Making the most popular DIY channel on YouTube more accessible via Pinterest
Amidst the global lockdown, consumer habits have changed. At our digital studio TheSoul Publishing, we’ve seen surging trends for home improvement, baking, and personal care. At the peak of the crisis, our 5-Minute Crafts YouTube channel saw typically strong weekend viewing trends every day of the week. Whilst YouTube continues to be a top contender in viewing surges, platforms like Pinterest are also seeing DIY channels prosper.
It was time to make the most popular DIY channel on YouTube more accessible. We adapted our popular “how-to” content for Pinterest users (Pinners) worldwide.
TheSoul Publishing’s launch was its first English-language account on the Pinterest platform. This follows the success of our Pinterest accounts in Spanish (Ideas en 5 Minutos), French (Brico Sympa) and Portugese (Ideas Incriveis). We also created an Arabic (حِرف إبداعية في 5 دقائق) account that went live on 17th June.
To date, videos have been the main driver of traffic on the Spanish and Portuguese Pinterest accounts, with Ideas en 5 Minutos seeing an average of 16M daily views during April. At the peak of lockdown, some of the most popular videos include chicken roasting tips, easy homemade ravioli, and peeling hacks.
We asked Pinterest whether this was a trend they were seeing overall. Jen Chan, creators product lead at Pinterest, confirms that video views on the platform are up 240%:
“Pinterest is the home of inspiration, where millions of people come every day to find ideas in categories like food, home and beauty. Video is increasingly becoming the medium on Pinterest that helps people bring ideas to life. In fact, the number of video views last year grew more than 6x compared to 2018, and views of videos are up 240% year-on-year. This engagement has only been magnified with increased usage in the past few months as people look for inspiration while in quarantine.”
The new 5-Minute Crafts Pinterest account has already seen these trends within its content. In the month of June, the page saw 43M impressions (1–23 of June) vs 1.5M impressions last month for the same period (1–23 May). “Easy Trending Moves to learn” collected an impressive +500K views and 1.2M impressions this month and “Handy drawing ideas you can easily repeat” over than +500K views and 1.3M impressions to date.
Pinterest’s recent rollout of an improved video uploader, a new video tab, and lifetime video analytics, empowered our team to find the insights we needed to accelerate our presence across the platform during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Pinterest is just one channel expansion TheSoul Publishing is considering this year. The move reflects our strategy of following our audiences as they expand into new platforms and areas of interest. TikTok, for example, is another recent development for our team, reflecting a surge in use over the last few months. Rapid changes in viewing habits during the Covid-19 lockdown have accelerated the pace of these rollout plans.
We have successfully built globally recognisable brands on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. We are now making sure we can distribute this content where our viewers and audiences want to access it. In recent months it’s become increasingly clear how many viewers are keen to see our DIY, cooking and craft hacks on Pinterest.
Our primary goal is for all of our audiences to be able to enjoy content across a range of languages, culture and social media platforms. Consumers have led our brand to new heights with fresh content ideas. During the lockdown, our fans have truly come together creating new and lasting communities on each platform.
Victor Potrel
Vice President of Platform Partnerships
TheSoul Publishing
