If you that are not following my account here's a quick look at my account, currently with 142,000 views per month on my account so it's active.
Pinterest's latest update – upload native video to Pinterest – takes Pinning to a whole new level. As you may know, video is one of the very best ways to engage with your audience. Combined with the powerful visuals you can create on Pinterest this combination will see your Pinterest viewers increase and the click-through rates onto your website soar.
How does this differ currently from Pinterest videos? Until now, you could create a pin from YouTube, and the video will play on Pinterest. The URL that's pinned is the YouTube URL. Even if you add the video to your website, and pin it, it still goes back to YouTube – as it should. But wouldn't it be nicer if you could do nice trailer videos for your content and send them directly to that piece of content? Now you can!
How does this new native Pinterest video upload feature work?
Uploading your videos is really quite simple as you can see from the steps below. If you haven't got a video specifically for Pinterest, then you can download a livestream and try that. Alternatively, you can use tools like
to create small social media-friendly videos.
The advantage of using social media video software is you don't have to caption them – the text is on-screen already. They also have a range of templates and sizes to make videos easy to create.
Step 1 – Business Pinterest Account
Log into your business account, if you are still using a personal Pinterest account you can upgrade it for free on Pinterest and benefit from all the extras features that then become available. You'll want a business Pinterest account to measure the impact of native videos.
Once you have logged in along the top of your account you will see a white cross on a red background click on that to go to the next step
Step 2 – Check to see if you can upload native Pinterest videos
Once you have clicked on the white cross you will see a drop-down menu, here's where you get 4 different options for creating a new pin. If you don't have them all yet then check you have a business Pinterest account. If you have a business account already, then it may be it just hasn't rolled out to your account just yet. Give it time.
Click on ‘upload video' to go to the next step
Step 3 – Upload your video
You can either choose to drag and drop your video file into the box on the left or click on the ‘choose a file' button in the bottom right. It's worth noting at this point the file types and sizes.
- It must be an mp4 or mov file
- Square video or Widescreen 16:9
- 6-20 seconds in length
- No longer than 30 minutes
If drag and drop don't work for you then use the file upload aspect.
Step 4 – Choose a Thumbnail
Now it's time to choose a thumbnail for your video. A thumbnail is an image that shows before the person clicks play. So this image can have a call to action. Pinterest will allow you to add a custom thumbnail or to capture a frame from your video and turn it into a Thumbnail.
Step 5 – Optimise your Video Pin
Once you have chosen your thumbnail you have a couple more things to do.
- You can pick your cover image which Pinterest will create for you from your video.
- You will also need to add a description and URL for your video.
- Ideally, this will have some SEO aspects to it with a call to action (of course you can always watch my video to get more tips on that)
- Then add your URL so your viewer can find out more. I recommend you link to a page holding your videos, or better still another Pinterest board with videos on it.
Done? Click the button at the bottom to go to the next step
Step 6 – Choose Your Board
Choose which of your boards you would like your video to be posted onto
Now it's time to wait for Pinterest to publish your video, For me, it took less than 2 minutes, but being a new feature it may take a little longer. You can navigate away from the page and your native Pinterest video will be added to your board when it has finished processing
Final Step
Go and see how your native Pinterest video looks. Here's mine:
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/156429787043401099/
I'm really pleased with it. When I look on the board it's really clear that it's a video and how long the video is 33 seconds in this case. When you actually click on the video itself it will auto-play and looks fantastic.
Conclusion.
Pinterest is a fantastic platform an incredible powerhouse for driving traffic to your website, connecting, and deeply understanding your visitors so you can adjust your content or do more of the same. If you are getting Pinterest right then you'll love this new feature.
As video is becoming more and more powerful online, I can online see Pinterest Native Video becoming stronger and more impactful. Now is the time to create more amazing visual content for Pinterest.
Our community over in Pin Friday has been benefiting from Pinterest for quite some time so if this post has inspired you to want to learn more and be involved more with Pinterest then come and join us.
Your posts are always so informative! I didn’t know you could do this, and I’ve been thinking of getting into sharing more video this year. I do have a business account on Pinterest, but unfortunately, I don’t have that option yet. I’ll ask them when I might expect it. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
THanks Penelope, I know it’s not available to every right now, hopefully, it gives people the opportunity to prepare for when they do get it in their accounts
Great advice Kevin. However, I have had a pro account for a while and when clicking on the white cross it only gives me the option to PIN nothing else. Could it be because I hardly ever use Pinterest these days?
Not every account has it just yet, it is being rolled out so keep checking back an it will appear, you will now be ready for when it is there 🙂