The Power of Pinterest Marketing

This is a podcast you're going to want to take some notes on if you are ready to start growing on Pinterest and start looking at Pinterest not as just another social media network to take your time, but as an actual huge source of traffic for your business when it comes to reaching women. Women who are interested in fashion and building some long term SEO credit for your business.

Let's go.

Today we are talking to Kate all, who is a Pinterest guru and we are going to dive into all the ways to get started and grow and maximize and the new things that are coming from Pinterest so you can put it to work in your business right away in the new year. Guys, this is such a powerful episode. So grab a notebook, grab a pen and let's get started. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those insiders, experts and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and I can't wait to chat.

Hey guys. Welcome back to a new episode.

I'm so pumped to be here with.

Kate all, the founder of simplepin Media. And today we're diving into all things Pinterest. Kate, are you ready to squirrel and go into all the tangents about Pinterest with me?

So ready. I feel like we almost did it before we started, so it's good that we hit record.

I know. I'm so excited. There's so much that's been changing. I mean, when Pinterest first started. I know, I feel like this with all types of, of websites and social media. You know, like, you remember when I was first invited to Pinterest and it was this super secret thing. What is it? And I think there's still a lot of confusion. Like people have latched on big time to other, we'll say social platforms, but I think there's a big mistake around what is Pinterest? It's not social media. Can you just dive in from the start and talk about how Pinterest is different from the other platforms we commonly use?

Yeah. So one of the main differences is it's a search platform. So it really goes in that category of people go to Pinterest thinking about themselves and what they can search for that's going to serve them. They can either dream into it or plan for it or buy something. Whereas in Instagram you go to get lost in somebody else's life, you get lost in stories or you want to read about them. And you rarely move off the platform because the ecosystem just keeps you around. So you're thinking about others there. But Pinterest, you're really just thinking about yourself. We joke, it's the introverts platform, very quiet, not a lot of conversation or debate for kind of like this happy place on the Internet that seems very similar to Google. But you get amazing pictures and then you can categorize all your pins and save them in the way that you can go back and revisit them. A lot of people go to gather lots of different ideas. Say they're going to buy lamps, they're going to gather like 20 before they narrow it down to make a decision. So that's really the biggest difference. It's not a social media, it's a search and discovery.

Yeah, I, and I echo what you say about like it being a happy place. I think there's so many people today that are exiting Facebook and they're exiting Instagram. A lot of them are going to TikTok because they feel like that's a happy place. But I think there's more that we can do in our industry anyway as boutique owners to educate our customers about how, how positive of a place Pinterest really is and then how we can maximize that in our own businesses. Can you talk about like the outcomes from Pinterest and how we see that different than other social media? Like other social media to me is such an instant gratification platform as a business owner. But Pinterest is a long term game. How does that work?

Yeah, so one, it's really frustrating because we do come from that environment where we want the quick wins, we want the dopamine hits. And when it comes to Pinterest, it is this long game with marketing. You're investing in order to get in front of those people who are searching and getting ready to buy. So a typical buying habit on Pinterest is three months before somebody makes a purchase, they're going to do a bunch of searching and then they're going to go back to their boards and then make a decision two weeks before. So in that sense your have to be thinking about hitting the person well in advance. So Pinterest will say pin 45 days in advance of a holiday. So if we're going into something like Mother's Day and you know that's your time to shine with jewelry or something like that, you want to start marketing all the way back in March to start to get prepared for people who are searching. So that's another big thing you have to be thinking about is just this doesn't necessarily feel good. Which is kind of frustrating a little bit because we are so used to those likes and engagement metrics. But when it comes to Pinterest, you're really looking at clicks and then you're really looking at saves, and then you're also looking at cart conversions and checkouts and all of those different metrics that you're not going to pay attention to on Instagram or Facebook. But I agree, a lot of people are leaving Facebook. They're looking for another place to go to be entertained. And Pinterest is the. It's just different. So there is some elements, I will say, that Pinterest is trying to get into this short form video game. Like they see the TikToks and the Instagrams kind of having all the fun and they're like, but wait a minute, we want to keep people on the platform longer. So they're making a big push for that. And a big push for shopping integrations.

Yeah.

As.

As long as we're on that topic, let's go there. Talk to me about. And then we'll go back to. For those of you that want more, like, okay, get me started. How do I use it? Maximize it. We'll come back to that. But there is a lot that's changed. This is not Pinterest of a year ago or of two years ago. It's really grown. They've added a ton of new features. Talk me through some of your favorite new features and what's to come.

Yeah, so number one for shopping, they did add this part called a verified merchant program. So it easily integrates with Shopify. That's really like their main partner. But there's other ways that you can upload a catalog to Pinterest to make your products accurate in real time. So one of the things that sellers have told us for a long time is that what happens when one of my products goes out of stock, I've pinned it onto Pinterest and somebody else has pinned it. Which is the beautiful thing about Pinterest is this snowball effect. And then they're like, everybody's coming to my page and it's sold out. Well, these product pins now update every single day. So if you no longer have it in stock, it's no longer going on to Pinterest or if you change the price, it's updated. So that's a feature that I think is really smart for them, is to get really great about this integration. Now we have heard that Pinterest has said, hey, we're not going to be a point of sale platform, but we think they might be doing something in the background with that. But for now, they do encourage the purchase to happen on your website. So that's really a big push from this last year. Number two is idea pins. So these are very much like stories on Instagram, but they live forever and they're very much focused on just that, the idea. So they're not really focused on like the TikTok dancing or like what you would talk about your day. It's an angle of your product or a five step process that you would walk them through. But the weird part is they don't link, so they direct people back to your Pinterest profile. So you have to do a little bit of kind of leading the person back to your website. However, they did just add product tagging. So this is really great for sellers because that's kind of the way around the link. So if I'm just a content creator and I just want people to go to my podcast or my blog, there's really no option. But if you're a product seller and your catalog is connected, then you can say, tap twice to go buy this product. So that's a new feature which is also great with these idea pins. There's some mixed reviews on them. You know, if you're Pinterest purist, you kind of want it to go back to 2018 and just be one pin and that's good to go. But Pinterest is like, hey, we need to keep people on the platform longer. And we, we know that Pinterest users buy a lot of stuff, so we need to make it easier for them to buy.

I love that. So definitely a change. How else can we maximize video? I know we're just on so many different platforms today and we're just creating content like till we're blue in the face. Is there a great strategy for reusing content, both, you know, photography but also video?

Yeah. So number one, you can do a regular video pin and we recommend those less than a minute 30. If you can do somewhere between 15 and 45 seconds, that's also great too, especially if you're showing the dimensions of your product. These short, poppy videos are fantastic and they do link, so if you click on them, people can go to your website and purchase. Now with the idea Pins. Pinterest has been very clear to say we want some short form video in there. So they call them slides. And you can have anywhere from 5 to 20 slides in your idea pin. They recommend adding video in there, so that's another way to repurpose it. So you could do video in a video pin. You could do video in an idea pin. It's a great way to repurpose it and then just add it onto Pinterest. If you've already been using it on other platforms, that's helpful.

What about when I get started on Pinterest? I. I feel like I get this question a lot. I'm sure you get this question a lot. How much content do I pin? That's my content versus other people's content.

Yes. Yeah, that's one of the famous questions I've gotten forever. So it has changed over the years, right? Because a long time ago Pinterest was like, pin other stuff. That just makes you more awesome. Well then in 2018, they come, they came out and said, do not worry about pinning other people's content. 100% your own is totally fine. Let Pinners repin it for you and just pin 100% of your own stuff. That's what we do here at Simple Pin too. Sometimes some of our other, our clients will want other people's pins pinned just because maybe they want reciprocity with that person or they know them. But there's no like algorithmic advantage to sharing other people's stuff. Just 100% go crazy.

Interesting. I always thought that if you had like a more well rounded group of boards, like I'm a boutique, so maybe I would be pinning lifestyle stuff or recipes or whatever. Like maybe that was a way people could discover me. What is the, what is the algorithmic advantage? How do you get discovered on Pinterest?

Yeah, so Pinterest changed in 2014 to the what's called a smart feed. So this was when you open up your app, what it curates for you is things you've searched and people you follow, topics they think you might be interested in, and then ads. So that's really what's all right there. So most people just find what they're going to find in that feed. So let's say, for example, Susie is like a regular Pinner and she sees a pin about a beautiful women's necklace that comes up in her feed. She clicks on it. That tells the algorithm, hey, Susie's really interested in this necklace. So we're going to go back to that board where it's on and we're going to pull more into her home feed so that she can really engage with the more of this type of content. So the way you really get in front of that main person in the home feed is by naming your boards. Well, so that's number one. The algorithm wants to see a very specifically named board. Not just this sounds fun or beautiful recipes or whatever, but very specific women's necklaces, gold or something like that. Because then they know that the person is really interested in that specific topic and can show them more instead of this really broad range of whatever. Right. And they may not re engage. So that's the first way. The second way is search. And so Pinterest with their search algorithm uses visuals and it uses words. So in the pin description, it looks for women's jewelry, gold. If I search that on Pinterest, it's going to surface all of that towards the top. Exactly like Google. And you do get this thing where the, the more engagement you have, the higher you start ranking. They don't have tools as smart as Google yet, so we can figure out how to really get into that. But that's how it works. It's search and then it's what people are interested in. So if you're keywording and you're really making sure your profile is optimized for what it is you sell, then that's the way you're going to get into people's feed. And I want to address something real quick that you said, which was lifestyle. That's a common misunderstanding too of Pinterest because of how Pinterest used to work. Because it used to be that if somebody landed on your board, you would see like the rest of the pins on the right. And so people would click on it, but they don't see that anymore. They just see the main pin. So in that sense, you're more than welcome to talk about lifestyle stuff, but if none of that content or those products lead back to your website, it's just really not worth it. So making sure all the boards on your profile really reflect your brand.

Yeah, that's really helpful, actually. It takes a lot of work off the table, so that's probably helpful. At the end of the day, go back to talking about keywords for a second in case. In case someone's listening and they're like, well, what does that mean besides the board title, the pin title, pin description, hashtags. How can we make sure we have an effective keyword strategy?

Yeah, so number one, Pinterest has been Very confused about hashtags, but they've just recently come out to say don't use them. So the flavor of the day is don't use hashtags. So when it comes to keywording, we know that Pinterest reads the board title, the board description, the pin description. So they're looking at those three things and they want natural sounding sentences, no keyword stuffing. So we say if you're writing a pin description, one to three sentences, again, no hashtags, and then put your keywords in there. And when we talk about keywords, the best place to go to figure that out is the search bar at the top of Pinterest. And then number two, there is a tool called Trends and it's trends.pinterest.com so if you're wondering when people are searching for your product, you would go in there and you would put in the keyword and you would see all year rating of 0 to 100 where people are searching and what time. That's really important because if nobody's searching for your product in January, don't hit it hard in January. But if it's, you know, the summer, go a little bit more crazy. So those are really the two places that we do what we call keyword research is the search bar on Pinterest and then the trends.pinterest.com and beyond that, it's a little bit of a mystery and getting into tracking, like how many people are clicking on my pin? How many people are saving my pen to see if that's working? Which is a little bit tough and frustrating at times.

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So how do I know I am attracting the right users on Pinterest? Like if it's a different group of people there versus elsewhere, how do I make sure I'm connecting with the right group of people or finding my people?

Yeah, great question. So I Always tell people, especially sellers, make sure wherever you have on your forms, you also put how did you hear about us? Because that's going to be a really big one right there. We interviewed a client on our podcast just recently and she said they sell grief boxes. So they got a lot of repeat customers on Instagram who knew them. But from Pinterest, what they were seeing is all cold customers. And the way that they were getting them was through these blog posts that they had written answering questions. So the main question might have been, what do I say to somebody who's lost a child? What do I give to somebody who's lost a child? So they took all of these questions and they put them into these little short form blog posts. And the Pinterest users would come for the answer and then the solution would be the grief box at the end and they would get all these new customers and they would be filling out the form too. And then looking at Google Analytics, analytics or any tracking analytics, they could see that they were coming in through this pathway. And that's a big important thing when it comes to Pinterest is they kind of need to be warmed up to your products instead of just like, buy this. Whereas Instagram does a lot of warming right already because somebody follows them. So you're going to have to be asking the question on the form, looking into analytics to see and then looking for themes. So is it what type of posts are getting the most clicks or the most engagement? Do I tend to see that there's a common thread between them? I get a lot of how to's, that's a lot of people come to my website through all of that content. How to clean up Pinterest boards, how to add video. That's really the main way that they enter in. So it takes about, I would say a six to nine month investment to see that happen. If you try to look at that a month after you've been pinning, you're not going to find any rhyme or reason and you're going to give up. In fact, that's what we see a lot of people, they hit month three and they're like, pinterest sucks, I'm out of here. And you, you just need longer than that.

Yeah. Would you say the secret is really just knowing your niche? Right. But then being really consistent? What does that look like on a daily basis? How much content is that? How often? What's the formula for amount of content?

Magic question, right? So one of the things we tell people right off the bat is it all depends on how many images you have and how much content you have. So the great part is, is let's say you have one post about sandals. You can definitely do three or four different images that go to that product listing. But you also might want to go to categories or you might want to go to a blog post about picking sandals or whatever that might be. So if somebody is really limited, in fact, some of our clients come to us and they maybe only have four products, not a whole huge lot of images. And what we would say is hold a little bit and maybe just do one pin a day for a while. Really see, you know, honing in your images, creating more content. Take that first three months and maybe just pin one a day. Then as you get more, you can increase that 3 to 5. But what you want to avoid is this repeat of the same pin and image over and over and over again. So that if I come onto your profile, it looks like I'm being spammed right away. I've done that before. I've gone to people's profile and it's like 20 of the same image. So it's kind of an escalating process. The more images, the more content that you get.

Okay, that's helpful. What about a tool that can help us? I know at the boutique we use Tailwind to pin all of our pins and then the Smart Loop to repin. What about you? What do you recommend for planning content?

Yeah, we do Tailwind and then we've also used Planoly as well. So they both have great tools. And what we like about them is we know that people are also marketing on Instagram. So it has that two fold ability to schedule without having to pay for two programs. Plus both programs allow you to see analytics. That's also really important too as well, is you could see how your pins are performing in those programs. And I love scheduling just because I would forget to pin if I had to do it without a scheduling tool. So it just saves a lot of time. And it's not. Pinterest approves schedulers, so some people are worried about using them because maybe Facebook said don't use one, but Pinterest has said these are approved. We've given them the API. Use them without fear.

Yeah, that's, that's good. That's helpful. What about when I'm pinning and I'm. I'm scheduling my pins and let's just say I have some kind of graphic tee, right? That's a new arrival this week. Would I pin it to multiple boards that it would be relevant to like fall fashion, summer fashion, or if it was like a Christmas tea, like where it could fall into multiple different categories. Or am I better to just pin that once? Because I know you said not to repin that same image a bunch of times. How much is a bunch?

Yeah, great question too. So, number one, we tell people the first pin kind of holds the most power. It's like when something hits the platform Pinterest wants to look for. Like, what's all the information? So we tell people, the first time you pin a pin, make sure so closely matches the board that it's pinned to. That's really important. And then you can take the other boards like you said, and you can drip them out. We use the interval tool in tailwind and so we drip them out probably four to five days apart. But it's also really important to note, like if you have a Christmas tea and you are, you know, November, you would want to pin it a little bit closer together and then maybe change up the image too. That's another way you can get kind of it to look totally different. Maybe show the varieties of the Christmas tea or a lifestyle. And then you could probably do every two to three days apart. The thing that we tell people that is that the algorithm on Pinterest isn't that smart yet to ding you with this, like, oh, you went three days instead of five days, or it's just not that smart to know those kinds of things. And I frankly, I don't think Pinterest interest cares. I think more what they care about is that you're not a bot. You're not pinning 100 a day, and you're not pinning 100 of the same things. So when it comes to getting that content out there anywhere between two to five days, some people actually even go longer if it's something you're going to have all year. You could do it once a month or once every two weeks to different boards, and then you could go back again too. That's another thing is once you've pinned it to a board, it's not like it, it's done. You could come back to it three months later and pin it to the same board and then it just goes on to Pinterest again.

That's helpful. That's really helpful. That's a good formula.

What about.

I know you had mentioned you also do a lot of Pinterest ads, and I, I feel like I hear that question a lot. Is it worth it? Like, we're all used to running Facebook ads. And Instagram ads and Google Ads. Is it worth it on Pinterest and how is it alike or different some of these other platforms?

Right. Okay. So number one, I definitely think it's worth it, of course, because I love Pinterest, but also because it's a. You're hitting a different user. And I think that's really important too as well. Pinterest ads are great for both digital and physical products and they have a lot of different options to choose from in there. But the other thing you need to know is that Pinterest ads take about a week to two weeks to optimize, whereas like a Facebook or Instagram ad takes like an hour or two hours. Right. So the pixel kind of has to warm up. So what we say is if you're going to do Pinterest ads, set it up, don't touch it for a week. And that's so hard, right, because we want things to happen right away. So when it comes to Pinterest, it's, I would recommend really dialing in on making sure you know who your person that you're targeting is. Like, really have that in your mind and thinking about trying to capture them long before they're going to make that purchase. Think about also, like, what kind of image they're going to engage with too. Like, what's really going to hook them in right away. I also recommend looking at your main home feed on your phone. And in fact, I tell everybody, if you've not used Pinterest, just pull up your phone, look at it. Some people don't like Pinterest, so it's hard for them. But it's really important as a marketer to know what you like and don't like. Look at the other ads that are being served up to you. Sometimes they're really hard to tell that they're ads and that's what Pinterest wants. They want them kind of folding into native to the platform, but really looking to see what people have on there is a really great idea and inspiration. But I like ads too. For even start, we used to say you need to have six months of organic. Now we say dive into ads if that's what you want to do right away.

Okay, that's great. Are there any big mistakes you see people make on Pinterest? Like glaring? Don't do these things if you're going to jump into Pinterest strategy.

Yes. I would say, number one is they've heard about hashtags and so they're replacing keywords in their pin description with Hashtags that just don't do that, that's probably number one. And number two would be pinning the same thing over and over again, same image, just putting it up there. Number three would be not really having a well set up profile. So some people maybe had a Pinterest profile that was personal and they haven't really converted it to business. So it's kind of like this like hobble gobbled mess of old new personal business. Really take an hour. You can binge watch TV while you're doing it. Doesn't take that much thought but really get your profile set up, your settings set up so that if I was to come onto it today, I would know exactly who you are and what you do. That's another one. And then I think the image piece is a big one because images on Pinterest are billboard advertising. It's really that thumbing by real quick engagement. So if you are struggle with those buy Pinterest templates to make it easy for you, there's a lot of canva, you can just, you know, put them in there. So yeah, that's probably bad images is you might nail it with your keywords, which is great. But users don't read on Pinterest, they just look at an image.

Yeah, that's powerful. What about your most successful clients? What do they have in common in terms of using Pinterest?

Yeah, number one is they do have a content arm. So I will say that we've been managing for clients for eight years and we have a lot of people who come to us, especially product sellers who are like ugh, you just mentioned blog or like writing and they just, it's like they want to die on the vine right there. But really what we tell people is it's a very quick and easy stuff. But Pinterest users need that content that is a consistent thread on all of our clients that makes them successful and is they have a part where they lead people through to their products. And also I would say video is going to be another one because they're showing the dimension of the product, they're giving it life on Pinterest. So we've seen a lot of success with that. But I wish I could tell you, like content's not there, but it is like it's just wins every single time and con. And a lot of our clients who maybe are tired or they need to take a break, they've taken a break for like a year. Their traffic significantly goes down when they're not creating new content. So take your FAQs take, you know, ask in a group. Like that's another thing too. If your content dry, ask people. I'm sure they'll come up with some great ideas for you. Write 500 words, put a Pinterest image on it. And then like I talked about with those grief boxes, just answer people's questions or what are their main barriers to getting towards purchasing your product?

That's so helpful. Well, Kate, you have dropped a ton of info today. I hope everyone took a lot of notes. Hopefully we will get download or something fun to share with people in our audience and our training library after this. But one last question. I always go back to this question on the podcast because I think it's the reason why we do what we do. So more personal than business, this question. So I just want to know from you personally, let's just say we're 30, 40 years down the road and you're sitting on this front porch with your family, with grandbabies, family, whoever is surrounding you at that point in your life. You've served people this entire life, right? Building a business and teaching them the skill that helps impact their personal lives. When you're talking about that, what is the thing that you want people to remember the most and your family to remember the most about your life and what you created?

That's a good question. I think for me it's investment in people, that relationships mattered more than success. In fact, I have a sticky note here on my computer that says, who do you serve? And I really want to always make sure, like clients, customers and not serving myself. And I think in this online industry, in the influencer industry, it's easy to get caught up in us. So I think that's a big thing, is I want to look back and say I led well, I served well, and I invested in other people's businesses so that they could be successful, so that they could reach their goals. And. And that's really the motivation behind why I do what I do and why I teach.

I love it. Well, Kate, you have been a gem. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and sharing with all of us. And I can't wait to collaborate more soon.

Yeah, sounds good. Thanks so much for having me.

Hey guys. Thank you so much for listening to this episode.

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