Video Pins on Pinterest

Current tips and tricks for using Video Pins on Pinterest.

Pinterest is really pushing video Pins these days.

They are showing up a lot in the home feed.

When you preform a popular search on the app, they are showing up as the top results.

Pinterest is sending a weekly email titled “Video inspiration! What’s trending on Pinterest this week”

A week or so ago Pinterest was offering a special discount on promoted video Pins, though it appears to be over.

In short: they want video on Pinterest.

Since video Pins on Pinterest are newer there could be a high potential, especially if you’re one of the first in your niche.

But, are video Pins converting?

My Video Pin

I was pleasantly surprised to see my Video Pin showing up in the #1 spot for the search “How to Start a Blog” and top row for “blogging”.

I designed this GIF on a whim the day they rolled out access to Video Pins to all business account. I had noticed the Pin starting to show up more frequently in my Google Analytics. But…

For being #1 spot – the conversion is terrible.😞​

When my regular Pin took the number one spot for the search “how to start a blog” my post got THOUSANDS of pageviews (and $$) a day.

The day I noticed the video took top spot it only had 18 visits. Whomp whomp whomp.

Talk about a dramatic difference. I’d much rather be the top performing Pin than have a Pin in the video results.

But, I’m willing to try experimenting with Video Pins.

Why isn’t my video converting?

First, Video Pins work differently than regular Pins. On a regular Pin, when you click on the image you go to the URL. On a Video Pin it just stops and starts the video. Which means in order to click to my site viewers need to scroll below the image and my profile, post title, and description to click the Read it button.

Second, Video Pins are only showing up in search results on the mobile app. Not desktop.  My Pinterest Dashboard shows that 27% of my Pinterest traffic comes from desktop. I’m also not sure if Pinterest has rolled out the video in search to all devices yet.  (check it out on your phone – are you seeing videos at the top of search?)​

Third, my video isn’t that great. My idea was just to capture attention in the feed, I didn’t put much thought into it. It doesn’t have a call to action, explain what the post is about, or anything special. It’s just silly.

Based on all of that, here are some tips I’ve come up with for Video Pins.

Tips for creating Video Pins

Treat them like commercial ads – the viewer should know they need to click over. We have to move beyond inspiration and pretty pictures. How can you make a commercial video for your blog post? What would you highlight? Why do they need your post?

Don’t give it all away – this should go without saying but I see a lot of video Pins that leave no reason to come visit the blog. The Pin should encourage them to click over so don’t give everything away in the video.

Keep them short- I’ve noticed most promoted videos are around 15 seconds. The Pinterest Creative Best Practices recommends, “We’ve found that shorter videos perform best on Pinterest, and recommend that you keep your videos under twenty seconds.”

Watch promoted videos to get ideas and inspiration – the big brands have teams and budgets for these videos. Learn from them. What are they showcasing. What words are they using? How are they encouraging people to click to their site?

Design them square or get creative with how you make them vertical – Food bloggers are staking a static picture on top of or below the video. But, I think they could take it a step further and use the space CTA or reason to click through.

I really like how these promoted Pins look like a regular vertical Pin, but with video:

Add a call to action – I know I kinda already said this one but it deserves it’s own spot. Tell the viewers what they need to do. I love the arrow and more info at the end of Smile Direct Club’s Pin, encouraging the click through.

(yes, yes, I may just make all of my video Pins similar to this one in the future)

Test Video Pins

I haven’t decided how successful Video Pins are going to be for driving traffic to our sites. Not being able to click on the Pin to go to the site is really out of normal Pinterest behavior. Throws things off a lot.

Still, I think it is worth testing and experimenting with.

I’d love to know your thoughts on Video Pins.

Come join the conversation on Facebook. Share a video Pin that’s working for you or let us know if you’re seeing Video Pins in search results.

How to upload a Video Pin

In order to upload a Video Pin to Pinterest you need to have a business account. You will then have the option of adding a video when you click the create a new Pin button.

Unfortunately, you cannot currently schedule or upload Video Pins with Tailwind. It’s tragic.

Video Pin Specs

According to Pinterest

• File type: .mp4 or .mov
• File size: 2GB max
• Encoding: H.264
• Length: minimum of 4 seconds, maximum of 30 minutes. However, promoted Video Pins they must be  between 4 seconds – 15 minutes
• Description: Up to 500 characters long, though only the first few lines will show in feed
• Aspect ratio: 1:2 and taller than 1.91:1. We accommodate standard video sizes including widescreen (16:9), square (1:1), and vertical (9:16, 4:5, 2:3).