Use Pinterest for Marketing?
Pinterest is a visual social media network that just hit 300 million monthly active users. Over eighty-five million Pinterest Pinners are in the United States. Thirty-four percent of Americans aged 18 to 49 use Pinterest making it an ideal way to reach out to social media users who are interested in do-it-yourself projects, home decor, fashion, food, and recipes. Even if you don’t fit into one of these popular Pinterest topics, with a little creativity and using videos, any business can use Pinterest to boost their marketing strategy.
Fifty percent of Millennials use Pinterest each month with 59% of them reporting that they discovered products while surfing Pins. Forty-seven percent made a purchase using the visual social channel.
Pinterest is not just about Millennials though. Ninety percent of Pinterest Pinners use it to make purchase decisions. Fifty-five percent are looking specifically for products and 97% of those searches are unbranded. Meaning, there is plenty of opportunity for businesses, smaller brands, services, and influencers to use Pinterest to bring people to their websites.
Video Pins can be used to encourage followers to purchase products and increase their brand awareness. Videos increase engagement, increase conversions on web pages, and improve click-through rates in emails.
Some things you need to know about using Pinterest video:
Convert to a Business Account
I’ve covered this topic in many recent blog posts. If you want to get the most out of your Pinterest account, use it for a solid search engine optimization strategy and take advantage of the extensive free analytics and other tools. Pinterest makes the best features available only to business accounts. It’s easy to convert, but you do need to own a top-level domain. Meaning if you have a website, you can get a free Pinterest business account.
This is especially true for video Pins. Recently, Pinterest added even more new tools to make it easier to use video Pins. These tools include a video tab and a better video uploader that makes it easier to upload videos.
Pinterest Video History
Just a few years ago, Pinterest only allowed videos to be shared from TedX talks, Vimeo and YouTube. But now, users can upload their own videos and they’re getting great engagement.
A video Pin doesn’t have to be a complicated production. If you want to get started with videos, the first thing to do is get connected to a Pinterest business account. You will have to connect, or claim, your website in the settings section of you account. While you’re in the account settings area where you claim a website you can also claim other online accounts like Instagram, Etsy, and YouTube. If you’re going to make videos for your Pinterest, then post them to YouTube too and get more ROI for your efforts.
Lifestyle Video Pins Work Best
There was a 60% increase in video use over the last year but there is still plenty of room for your brand or business to get started with video Pins. Forty-four percent of users are using the social media channel to shop. According to Pinterest, life moment videos get a 22% lift in sales, while lifestyle videos receive ten fold lift in brand awareness.
Add a Matching Landing Page
If you want to your Pinterest strategy one step further, add a landing page that matches your Pin to get a 13% increase in sales. That means you can use video Pins in combination with a matching landing page and expect increased click through rates and conversions when you have appealing content.
My Best Video Pin
My best video Pin is really simple. When Pinterest video Pins were first introduced I was just playing with the new video upload interface. I uploaded a video of flying – a short video shot from the backseat of a small airplane. I’m flying the plane and my daughter is recording it. I uploaded it to Pinterest and earned 7,600 views! My video has over 1600 minutes of watchtime and 460 close up views. It is a simple Pin that is not optimized.
SEO Optimize Your Video Pins
After you take the time and expense to create a video, make sure it’s optimized for search engines. Save you video Pin to a board with an SEO friendly name. The board name you use should use keywords or keyword phrases that you want to be found for in Google searches. Use up as much of the 500 character description limit as possible – that’s the text description underneath the video itself. Be sure to give your Pin a title. If you don’t, Pinterest will use the first50 or 60 characters from your description. Don’t miss this opportunity for an attention-grabbing title or an SEO optimized title. Finally , be sure that you include a link to your landing page. If you don’t your viewers won’t get to your website.
Optimize Pinterest Video Pin Format Specs
Pinterest video pins can be .mp4 or .mov files. The maximum file size is two Megabytes. The minimum video length is four seconds but is also must not exceed fifteen minutes.
An ideal video Pin should be shorter than 1:2 or taller than 1.91 to 1 in height. Video Pins can also be square which is a 1:1 aspect ratio. Vertical also works one and one or vertical 2:3 or 9:16.
Video Pin Thumbnail Sizes
A Pinterest video Pin can also have a thumbnail image just like most other social media channels. You don’t have to use a thumbnail, but I recommend it because this is another opportunity to get more messaging across to the viewers and encourage to watch it.
Video Pins have lifetime Metrics
One of the best new features about Pinterest video pins is that they now have lifetime metrics. These new metrics can be broken down into down 30-day, seven day, and 24-hour view windows. You will be able to see exactly how your Pinterest video Pin is performing. Lifetime metrics are another feature that’s only available to business accounts.
Video Pins show show views, watch time, total watch time, number close-up views, number of saves, number of link clicks. These metrics are a big improvement over the previous analytics. Users can get to their analytics area of a business account and see video metrics broken down alongside metrics from image Pins as well as those from claimed other accounts like Etsy, YouTube, and Instagram.
Remember, you can only upload a video if you have a business account.