In September 2020, Pinterest introduced Story Pins in beta as the latest way to create and share vibrant, inspirational and visual content. This feature allows content-creators to tell stories with multiple pages of images, videos, voice overs, and texts among others that may ignite interests of the target audience.
For businesses and brands, Story Pins can be a valuable social media marketing tool to attract new followers and pique customer interest in their products and services. You can use it to curate a collection of your products or services, create a step-by-step guides, DIY projects or even recipe details and showcase your business using multiple short videos with descriptive text overlay.
This tool, however, is still a work in progress and not available to everyone yet. Currently, it is available to all creators with Pinterest business accounts in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States. In May 2021, with its new features and functionalities, it was revamped and rebranded as Idea Pins. Let’s take a look at its various features.
Story/ Idea Pins are not ephemeral.
While they may look quite similar to “Stories” of other social media platforms, they do not disappear after a set period of time. Instead, they can be detected through search and other exploration techniques.
It has a broad and unique suite of publishing and editing tools.
Similar to Tiktok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, Pins are directed at the increasing user demand for shortened creative video content.
In a single Pin, creators can upload a maximum of 20 pages of content, and each page may contain videos up to 60 seconds long. Pinterest also added new creative tools for video editing including stickers and music options. They can access over 100 stickers featuring hand-drawn illustrations with several themes and categories like food, travel, seasons and many more.
Creators can add their own personal voice through voice over recording and use “ghost mode” transition tool in showcasing before-and-after videos simply by overlaying a part of video on another. Through Epidemic Sound, a royalty-free music database, background music and sound effects can also be added to the Pins.
Moreover, an Idea Pin can include “detail pages” where creators can easily add instructions and additional annotations such as product guide and recipe details. To increase engagement and connect content to relevant interests, “topic tags” can be added.
Other Pinterest content creators can also be tagged by using their @name. Meanwhile, they can save and store up to three GB of Idea Pins in draft on iPhones, and without limit on desktop. They may also export and share their content outside of Pinterest.
Creator Code was launched to keep Pinterest a positive, safe and inspiring platform
Creators must follow a set of guidelines, known as the Creator Code, before Pinterest accepts and publish their Idea Pins. This step was initiated to mitigate any negativity and to keep the platform positive and inclusive.
Over the years, Pinterest has grown into an effective and powerful social media platform that businesses can leverage to establish their brand, increase engagement and set themselves apart from the competition. Story Pin, now known as Idea Pin, is yet another feature of Pinterest which offers an excellent opportunity to showcase your products and services to a wider audience, boost your brand identity and step up your digital marketing strategy.
The Writers' Block PH 