More Than an Arts and Crafts Hangout
What do you think about when you hear the word “Pinterest?”
It’s likely that you associate Pinterest with artful and precious DIY projects. That’s actually an entirely legitimate impression. RJ Metrics found that 17.2 percent of all pinboards reside in the “Home” category, with both “Arts and Crafts” and “Style/Fashion” each with around 12 percent.
But most marketers, whether from unfamiliarity with the Pinterest platform or from a kind of snobbery, don’t know that Pinterest is about more than images; it’s not nearly as limited as many seem to think it is. Ever since Pinterest integrated itself with both YouTube and Vimeo—the giants in online video—it’s begun mutating into an incipient video sharing channel.
That means that it’s becoming a video marketing vehicle.
Video marketers need to begin incorporating Pinterest videos into their marketing strategy. The Pinterest community, hungry as it is for appealing images, makes a receptive and welcoming one for online video marketing
Pinterest is not YouTube
While many businesses are probably open to the idea of incorporating Pinterest into their online video marketing strategy, it’s important that they recognize that Pinterest is distinct from other video sharing networks.
Here are few tips for aspiring pinners on how to use Pinterest as a video marketing tool:
Embrace Brevity
The Pinterest community is not used to lingering long on a single image or subject; the network, by design, encourages hasty browsing and perusing. Its users will not be likely to interact with a long video. Marketers need to be concise and they need their videos to immediately grab viewers’ attention. These are rules every (successful) video marketer is familiar with, but they are even more applicable on Pinterest.
Some videos will, of necessity, be longer than others. DIY videos and demo videos, for instance, generally need to be lengthier if they are going to successfully educate their viewers. This isn’t a problem, as viewers tend to open these kinds of videos expecting that they be longer and more detailed.
Regardless of the length of the video you post, you should always include the video’s length in its description. Viewers, regardless of what channel they are using to ingest their daily ration of video content, have become habituated to knowing a video’s length prior to watching it.
Be Conscious of Aesthetics
When pinning a video on Pinterest, it’s important that you upload thumbnails that are eye-catching and professional looking. Pinterest is a gigantic repository of images, many of them lovingly composed and edited; you will need your video to be presented in such a way that it doesn’t look out-of-place among the hordes of food, pet, knitting, and design pictures.
When placing a video on Pinterest, accompany it with an image that both represents the contents of the video and is likely to beguile potential viewers. Ensure that any image you select can be seen in thumbnail size and that it will not be obscured by the default “Play” button. You don’t want to go through the trouble of selecting an image only to have it hidden. Images are important on every social network, of course, but on Pinterest, given the sheer number of images that bombard visitors, it’s even more important for you to accompany your video with arresting visuals.
Tell Viewers What They are Watching
When placing a video on Pinterest, you need to exploit the description field. Tell potential viewers what they are going to be watching before they open the video. Make sure your text and your thumbnail—which will be stunning, presumably—collude with one another to make your video’s content and message as explicit as possible.
In addition, you should make sure that your video is heralded by a title that includes the word “video.” Both individual video pins and pin boards can benefit from this elementary strategy. And it pays to mention this a second time. When writing your video’s title, make sure it clearly and accurately describes what the video contains. Finally, make sure that you use this title in the opening description for your video.
Don’t Put all Your Eggs (Videos) in One Basket
Pinterest, itself, advises it users to create several boards that cater to specific interests. It recommends that businesses avoid establishing a single board devoted to a large, overarching topic. More than a few brands have failed to follow this advice and have made the curious strategic choice of placing all of their videos in a single board. Some have compounded this already unfortunate decision by titling this board “Videos.” Obviously, a suggestive and evocative title like that is unlikely to interest the typical Pinterest peruser.
Follow Pinterest’s sage advice: create multiple pin boards that cater to specific audiences and address their specific interests. But in addition to creating a collection of allied platforms, you would be advised to sprinkle your videos in among your images. Individual videos in proximity to images are more likely to get noticed than a collection of videos ghettoized into an infrequently trafficked board titled, for instance, “Videos.”
Start Pinning
Pinterest offers video marketers a lot of potential, even if few of them currently recognize it. The platform is growing rapidly and it is an absolute necessity for any business whose consumers skew female. But Pinterest is a different environment: not inhospitable to video, by and means, but one requiring unique adaptations. By adopting the tips outlined above, and carefully studying the Pinterest strategies of your successful competition, you can increase your chances of becoming a “Pinteresting” presence.