In the pursuit of helping Pinterest creators get in touch with a better wide range of their audience across social media, the company is announcing a new feature for its Idea Pins-the video-first new Pin format that it introduced last year, trying to catch up on the shift from static images in the social media industry toward videos. And now Pinterest says its founders are allowed to download and share their Idea Pins across social channels, including Facebook, Instagram and others.
Idea Pins, whereas intended to help Pinterest be more competitive with TikTok and other short-form video experiences, aren't just videos, but rather a cross between Stories and video-the maximum is up to 20 pages of content that you can tap through like a Story. Such content could be an image that is static or a video that optionally has text and graphics laid over it. Users will scroll through various Idea Pins of creators they are following in a vertical feed, much like on TikTok.

Once Pin Sharing begins, creators will tap the "FB Stories" or "IG Stories" icon in the share menu, which will initiate the download of the Idea Pin. The content will then be saved as a watermarked video that stitches all the Idea Pin pages together, and ends with a card showing the creator's name and Pinterest username — a format mimicked from the options of download on TikTok. Once the download is complete, Pinterest will automatically send the user to the Facebook or Instagram app, where the Story creation flow opens and the Idea Pin video is already watermarked, ready for final editing and sharing.

While built-in support for Facebook and Instagram undoubtedly reinforces the connections between these services, Pinterest says the download option will still allow creators to share on other platforms, too, such as the currently popular destinations of Snapchat and TikTok.

The sharing feature will allow creators to amplify their Pinterest presence across social platforms, drawing their audience back to Pinterest where, presumably, they will be using the site's new tools to monetize their short-form videos. On Pinterest, creators can turn content into shoppable Idea Pins through affiliate links and partner on paid brand partnerships, much like they might on other sites, such as TikTok and Instagram. They can also earn money by interacting with Pins by responding to challenges dropped by Pinterest as part of its $20 million Creator Rewards fund in the U.S.
​
Watermarked videos might deliver more views for the content specifically created for Pinterest to the creators and help them build their following, but it is equally obvious that Pinterest hopes the videos are a form of advertising for Pinterest itself.

The Pinterest site was originally founded as an image pinboard, back in the early days of the web, users pining ideas such as things they wanted to buy, recipes they wanted to cook, ideas for home décor plans, travel inspiration, and much more. Then Pinterest tried to connect those ideas to commerce by engaging online retailers and merchants in advertising on Pinterest and integrating their content. In the final analysis, however, video appears to be an exponentially more potent buying trigger than static images.

To give one example, the platform reported that 48% of its users bought a product they saw on the platform at some point — a phenomenon so prevalent it's even become a saying: "TikTok made me buy it." It said 67% of TikTok users were inspired to buy at a time when they weren't even on the app to shop.

While watermarks might help bring the creator's own audience through Stories on Pinterest, other platforms will likely demote content in their algorithmic feeds if it contains a watermark. Instagram has stated outright that it'll use this as a signal to demote content in its Reels tab, in fact.

Pinterest reports that its new download and sharing features with its Idea Pin are rolling out today to all users.