You’ve heard by now that video pins on Pinterest are a big deal. I’m sure you’ve seen them as well… They are in about every category I have searched for, as of late.

But creating video pins might not be your strong suit so today I’m bringing you a tutorial on how to create video pins using various tools both free and paid.

Video pins on Pinterest of course don’t need to be complicated. Just get started and learn as you go is the best philosophy in my book. To get you off to an awesome start, we’ll cover:

• Video pin specifications
• Animated pins in Canva
• Canva stock video pins
• Creating slideshows
• Repurposing videos from other platforms
• Using personally shot videos
• How to upload your content to Pinterest
• Final details to remember

What are the video pin specs?

Let’s talk about Pinterest’s requirements for video pins specifications.

The file types required for video pins on Pinterest are:

• MP4, MOV, or M4V
• max file size of 2GB
• length from 4 seconds to 15 minutes

An important note: the longer the video pin, the longer it will take to be approved. So the shorter the video pin, the quicker it gets approved.

The recommended length for video pins is 6 seconds to 15 seconds long, which is the same for video pins ads as well. 

Video pins are excellent for advertising. I have found that they do better than static pins when it comes to advertising for some of our clients, especially e-commerce stores.

RELATED: Creating Idea Pins With Video Even If You’re Not A Video Creator

Creating Animated Pins in Canva

The first example is probably the easiest video pin type to create, and that is an animated video pin in Canva. When you download it, you download it as either a GIF or an MP4 file. I suggest just using an MP4 file because with the videos you get to use tags, which we’ll talk a bit more about later. 

To animate any static pin that you create, you simply choose the element you want to animate and click animate, and then you can animate that individual one. If you want to animate the entire pin, you have to click animate, and then you can choose any animations on the screen. Personally, I would just animate a single element. That way, the whole thing isn’t crazy. This is what I do for clients.

Something else that you can do to animate pins is actually to use moving arrows. If you have a PDF document that you’re trying to outline on the pin, or if you have a call to action that you want to call people’s attention to, you could use a moving arrow, download that, and publish that as a video pin.

Using Stock Video from Canva

You must have a Canva Pro account to use this feature or any of the features I’m talking about in this tutorial. If you are not a Canva Pro member and would like to sign up and get a free 30-day trial, you can use my link here, and you can sign up for free 30 days.

I want you to search for videos and click See All. Be a little specific with your searches to get more accurate videos. So in this example, let’s find a woman scrolling on her phone, so I searched “woman scrolling phone.” Then I want you to just add the video of choice to the grid element in any template you choose. 

You’ll want to add elements to make it original. You can have a text for a title up on the top. You’ll need to change your logos out if you have a logo. If you have a Canva Pro account, you can upload your entire brand kit to Canva and quickly make your designs without having to upload everything every single time. 

RELATED: How to Create Video Pins for Pinterest & 6 Benefits of Using Video

Creating Slideshows

The slideshow in my video example is one of the more fun ones that I’ve created in a while. I made an entire video pin, a slideshow, for my Pinterest membership Pin Profit Academy.

My video editor and graphic designer made these templates for the Academy. I took the templates she made and I combined them into an entire pin for marketing the Academy.

Each slide is an individual static image that I created on multiple Canva pages in the same design. Now you are going to download this entire file, all three slides simultaneously, as an mp4 file.

Repurposing Videos From Other Platforms

This is very similar to the last slide show example. However, I am taking a video that I made for TikTok, and I am inserting it into the very first slide. 

Create a new project and use the Idea Pin size. Use Repurpose.io to download your TikTok video, or from somewhere else. This allows you to remove the watermark. So inside of your blank design in Canva:

1. add a grid to cover the whole pin
2. upload your video to the grid
3. add any text over lay or logos
4. then download as an MP4 video 

RELATED: How to Repurpose TikToks Videos to Pinterest

Using videos you create yourself

Here you use the same philosophy of using third-party video platforms. If you are like me and you create YouTube content, then I can pull out any of my videos that I have made, and I could make a video pin with them. 

I could have my video editor cut out 30-second chunks of these videos, upload them into Canva, put them inside a template, and make a video pin from it. 

Now a quick hack for you if you are doing face-to-camera videos. The single easiest way to get video and add text and then download it with all of the additions that you made to it is by using Instagram stories.

So in your Instagram stories, you can film that video face to camera, add all your text, and then in the top right-hand corner, you can click the dots and click download video. It will download to your phone with all the text and everything on it, and then you can upload that into Canva and make the pin from it.

Perhaps you are filming your printables. Maybe you’re filming the products that you sell in your store. Whatever it is, you can do that using the Instagram stories feature and not post it to Instagram stories. Just download it and then upload that to Canva and make your pins as is.  

RELATED: How to Repurpose your TikToks and Reels to Idea Pins

Uploading your videos to Pinterest

Now a couple of things to note. I want you to be fully prepared when we upload these videos to Pinterest. There are a couple of things I want you to know about.

Use the tagging feature

Inside of Pinterest, go to Create Pin. After you upload your video pin you want to add a title description, add the URL where you want it to go. Then you want to start adding your tags.

Tags seem to confuse some people, but you want to add relevant tags related to the topic at hand. After you publish your pin and view it on your boards, you’ll see the stats at the top just like a static pin.

You do not leave the platform when you click video pins

If people click the image on your video pin, they’re not going to leave the platform. You have to click the three dots in the bottom right-hand corner on mobile to leave the platform, or you have to click the web link to leave the platform on a desktop.

This is why video pins are generally only suitable for engagement purposes and brand awareness. They are not the greatest organically for creating traffic driving pins. So just be aware of that.  

Final thoughts on how to create video pins with canva

It used to be nearly impossible to create video pins with Canva and now it’s a breeze! That’s it for this tutorial on how to create video pins effortlessly. You can visit our YouTube playlist on how to create pins for lots of other tools and ideas. See you soon!

Pin It For Later