March 18, 2025 • 39 mins
If you’re tired of the constant social media algorithm changes, it might be time to give Pinterest another look. Unlike social media, Pinterest is a search engine—which means your content lasts longer and keeps working for you.
I’m joined by Pinterest strategist Heather Farris, who’s breaking down how to use Pinterest the right way in 2025.
Whether you want more traffic, more leads, or just a platform that doesn’t demand daily posting, this episode is for you.
In this episode of the podcast, we talk about:
- How to optimize pins for search and get long-term traffic
- Why Pinterest users behave differently than Instagram users
- The best posting frequency (without burning out)
- How to use AI to streamline your Pinterest workflow
…And More!
This Episode Was Made Possible By:
Riverside All-in-One Podcast & Video Platform
Visit Riverside and use the code DREA to get 15% off any Riverside individual plan. We use it to record all our podcast interviews: https://onlinedrea.com/riverside
About the Guest:
Heather is a Pinterest marketer and has been managing client accounts for over 8 years. She jokes that she’s used the platform so long she remembers when there wasn’t much to see and you actually found the end of the feed. Before she got into Pinterest marketing she was in accounting. Heather facilitates a membership where she helps content creators, coaches & service providers with strategy to grow their traffic & sales.
Website: https://heatherfarris.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2E4tXgSUeD5S9W6fGPoTsA
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/heatherfarrisco/_created/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherfarrisco_/
Go to the show notes for all the resources mentioned in this episode: https://onlinedrea.com/349
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you are Pinterest curious, Pinterest interested,
this episode is for you because we're going all the way in on Pinterest strategies.
And I know you are because some of y'all are tired of, like, what Instagram's
doing with our feelings. So I'm excited to talk to Heather Farris
in this episode today. But first, if you're new, hi.
Hello. My name is Andrea Jones. I'm a mindful marketing strategist, and
(00:22):
my goal is to help you connect more so
that we can grow together and ditch all of that
scrolling. Before we get into the episode though, a word from
our sponsor. Riverside is the all in one podcast
recording and editing tool that I use for this right here show.
I use it to edit not only the audio in the video, it is like
(00:44):
chef's kiss, magical, making the entire process so
so easy. Plus, I love their
magic AI clips. Their little AI robot
in the background pulls out the most impactful moments of the
episodes without me having to comb through and do it myself, resizes them
for social media. So those vertical videos you see on TikTok and
(01:06):
reels, those all come from magic AI inside of Riverside. It's
literally one click. It spits out 10 clips. I pick the
best one and away I go saves me so much time. If you wanna get
on the Riverside train, check it out today, the links in the show notes, and
make sure to use my code DREA, d r e a, at checkout to
get 15% off your membership. Alright.
(01:29):
I'm excited to talk Pinterest. Heather Farris, welcome to the show.
Jones, thank you for having me. I'm excited because it's been a hot
minute since we've had someone talk about Pinterest. I am a Pinterest,
peruser. I use it a lot for my personal life, especially my recipes,
but I don't necessarily use it a lot for business. So I'm excited to
(01:49):
just kinda pick your brain about all things Pinterest today. So Let's
do that. Tell me. Why why should we even think about Pinterest
in 2025? What's the deal? It is that girl
that is not stressful, like the changing algorithms that
happen on meta platforms or the
politically centered content on all of the social media
(02:11):
apps that you might be trying to build a wall around and get away from.
It is not one of those apps where you have to get dressed
and do your makeup and your hair in order to film content because you have
to show up today. It's one of those platforms that you
can quite literally just park your content on behind the scenes while you have your
favorite TV show on, and you've just made, like, a hot tea, and you've got
(02:33):
your blanket across your lap, and you're just cool and cozy. That's
quite literally how I feel about the platform. It's just, like,
cozy, and it's, like, a lot less stressful. Yeah. And I
think we all could use with, a lot less stress in our lives. But
aren't there, like, certain types of businesses that work better for
Pinterest than others? Or tell me about, like, who should be thinking about
(02:56):
Pinterest. There are. There are definitely businesses that it
works better for than others. And I really just think it depends on how
you frame the platform for your business. Like, what is your goal for the
platform? Because some people's goals for certain platforms are
different. There's 24 established categories on
Pinterest, and the ones that are in, like, the far reaches of the
(03:18):
bell curve, like sports and vehicles and
even in some cases, like animals, those are
definitely they have a lot less people interested in those
niches scrolling on the platform for those things. But you
see businesses like I mean, even if you're an influencer and you're doing
affiliate marketing for your income or brand partnerships, Pinterest can still be a really
(03:40):
good platform for you. Service providers, coaches, course
creators, there's still a space for those people and they're the searches for those things
are actually becoming greater and greater. Even my business has seen a lot of
growth on Pinterest in the last several years because Pinterest
marketing itself in search term and search volume has risen.
So even if you're B2B, there's space for you. Now,
(04:01):
businesses, because this was your question, that do better. Home
decor, fashion, food, jewelry, party
planning, weddings, beauty. Like the
big, the big, big ones. Those are obviously what Pinterest is really known
for, but there's still space for a lot of folks
over on Pinterest because it's a search engine at the end of the day.
(04:24):
People are going there to search for things like how to feed
an elderly cat. You would be surprised the amount of
people that are actually looking for that or, you know, what's the best
pet bed for an outdoor cat or something like that. Something odd
kind of on the the outer reaches of the the bell curve, as I mentioned
earlier. So does that answer your question? It
(04:46):
does. And you actually bring up my next question, which is, Pinterest
is search based. So I know for me specifically, I tend to
search for specific things like, toddler hairstyles or,
like, recipes or, like, how to dress my postpartum
belly, like like, very specific things. So so
(05:06):
Pinterest is a lot different than some of the other, like, social
first platforms. Tell me more about the search element
of Pinterest. So we do have two sides of our algorithm. We do very
much have that engagement side of what you're kind of used to
with Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. We also have that
search side. So, everything search
(05:28):
is, like, indexed based on what's in the image. The actual image, they can read
the image and index even the images in it, the video in it. The
text on the image can get indexed, and then the pin
title, pin descriptions, the words that you put on the pin with
the pin are also indexed. So think about it the same way that you
are writing blog posts or filming podcast episodes and then putting those
(05:50):
on your website. Google is then indexing that content to be served
when someone searches for it. Then based on engagement
factors, based on, you know, how much search volume
there are for those things, you're gonna start getting served in those
search queries, and your pins will start getting placed.
Now we have something on Google that we don't have
(06:14):
on Pinterest. We have keyword cannibalization on our websites. You don't wanna use the same
exact keyword on every single page for every single blog post because Google's not gonna
know what to actually rank if you do that. We don't have that with
Pinterest. So if you have a a set of topics that you cover all the
time and you wanna use the same keywords consistently, you can do that, and
you're actually more likely to rank in the long term because you've got
(06:36):
more pins that Pinterest can rank for you, and you have more capability for
people to click on those pins. More clicks, the more
engagement, the higher up in search those things will drive,
ultimately resulting in you ranking towards the top of the search, if not at
the top. I know. Okay. I have I have a bunch of follow-up questions.
I can see your brain turning, so I wanted to pause. So
(06:58):
so okay. When I was heavy into my Pinterest game, I was
blogging a lot. And I would take my blog posts and I
would create, you know, like, five to seven different graphics in Canva and
then, like, pin them and pin them to a bunch of boards and even
had a bunch of group boards. Tell me about, like, what about that
strategy is outdated? Do we have to have blogs? Like, give me
(07:20):
the update. So if you want long term
evergreen content that Pinterest can serve for years, then
a place on your website where they can send that traffic is going to be
the best. Now pinners are accustomed to reading blogs because
that's what we have trained them to do since day one, is read blogs.
The original big Pinterest accounts for business were,
(07:43):
you know, the the big food bloggers that we
see now that have, like, Food Network shows. But, a
lot of them have, like, cookbooks and food shows and things like that. So they
were the originals. They were blogging. And then,
we have trained now Pinterest users to click on blog posts.
People on Pinterest want to know more. They're not
(08:04):
like Instagram or Facebook users where they're looking for, like,
quick entertainment or, like, short loops. They're looking
for long term because they are searching for things,
oftentimes they are in a different mindset than a Instagram
scroller. So if I'm going there and I'm looking for toddler
hairstyles, I'm probably looking at different things. I'm looking
(08:26):
at what kind of, like little bobbies and,
like, pins and thing. What hair products am I gonna need for these
hairstyles? Do I have them? Am I gonna need to make a Walmart list because
now I gotta go to the store? Like, all of that is
taking place in the mind of a Pinterest searcher.
Whereas if we are scrolling, we see something cute and we're like, oh, I might
(08:47):
have that. Let me look at that again later. We save this on Instagram. I'm
never going to go back and look at it again. So pinners are totally different
in that mindset. So as you are using
Pinterest and you are using those keywords, I would say, yes,
you should definitely have a blog because long term evergreen, we
are seeing pins that are two, three years old actually
(09:09):
driving the most traffic for the average account.
Yeah. Yeah. So does it have to be a blog too? What about, like, podcasts
or videos? Like, I'm seeing some other styles of long
form content on Pinterest, but I'm not sure, like, are people actually enjoying
them or not? Yeah. So the most obvious way to share
long form content is in the form of a blog post. Even podcasters
(09:31):
have the ability to do that with show notes. So if you have a long
form show note with your podcast player embedded in it, you can
drop traffic to that with Pinterest. And then as a YouTuber
myself, that's my primary mode of long form content.
I embed my long form videos in blog posts, and then
I make a blog post that goes with it. So much like your show notes,
(09:52):
I'm writing a blog for my YouTube video and I'm sharing those on
Pinterest. So it's all kind of going to that same place. And then within
that, I'm optimizing it for products. I'm putting paid products with those. I'm
putting free lead magnets in those so people have the ability to
kind of start where they're at and go take the next step that's best for
them. Yeah. I love that. And I I love the embedded
(10:14):
YouTube video and the blog post too. I started doing this with a lot of
my content as well because we have honestly, we have a lot of content. So
it's like just another way to distribute it, which I love.
The other thing that you mentioned too about Pinterest is
how long the pins last.
Talk to me more about, like, the Pinterest lifespan
(10:37):
versus, like, some of the other social platforms. Years.
And I keep using this phrase, park your content, because it's quite literally,
like, you can park your content and it will serve for years. So
just, like, for kicks and giggles really quickly while I talk to
you about this. So I have a client. She's a teacher client,
and she is based in Australia primarily.
(11:00):
And I'm just gonna open up her analytics really quickly and tell you the age
of the pins in her last thirty days, because I have a feeling some of
them are old. When I did this about six months ago, they were four
to five years old, her top pins. So her very
top pin, I pinned in 2022, January.
That's three years. And then her fourth one,
(11:23):
August twenty twenty two. And then we have a
2023, '20 '20 '3, a
2022. So the age of her tie,
I have a 11/10/2021. And this is right when we started working
together, I pinned that one. So the age of the top
pens in her last thirty days are a
(11:45):
mix between brand new 2024 to 25 and
old. So it spans years. I have
experienced this with my own websites. I've experienced this across
client accounts. I've experienced this within student accounts as well.
So because of that search capability, it really all comes
back to that. It's not just the, you
(12:08):
know, momentum behind a trending song, and that's the only reason why your video is
getting hits right now. As soon as that fizzles out, it's gone.
Yeah. And I think this is where some of the, like, frustration comes
with the kind of short form platforms. And and
not to those listening, nothing against this against them completely. Y'all
know. I love them. I love them for what they are. They do the they
(12:29):
do what they need to do, especially from, like, the connectivity and
community piece. Yes. And sometimes it can be
very frustrating to, like, feel like you're chasing chasing the trends or the
memes or or the algorithm changes and you've gotta you've gotta
change your strategy. So with that in mind, I would love to talk more
about, like, okay. So we're sitting down to, like, start
(12:51):
pinning. What are some of the things we should think about so that we do
have that pin that, you know, has legs? And, you know, three years from now,
we're looking back, like, thank goodness I pinned that. Yeah. So
one of the things I want you to think about and actually do,
depending on your niche, you're gonna see more in this tool than others.
So I want you to use the Pinterest trends tool. Now, Pinterest
(13:14):
trends are not the same as Instagram or Facebook or TikTok trends. They're just
not. Pinterest trends are more relevant to like Google trends.
These are search trends over time that have happened. And then
there's a certain, like, timeline on those of when they're popular and when
they're not as popular. So I want you to use the trends tool. It's
trends.pinterest.com. And I want you to go there. And depending
(13:36):
on what's in your reel or in your,
blog post that you want to put over on Pinterest, I want
you to search for that. So let's just say it's winter skin care because I
was just making pens for a client for that. I want you to search
in the trends tool, winter skin care, and I want you to open up that
trend. I know it's trend because I was just looking at it. I want you
(13:57):
to open that up. It's gonna open in another window and underneath it is
underneath this graph. It's gonna show you a bunch of related
trends, and I want you to parse through those and click on them Gonna
continue giving you more related search terms, and I want you to start
using those terms in the pin that you're gonna make and put on your
profile. I also want you to use the most popular one out of all of
(14:18):
those as your board name. And then you need
to create a board description and then you need to write a pen title and
pen description, and you're going to use those relevant search terms in those places.
That's what's going to give this pen legs for years to come.
This is fascinating. I love that we're using the data too. I'm a
big fan of the data. And I feel like sometimes when we're
(14:41):
starting from the blank page, we can just like, oh, I think this is what
people want. But, no, like, we're actually looking at what people are searching
for. Yes. Okay. So then what are we pinning
with with with this? Like, now that we've got our search terms, now that we've,
you know, got our board, we've got our description, what is it that we're
pinning? Okay. So let's take that winter skincare
(15:03):
example again because it's just really relevant for a client of mine right now.
She can create an Instagram reel that is whatever style she
wants. She could do a face to camera how to. She could do an explainer.
She could do a video showcasing all of her skincare products. It could be informational
or showcasing all of her skincare
products. It could be informational or product based.
You're gonna take that piece of content and you're gonna upload it into the
(15:26):
create tab on Pinterest. You're gonna use all of those relevant search terms
to pin it to the most appropriate word. So whether it's information or whether it's
product, there's someone on Pinterest searching for it, and we are going to
optimize it to then be served to them when they're searching for it.
Okay. We just dove into video which was my next question
because a fun fact, my sister used to send
(15:49):
me pins that were, like, TikTok videos and I was
like, I've already seen this, but she doesn't she's not on TikTok at all. Like,
she doesn't like the app, will never download it, but she watches videos on Pinterest.
It is, like, mind blown. And if y'all been listening to the podcast, you've heard
this before, but, like, mind blown because that that is not my
inclination on Pinterest, but micro video
(16:10):
is on Pinterest. It used to be called idea pins, but they're just called pins
now. Right? Tell me more about the video element of Pinterest. My
gosh. Listen. We have had video on Pinterest since before TikTok
came online. Like, we have had it for so long. We
just have never like, it's never been, you know,
that thing that we have done. So people have always done video on Pinterest as
(16:33):
far back as I can remember. It's just changed and
morphed over the years. We've gotten we had short videos to start, then we got
longer videos. Now we have, like, four seconds up to, like,
five minutes roundabout. I don't see people really posting five minute videos
anymore. But, yes, we've had an evolution. We had video pins,
then we had idea pins. Now we just have we just have pins. They
(16:55):
just called them pins and you can do them in image or video format. And
if you are a short form video creator, Pinterest is
a really great way for you to repurpose that content, especially if you're doing it
on Instagram, because we do have this native Instagram integration now where it will just
pull your content over for you. There's a little integration now where it will just
pull your content over for you. There's a little bit of work you need to
do after that happens. We can talk about it, but it will
(17:17):
get you about 75% of the way there. Now you can do video
that is informational or product based. Either way works.
And it really just depends on how you want it to work for you. So
if you want it to just build engagement on your profile and grow
followers and things like that, you don't need to do anything with it. Let's say
if it's an Instagram reel getting pulled over to Pinterest, you could just let it
(17:39):
go to your profile, let it build engagement, and drive back to Instagram
if people click on it. Or if you want it to drive traffic to
your website and you let's say it's winter skincare and you have a skincare line
or a blog post that could match that reel, you can change the link on
it after it hits Pinterest and draw traffic to your website
instead. So there's so many, like, little options to the
(18:01):
strategy that you can use. And Pinterest
is a great, great place to actually create video. And this
is actually a warning for all the parents in the room. Any
moms, any dads listening. If you have teenagers, just like what Andrea
said, her sister uses Pinterest and watches TikTok videos. Your
kids are seeing things that you didn't maybe realize that they were
(18:23):
seeing. So put some parental controls on there because I I'm a
mom of a teenager and I've just realized in, like, the last year and a
half, her having Pinterest, that that was happening. So I actually
created a teen account for her and locked down the parental settings. So,
yes, people are sharing their TikTok videos over there. It has been
happening for a long time. And that's good to know. You
(18:45):
should not only use it for your business, but you should also be aware for
your family. Yeah. Yeah. That is very good to know.
And I think the more we are aware of how,
Pinterest works, the better that we can make it work for us,
kids included. So I'm curious about, like, Pinterest's algorithm
because you mentioned that, you know, they've got the trends.
(19:07):
It's search based, but it also has, like, a home
feed. Like, when you first open it, you know, when you log into the app,
whatever, it it serves up content to you.
How how is that algorithm how does that work? How do we make sure we're
we're, you know, showing up in people's home feed, that sort of thing? It's an
engagement based algorithm. So your home feed, your related feed are
(19:29):
engagement based. Based on things you're engaging with on the platform, you're
gonna see those things in your home feed. So we need to be creating content
that is click worthy and that people are willing to save to their boards,
not just things that are cute or, you know, quotes
and things like that, because those just, we don't see those work as well.
You want to create things that are interesting, that are curiosity driven,
(19:52):
that are click worthy. And if you can do that, and if you can
generate saves, then you are going to be showing up in people's home feeds
because that is engagement based first. The more you engage
with someone's content, the more pins you will see from them. So
one tiny engagement with, like, one pin, you're probably gonna see
maybe one or two pins in your home feed from that person. If
(20:14):
you follow them and then you start engaging with their content all the time, you're
gonna see a lot more of their content. So I follow one of my clients
because one of my clients is in the business space, and her
content is really relevant for my profile. So I actually wanna see her content,
engage with it because when I see it and engage with it, I wanna be
able to save it so my followers can see her content too.
(20:37):
So I see a lot. Every time on my home
feed I log in, there's probably seven or eight different pins that are
recent of hers that I've pinned for her in my
own feed. So the more touches, the more you're gonna
see. And the more you save, definitely, the
more you're gonna see. Now here's a caveat. You don't need to follow someone
(20:59):
to see their content. You just have to engage with it. Yeah. I
think a lot of platforms are going this direction where, like, followers don't really matter,
and it they never really have on Pinterest. It's all about, like, impressions
and saves. So with that in mind, like, how much
content are we talking here? Because my first thought is, like, okay. So I come
and again, I used to be big on Pinterest. I used to be a fashion
(21:20):
blogger. So, like, Pinterest was my thing, like, ten plus years
ago. Right? And back then, you used to, like, pin I
think that they were, like, pinned 20 times a day. Yeah. You know, go
to all the group boards. And, like, now I think about it. I'm like, that
sounds exhausting. Like, I literally don't have time for that. So, you know,
how frequently are we creating content for Pinterest, and what does that look
(21:42):
like? For the last three years, three solid
years, within my agency, you know, side of my
business with my clients, I have been pinning one
thing per day pretty consistently. Now I have some clients that we
pin three to five things a day for them. It just depends
on, a, how much they pay me because that's gonna vary
(22:06):
based on how many hours I can give them, and b, how much content they
create. Because if you don't create a lot of content, there's not a lot of
things I can do for you on the platform, but it's a minimum of one
pen a day is what we do. And that's what I suggest. 30 things a
month. I think you can sit down in a couple of hours, parse through your
content, check Pinterest transfer keywords, make some
(22:26):
pins, publish them through the native scheduler tool. You've done
all of this probably by just paying for a Canvas subscription
because you don't need to pay for a scheduler right away because Pinterest has a
scheduler right built into their platform. They're actually adding more features
lately, like product tagging within the scheduler, where if you are a
product seller, you can actually tag your products in your image or video pins
(22:50):
while you're scheduling them. Nice. And you you don't get this
capability through third party tools. You only get that through, the
native integration right on Pinterest. So, you don't even need to pay
for a scheduler right away or at all if you don't want to. Yeah. Okay.
So once a day feels manageable, especially if we batch create
some of those pins. And I do have a question about pin,
(23:13):
what's the word I'm uniqueness. There was, like, some drama a couple years ago
about, like, pinning the same like, let's say you designed
an image in Canva and you pin the same thing to, like, a bunch of
different boards versus creating unique pins.
What's the update on that? So this actually dates
back to, 02/2018. I went to a an in person
(23:35):
Pinterest conference. It was the first one I ever visited. And during that
conference, they unveiled what they were calling,
they kind of started at that point talking about FreshPens, and they
unveiled what they were calling pin stats. So each individual pin and
if it's the same exact image going to the same URL,
then those all of those stats are actually lumped into one
(23:57):
pin in your analytics. So it'll there'll be like a little check mark
next to it. And it says like all variations of this pin or there's some
language along those lines. I
prefer you create unique individual pins and
schedule those and repurpose the description. Maybe you change out
the title a little bit, but have five unique pins instead
(24:19):
of pinning the same pin five times.
Because you're spreading your wings a lot further if you're using five
different keywords and five different titles that maybe the same
description with the same five keywords for all five. That is
totally fine to do, and you're probably gonna see more reach that
way than if you were to do one pin and Pinterest sees it as the
(24:41):
same exact image. If they're not serving it to an
like, if people aren't engaging with it right away and then they're not serving it
but only in search, you're gonna see less
break. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of
sense. Now this may be a little bit of a controversial
question, but one of the one of the
(25:03):
challenges that I've always had with Pinterest is that
it will send a ton of traffic. Don't get me wrong. I've always had
ton of traffic, but that traffic doesn't necessarily convert as much as other
platforms. What's the update on that? Because I feel like Pinterest
users are so much earlier in their buyer's journey. They're usually
planning, they're plotting, they're scheming, you know, whereas,
(25:25):
you know, someone who, you know, searches for something on Google,
maybe a little bit farther along, or someone who clicks something on
Instagram may have, like, the relationship element there.
So, what are we seeing now as far as, like, traffic from
Pinterest and how is that converting? And what should what expectation should
we have on that traffic? That's a really great question and one
(25:47):
I actually haven't gotten from anyone in a long time or if at all.
So I actually still see a very similar
component to what you're talking about for not only students, but for clients.
And it's really it all comes back to how we create our content
and how conversion friendly the content is. So if you
are making list posts, for example, and it's one of those
(26:10):
annoying ones and let's just be clear. I hate list
posts that are food. I do not want to go to a blog post that's
75 recipes for chicken. Okay? No.
I want five recipes or one. So
it just depends on how you're optimizing that content for conversion.
So if you are doing, like, list posts, for example, you're probably not gonna
(26:33):
see those do as well on the website for
conversion as well as maybe on Pinterest. They're getting lots of
safes because they're really idea focused. So we really need to be
creating content across the buyer journey. We can't just create content for the
awareness phase. We also have to be creating content for the consideration and the
purchase phase. This is something that I do for all of my clients. I drive
(26:54):
con I drive pins, and I often refer to it as content, but I drive
pins to my posts, to lead magnets, to products,
all of them, not just to content. So I think where
a lot of people are coming when it comes to this question is they're just
really accustomed. Earlier on in the conversation, you said, are we still driving traffic to
blogs? They're only sending traffic to blogs. But
(27:17):
if it's not a legal page on your website and you want it to get
traffic, you should be making pins to it. So it could be a portfolio page.
It can be a service page. It can be your podcast page, landing
page for products, those limited time offers that you have,
wait list pages, guest podcast episodes.
I I make pins for all of these appearances that I do.
(27:39):
YouTube videos. Anything and everything you can make
pins for. Now I want people to send traffic to their best
conversion tool. So for me, that is YouTube videos.
But I don't wanna send traffic to YouTube. I want them to send traffic to
heather ferris dot com. So that's what I do. I put the blog, on
my website with the YouTube video in the blog, and I drive traffic
(28:01):
to that. And then I know if they watch that YouTube video, I'm more likely
to get a membership member that's gonna subscribe or someone join my email
list because I do my best conversions in video.
So think about that aspect too. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. I love this. This reminds me of,
so one of my one of my best converting things is my free
(28:23):
course. And so I feel like if I were to jump back into the
Pinterest train again, it would make a lot more sense to, like, drive people to
that versus some of the other things. Okay. Interesting. What
about AI? So I feel like AI is like the elephant in the room
where, you know, we we know it can help us, but
we're also, like, a little scared of it taking over the
(28:46):
world. So what is the Pinterest AI update?
Okay. So there's couple different things inside of this
conversation. Number one, a lot of people are annoyed and upset by
the amount of AI images on Pinterest. People just don't
wanna see them. They don't wanna engage with them. They're unrealistic,
and I'm right along with them. I personally hate them.
(29:08):
But AI, when it comes to workflows and
writing copy and generating ideas for your Pinterest strategy is a different
story. And that's where I come in. I actually created an AI bot
for Pinterest strategy, and I trained it on my Pinterest strategy.
And then you train it on your business when you get it. So you
fill out this, like, about my biz worksheet, and then it can take all of
(29:30):
that information, learn about you, take all of the Pinterest
strategy I've put into it, and help you along. So
every time I onboard a new client, I set up a new project in my
Chat to BT. I take all my bot training and train the bot. I take
all their business training and train the bot. So it's individual to each client. But
then if someone's just using a Pinterest bot, they can just use the Pinterest bot.
(29:51):
And we use this to create, let's say, a new
a new use case for this I'm actually super excited about, Canva templates.
Right? Let's say we have a mini infographic Pinterest
Canva template. It's got three fields,
and each field has a header and a subheader. And
there's three of those. So you tell the bot exactly what fields are on the
(30:14):
pin, and then you feed it the piece of content that you want it to
create an infographic for, and it will do it. And then you take
the content and you just plug it into the fields. And
it's doing it for your content. It's taking the content from your
content and it's making the infographic for you. And then you just plug
it into the template, right? So you can have it write pin titles. You can
(30:35):
have it write pin descriptions. You can have it give you a list of boards
that you need to make. I just did a Black Friday launch, and
I did a three hour sprint day with about 15 different people.
And we used the bot to create the Pinterest
strategy based on everything I just told you. And
it literally spit out, like, a list of 20 different boards, and these people are
(30:57):
like, woah. Yes. I think I like all of these except for maybe these two.
So when we're talking about AI from the standpoint of, like, work
flow and getting ahead, generating ideas, yes. When
we're talking about AI from a graphic standpoint, you're
probably gonna have a little bit of pushback from users on the platform. Yeah. I
feel like that's just general consensus right now is, like,
(31:21):
AI for images or video, no. Like, hard no. We
don't like it for the most part. But
as, like, a tool to help us kind of research and,
like, organize and come up with new ideas and, like, spins on things,
love it. Here for it. I love that. I love that it helps with the
infographic too. Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. What other
(31:43):
tools are we using to help us with Pinterest? We talked about ChatGPT and the
AI bots, but what else can we use? So if you
are looking for a third party scheduler, Pinterest
has, their partner tools like Tailwind, Planoly,
Canva. If you're looking for just an API approved tool, there's tons
of them now like Metricool, and others, among
(32:05):
others. My favorite tool when it comes to tools for Pinterest,
there's two, Canva and Tailwind if I'm using a
third party scheduler. Tailwind recently released the
capability to automatically import your blogs for you and
see, like, your workflow on Canvas so you can, like, add them back
into your queue of, like, scheduled pins if you want to. They have
(32:27):
their native integrated, creation tool, like pin
creation tool, which they are doing a lot of improvements on these days. I still
prefer the control over on Canva. They also have
an AI tool built inside of their scheduler as
well, which can help you do titles, descriptions. I actually use it to
generate my Shopify listings, then edit the description
(32:49):
slightly in the title. And then all I have to do at that point is
just upload my images to my Shopify store and I'm done. So there's so
much that a tool like Tailwind can do for you, but you really
don't need a lot of tools when you get started with Pinterest. You just
need Pinterest. The three methods of searching for keywords on
Pinterest, by the way, are the search bar, the trends tool, and the ads manager.
(33:11):
Just on Pinterest, there's not a third party tool for keyword
research. And then a scheduler. So you can go the free
route on Pinterest or you can go the paid route with, like, a tool like
Tailwind, Buffer, Planoly, or even Canva. You can you can even
schedule your pins using Canva. Yeah. I'm a Canva fan
girl. So I love that one. I used to use Tailwind a
(33:33):
lot too back in the day, when I was on Pinterest a lot.
So I love that. I love it. Okay. So what's what's the future of Pinterest?
You know, there's a lot of drama with, like, TikTok being
banned and Meta banned? Is it not banned? We don't
know. We don't know. So how does Pinterest, like, fit into all
the social media drama? So Pinterest has seen the writing on the
(33:55):
wall with this for a while. So the original kind of
proposed TikTok ban came in 2020. We
saw, within a couple of years of that happening, a lot
of well, we obviously saw the birth of Reels in
2020, and then we saw, going from
2021 to 2022, Pinterest brought heavily
(34:16):
pushed idea pins and were bringing creators on the platform. They introduced their
first inclusion fund, like, where they brought creators
in, and they were teaching them how to create content and things like that. It
it's been about four years ago since they've done that. So they've seen the writing
on the wall for a long time. They've been courting creators for a long time.
They continue to do so. With pins
(34:37):
now just being pins, not idea pins, you can do static, you can do video,
you can do collages. They're actually last year, they
started piloting a program with just me. It was just just me, the
Pinterest education, like, educator program. So
they're looking for vetted Pinterest educators to come and
properly teach on their platform, so they are looking to get more reach. They introduced
(34:59):
the create feature, or the create kind of
education side of their business. It's called create.pinterest.com, where they're
actually teaching people how to create content on Pinterest. So the
future is bright for content creators and
something I haven't even mentioned yet, which is e commerce. About two years
ago, we got a new CEO. The original CEO
(35:21):
and cofounder of the platform departed
after a long, long time, over a decade. And a new
CEO came in, and he was a former chief
executive of ecommerce at Google. So his
goal is to really bring shopping more native, more
on platform, and we've seen that growth and rise in that. So we're gonna see
(35:43):
more shopping. We're gonna see more long form content really starting to
take hold. And by long form content, I mean, they're bringing back
the ability for people's blogs to be seen. They
are showcasing more video that is, like, podcast
esque. They also want to be in a place
that is kind of center to their mission
(36:05):
of we don't wanna keep people on a platform. We want to show you things
that you can do and go do in your life.
So really keeping that mission center
focus helps people to kind of create that
Pinterest strategy for themselves of, like, getting in front of their ideal
users while not capturing their complete attention
(36:26):
constantly. Yeah. So different from the other
platforms, which is all about, like, let's serve you more ads and keep
you in our app specifically. So different. I love
that. Okay. So for those who are listening who are like, yes. I'm here for
it. I'm ready to start my Pinterest strategy. I know you have a free Pinterest
strategy guide. Tell us what we can expect when we get it. Yeah. So
(36:48):
I update this every year. It actually needs, I need to go
update the links in it for my 2025,
update. So every single year, I publish a new video. Pinterest
2025, what I would tell my friends. Just published that a few
weeks ago. With that comes an update to the Pinterest strategy guide.
New updates on workflow. New updates on
(37:10):
Pinterest strategy. What's new? What's out? What's in?
There's a wealth of free resources inside for, like,
videos on how to create Pinterest pins, videos on how to schedule those those Pinterest
pins, how to read analytics. I go through all the pillars of a Pinterest strategy,
and I talk to you about, you know, why each is important, how to implement
them into your business. I give you that work workflow. I give you other free
(37:33):
resources inside. A lot of them are just YouTube videos because I'm I just I'm
a sharer. So what I put on my YouTube channel is probably what I'm teaching
inside my membership. Yeah. And that's it. Like, you can
literally download this, get started on Pinterest, and not pay for
anything for a while and still see some results.
Yes. Okay. I'll grab this. I'm gonna put it in the show notes. This is
(37:55):
gonna be online dreya.com/34nine,
and you'll find all of Heather's amazing links there. But definitely
get the Pinterest strategy guide if you're Pinterest curious, Pinterest
interested, restarting, starting again, starting for the first
time. You gotta get this guide. Thank you so much, Heather. This has been
fantastic. Andrea, thank you so much for having me.
(38:17):
Yay. I am excited for y'all to, like, get started in Pinterest. And thank
you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful
Marketing Podcast. Coming up this week in the Mindful
Marketing Lab, I do have our content collab session, which is happening
Thursday, March 20. Y'all, if you need all of the ideas, if you need to
brainstorm content ideas, if you need someone to just take a look
(38:39):
at your accounts so that you can go, am I doing this right? Come to
this session. It is for you. We also have a special guest
expert next week, Wednesday, March 26.
Cara Lotta is coming to teach us how to play in our marketing
and in our business. It's gonna be so much fun, but you gotta be in
the Mindful Marketing Lab. To get all that goodness, go to
(38:59):
onlinerea.com/lab to check it out. I will be
back at you soon with another podcast episode next Tuesday.
I'll see you then. Bye for now.
If you are Pinterest curious, Pinterest interested,
this episode is for you because we're going all the way in on Pinterest strategies.
And I know you are because some of y'all are tired of, like, what Instagram's
doing with our feelings. So I'm excited to talk to Heather Farris
in this episode today. But first, if you're new, hi.
Hello. My name is Andrea Jones. I'm a mindful marketing strategist, and
(00:22):
my goal is to help you connect more so
that we can grow together and ditch all of that
scrolling. Before we get into the episode though, a word from
our sponsor. Riverside is the all in one podcast
recording and editing tool that I use for this right here show.
I use it to edit not only the audio in the video, it is like
(00:44):
chef's kiss, magical, making the entire process so
so easy. Plus, I love their
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(01:06):
reels, those all come from magic AI inside of Riverside. It's
literally one click. It spits out 10 clips. I pick the
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on the Riverside train, check it out today, the links in the show notes, and
make sure to use my code DREA, d r e a, at checkout to
get 15% off your membership. Alright.
(01:29):
I'm excited to talk Pinterest. Heather Farris, welcome to the show.
Jones, thank you for having me. I'm excited because it's been a hot
minute since we've had someone talk about Pinterest. I am a Pinterest,
peruser. I use it a lot for my personal life, especially my recipes,
but I don't necessarily use it a lot for business. So I'm excited to
(01:49):
just kinda pick your brain about all things Pinterest today. So Let's
do that. Tell me. Why why should we even think about Pinterest
in 2025? What's the deal? It is that girl
that is not stressful, like the changing algorithms that
happen on meta platforms or the
politically centered content on all of the social media
(02:11):
apps that you might be trying to build a wall around and get away from.
It is not one of those apps where you have to get dressed
and do your makeup and your hair in order to film content because you have
to show up today. It's one of those platforms that you
can quite literally just park your content on behind the scenes while you have your
favorite TV show on, and you've just made, like, a hot tea, and you've got
(02:33):
your blanket across your lap, and you're just cool and cozy. That's
quite literally how I feel about the platform. It's just, like,
cozy, and it's, like, a lot less stressful. Yeah. And I
think we all could use with, a lot less stress in our lives. But
aren't there, like, certain types of businesses that work better for
Pinterest than others? Or tell me about, like, who should be thinking about
(02:56):
Pinterest. There are. There are definitely businesses that it
works better for than others. And I really just think it depends on how
you frame the platform for your business. Like, what is your goal for the
platform? Because some people's goals for certain platforms are
different. There's 24 established categories on
Pinterest, and the ones that are in, like, the far reaches of the
(03:18):
bell curve, like sports and vehicles and
even in some cases, like animals, those are
definitely they have a lot less people interested in those
niches scrolling on the platform for those things. But you
see businesses like I mean, even if you're an influencer and you're doing
affiliate marketing for your income or brand partnerships, Pinterest can still be a really
(03:40):
good platform for you. Service providers, coaches, course
creators, there's still a space for those people and they're the searches for those things
are actually becoming greater and greater. Even my business has seen a lot of
growth on Pinterest in the last several years because Pinterest
marketing itself in search term and search volume has risen.
So even if you're B2B, there's space for you. Now,
(04:01):
businesses, because this was your question, that do better. Home
decor, fashion, food, jewelry, party
planning, weddings, beauty. Like the
big, the big, big ones. Those are obviously what Pinterest is really known
for, but there's still space for a lot of folks
over on Pinterest because it's a search engine at the end of the day.
(04:24):
People are going there to search for things like how to feed
an elderly cat. You would be surprised the amount of
people that are actually looking for that or, you know, what's the best
pet bed for an outdoor cat or something like that. Something odd
kind of on the the outer reaches of the the bell curve, as I mentioned
earlier. So does that answer your question? It
(04:46):
does. And you actually bring up my next question, which is, Pinterest
is search based. So I know for me specifically, I tend to
search for specific things like, toddler hairstyles or,
like, recipes or, like, how to dress my postpartum
belly, like like, very specific things. So so
(05:06):
Pinterest is a lot different than some of the other, like, social
first platforms. Tell me more about the search element
of Pinterest. So we do have two sides of our algorithm. We do very
much have that engagement side of what you're kind of used to
with Instagram or Facebook or TikTok. We also have that
search side. So, everything search
(05:28):
is, like, indexed based on what's in the image. The actual image, they can read
the image and index even the images in it, the video in it. The
text on the image can get indexed, and then the pin
title, pin descriptions, the words that you put on the pin with
the pin are also indexed. So think about it the same way that you
are writing blog posts or filming podcast episodes and then putting those
(05:50):
on your website. Google is then indexing that content to be served
when someone searches for it. Then based on engagement
factors, based on, you know, how much search volume
there are for those things, you're gonna start getting served in those
search queries, and your pins will start getting placed.
Now we have something on Google that we don't have
(06:14):
on Pinterest. We have keyword cannibalization on our websites. You don't wanna use the same
exact keyword on every single page for every single blog post because Google's not gonna
know what to actually rank if you do that. We don't have that with
Pinterest. So if you have a a set of topics that you cover all the
time and you wanna use the same keywords consistently, you can do that, and
you're actually more likely to rank in the long term because you've got
(06:36):
more pins that Pinterest can rank for you, and you have more capability for
people to click on those pins. More clicks, the more
engagement, the higher up in search those things will drive,
ultimately resulting in you ranking towards the top of the search, if not at
the top. I know. Okay. I have I have a bunch of follow-up questions.
I can see your brain turning, so I wanted to pause. So
(06:58):
so okay. When I was heavy into my Pinterest game, I was
blogging a lot. And I would take my blog posts and I
would create, you know, like, five to seven different graphics in Canva and
then, like, pin them and pin them to a bunch of boards and even
had a bunch of group boards. Tell me about, like, what about that
strategy is outdated? Do we have to have blogs? Like, give me
(07:20):
the update. So if you want long term
evergreen content that Pinterest can serve for years, then
a place on your website where they can send that traffic is going to be
the best. Now pinners are accustomed to reading blogs because
that's what we have trained them to do since day one, is read blogs.
The original big Pinterest accounts for business were,
(07:43):
you know, the the big food bloggers that we
see now that have, like, Food Network shows. But, a
lot of them have, like, cookbooks and food shows and things like that. So they
were the originals. They were blogging. And then,
we have trained now Pinterest users to click on blog posts.
People on Pinterest want to know more. They're not
(08:04):
like Instagram or Facebook users where they're looking for, like,
quick entertainment or, like, short loops. They're looking
for long term because they are searching for things,
oftentimes they are in a different mindset than a Instagram
scroller. So if I'm going there and I'm looking for toddler
hairstyles, I'm probably looking at different things. I'm looking
(08:26):
at what kind of, like little bobbies and,
like, pins and thing. What hair products am I gonna need for these
hairstyles? Do I have them? Am I gonna need to make a Walmart list because
now I gotta go to the store? Like, all of that is
taking place in the mind of a Pinterest searcher.
Whereas if we are scrolling, we see something cute and we're like, oh, I might
(08:47):
have that. Let me look at that again later. We save this on Instagram. I'm
never going to go back and look at it again. So pinners are totally different
in that mindset. So as you are using
Pinterest and you are using those keywords, I would say, yes,
you should definitely have a blog because long term evergreen, we
are seeing pins that are two, three years old actually
(09:09):
driving the most traffic for the average account.
Yeah. Yeah. So does it have to be a blog too? What about, like, podcasts
or videos? Like, I'm seeing some other styles of long
form content on Pinterest, but I'm not sure, like, are people actually enjoying
them or not? Yeah. So the most obvious way to share
long form content is in the form of a blog post. Even podcasters
(09:31):
have the ability to do that with show notes. So if you have a long
form show note with your podcast player embedded in it, you can
drop traffic to that with Pinterest. And then as a YouTuber
myself, that's my primary mode of long form content.
I embed my long form videos in blog posts, and then
I make a blog post that goes with it. So much like your show notes,
(09:52):
I'm writing a blog for my YouTube video and I'm sharing those on
Pinterest. So it's all kind of going to that same place. And then within
that, I'm optimizing it for products. I'm putting paid products with those. I'm
putting free lead magnets in those so people have the ability to
kind of start where they're at and go take the next step that's best for
them. Yeah. I love that. And I I love the embedded
(10:14):
YouTube video and the blog post too. I started doing this with a lot of
my content as well because we have honestly, we have a lot of content. So
it's like just another way to distribute it, which I love.
The other thing that you mentioned too about Pinterest is
how long the pins last.
Talk to me more about, like, the Pinterest lifespan
(10:37):
versus, like, some of the other social platforms. Years.
And I keep using this phrase, park your content, because it's quite literally,
like, you can park your content and it will serve for years. So
just, like, for kicks and giggles really quickly while I talk to
you about this. So I have a client. She's a teacher client,
and she is based in Australia primarily.
(11:00):
And I'm just gonna open up her analytics really quickly and tell you the age
of the pins in her last thirty days, because I have a feeling some of
them are old. When I did this about six months ago, they were four
to five years old, her top pins. So her very
top pin, I pinned in 2022, January.
That's three years. And then her fourth one,
(11:23):
August twenty twenty two. And then we have a
2023, '20 '20 '3, a
2022. So the age of her tie,
I have a 11/10/2021. And this is right when we started working
together, I pinned that one. So the age of the top
pens in her last thirty days are a
(11:45):
mix between brand new 2024 to 25 and
old. So it spans years. I have
experienced this with my own websites. I've experienced this across
client accounts. I've experienced this within student accounts as well.
So because of that search capability, it really all comes
back to that. It's not just the, you
(12:08):
know, momentum behind a trending song, and that's the only reason why your video is
getting hits right now. As soon as that fizzles out, it's gone.
Yeah. And I think this is where some of the, like, frustration comes
with the kind of short form platforms. And and
not to those listening, nothing against this against them completely. Y'all
know. I love them. I love them for what they are. They do the they
(12:29):
do what they need to do, especially from, like, the connectivity and
community piece. Yes. And sometimes it can be
very frustrating to, like, feel like you're chasing chasing the trends or the
memes or or the algorithm changes and you've gotta you've gotta
change your strategy. So with that in mind, I would love to talk more
about, like, okay. So we're sitting down to, like, start
(12:51):
pinning. What are some of the things we should think about so that we do
have that pin that, you know, has legs? And, you know, three years from now,
we're looking back, like, thank goodness I pinned that. Yeah. So
one of the things I want you to think about and actually do,
depending on your niche, you're gonna see more in this tool than others.
So I want you to use the Pinterest trends tool. Now, Pinterest
(13:14):
trends are not the same as Instagram or Facebook or TikTok trends. They're just
not. Pinterest trends are more relevant to like Google trends.
These are search trends over time that have happened. And then
there's a certain, like, timeline on those of when they're popular and when
they're not as popular. So I want you to use the trends tool. It's
trends.pinterest.com. And I want you to go there. And depending
(13:36):
on what's in your reel or in your,
blog post that you want to put over on Pinterest, I want
you to search for that. So let's just say it's winter skin care because I
was just making pens for a client for that. I want you to search
in the trends tool, winter skin care, and I want you to open up that
trend. I know it's trend because I was just looking at it. I want you
(13:57):
to open that up. It's gonna open in another window and underneath it is
underneath this graph. It's gonna show you a bunch of related
trends, and I want you to parse through those and click on them Gonna
continue giving you more related search terms, and I want you to start
using those terms in the pin that you're gonna make and put on your
profile. I also want you to use the most popular one out of all of
(14:18):
those as your board name. And then you need
to create a board description and then you need to write a pen title and
pen description, and you're going to use those relevant search terms in those places.
That's what's going to give this pen legs for years to come.
This is fascinating. I love that we're using the data too. I'm a
big fan of the data. And I feel like sometimes when we're
(14:41):
starting from the blank page, we can just like, oh, I think this is what
people want. But, no, like, we're actually looking at what people are searching
for. Yes. Okay. So then what are we pinning
with with with this? Like, now that we've got our search terms, now that we've,
you know, got our board, we've got our description, what is it that we're
pinning? Okay. So let's take that winter skincare
(15:03):
example again because it's just really relevant for a client of mine right now.
She can create an Instagram reel that is whatever style she
wants. She could do a face to camera how to. She could do an explainer.
She could do a video showcasing all of her skincare products. It could be informational
or showcasing all of her skincare
products. It could be informational or product based.
You're gonna take that piece of content and you're gonna upload it into the
(15:26):
create tab on Pinterest. You're gonna use all of those relevant search terms
to pin it to the most appropriate word. So whether it's information or whether it's
product, there's someone on Pinterest searching for it, and we are going to
optimize it to then be served to them when they're searching for it.
Okay. We just dove into video which was my next question
because a fun fact, my sister used to send
(15:49):
me pins that were, like, TikTok videos and I was
like, I've already seen this, but she doesn't she's not on TikTok at all. Like,
she doesn't like the app, will never download it, but she watches videos on Pinterest.
It is, like, mind blown. And if y'all been listening to the podcast, you've heard
this before, but, like, mind blown because that that is not my
inclination on Pinterest, but micro video
(16:10):
is on Pinterest. It used to be called idea pins, but they're just called pins
now. Right? Tell me more about the video element of Pinterest. My
gosh. Listen. We have had video on Pinterest since before TikTok
came online. Like, we have had it for so long. We
just have never like, it's never been, you know,
that thing that we have done. So people have always done video on Pinterest as
(16:33):
far back as I can remember. It's just changed and
morphed over the years. We've gotten we had short videos to start, then we got
longer videos. Now we have, like, four seconds up to, like,
five minutes roundabout. I don't see people really posting five minute videos
anymore. But, yes, we've had an evolution. We had video pins,
then we had idea pins. Now we just have we just have pins. They
(16:55):
just called them pins and you can do them in image or video format. And
if you are a short form video creator, Pinterest is
a really great way for you to repurpose that content, especially if you're doing it
on Instagram, because we do have this native Instagram integration now where it will just
pull your content over for you. There's a little integration now where it will just
pull your content over for you. There's a little bit of work you need to
do after that happens. We can talk about it, but it will
(17:17):
get you about 75% of the way there. Now you can do video
that is informational or product based. Either way works.
And it really just depends on how you want it to work for you. So
if you want it to just build engagement on your profile and grow
followers and things like that, you don't need to do anything with it. Let's say
if it's an Instagram reel getting pulled over to Pinterest, you could just let it
(17:39):
go to your profile, let it build engagement, and drive back to Instagram
if people click on it. Or if you want it to drive traffic to
your website and you let's say it's winter skincare and you have a skincare line
or a blog post that could match that reel, you can change the link on
it after it hits Pinterest and draw traffic to your website
instead. So there's so many, like, little options to the
(18:01):
strategy that you can use. And Pinterest
is a great, great place to actually create video. And this
is actually a warning for all the parents in the room. Any
moms, any dads listening. If you have teenagers, just like what Andrea
said, her sister uses Pinterest and watches TikTok videos. Your
kids are seeing things that you didn't maybe realize that they were
(18:23):
seeing. So put some parental controls on there because I I'm a
mom of a teenager and I've just realized in, like, the last year and a
half, her having Pinterest, that that was happening. So I actually
created a teen account for her and locked down the parental settings. So,
yes, people are sharing their TikTok videos over there. It has been
happening for a long time. And that's good to know. You
(18:45):
should not only use it for your business, but you should also be aware for
your family. Yeah. Yeah. That is very good to know.
And I think the more we are aware of how,
Pinterest works, the better that we can make it work for us,
kids included. So I'm curious about, like, Pinterest's algorithm
because you mentioned that, you know, they've got the trends.
(19:07):
It's search based, but it also has, like, a home
feed. Like, when you first open it, you know, when you log into the app,
whatever, it it serves up content to you.
How how is that algorithm how does that work? How do we make sure we're
we're, you know, showing up in people's home feed, that sort of thing? It's an
engagement based algorithm. So your home feed, your related feed are
(19:29):
engagement based. Based on things you're engaging with on the platform, you're
gonna see those things in your home feed. So we need to be creating content
that is click worthy and that people are willing to save to their boards,
not just things that are cute or, you know, quotes
and things like that, because those just, we don't see those work as well.
You want to create things that are interesting, that are curiosity driven,
(19:52):
that are click worthy. And if you can do that, and if you can
generate saves, then you are going to be showing up in people's home feeds
because that is engagement based first. The more you engage
with someone's content, the more pins you will see from them. So
one tiny engagement with, like, one pin, you're probably gonna see
maybe one or two pins in your home feed from that person. If
(20:14):
you follow them and then you start engaging with their content all the time, you're
gonna see a lot more of their content. So I follow one of my clients
because one of my clients is in the business space, and her
content is really relevant for my profile. So I actually wanna see her content,
engage with it because when I see it and engage with it, I wanna be
able to save it so my followers can see her content too.
(20:37):
So I see a lot. Every time on my home
feed I log in, there's probably seven or eight different pins that are
recent of hers that I've pinned for her in my
own feed. So the more touches, the more you're gonna
see. And the more you save, definitely, the
more you're gonna see. Now here's a caveat. You don't need to follow someone
(20:59):
to see their content. You just have to engage with it. Yeah. I
think a lot of platforms are going this direction where, like, followers don't really matter,
and it they never really have on Pinterest. It's all about, like, impressions
and saves. So with that in mind, like, how much
content are we talking here? Because my first thought is, like, okay. So I come
and again, I used to be big on Pinterest. I used to be a fashion
(21:20):
blogger. So, like, Pinterest was my thing, like, ten plus years
ago. Right? And back then, you used to, like, pin I
think that they were, like, pinned 20 times a day. Yeah. You know, go
to all the group boards. And, like, now I think about it. I'm like, that
sounds exhausting. Like, I literally don't have time for that. So, you know,
how frequently are we creating content for Pinterest, and what does that look
(21:42):
like? For the last three years, three solid
years, within my agency, you know, side of my
business with my clients, I have been pinning one
thing per day pretty consistently. Now I have some clients that we
pin three to five things a day for them. It just depends
on, a, how much they pay me because that's gonna vary
(22:06):
based on how many hours I can give them, and b, how much content they
create. Because if you don't create a lot of content, there's not a lot of
things I can do for you on the platform, but it's a minimum of one
pen a day is what we do. And that's what I suggest. 30 things a
month. I think you can sit down in a couple of hours, parse through your
content, check Pinterest transfer keywords, make some
(22:26):
pins, publish them through the native scheduler tool. You've done
all of this probably by just paying for a Canvas subscription
because you don't need to pay for a scheduler right away because Pinterest has a
scheduler right built into their platform. They're actually adding more features
lately, like product tagging within the scheduler, where if you are a
product seller, you can actually tag your products in your image or video pins
(22:50):
while you're scheduling them. Nice. And you you don't get this
capability through third party tools. You only get that through, the
native integration right on Pinterest. So, you don't even need to pay
for a scheduler right away or at all if you don't want to. Yeah. Okay.
So once a day feels manageable, especially if we batch create
some of those pins. And I do have a question about pin,
(23:13):
what's the word I'm uniqueness. There was, like, some drama a couple years ago
about, like, pinning the same like, let's say you designed
an image in Canva and you pin the same thing to, like, a bunch of
different boards versus creating unique pins.
What's the update on that? So this actually dates
back to, 02/2018. I went to a an in person
(23:35):
Pinterest conference. It was the first one I ever visited. And during that
conference, they unveiled what they were calling,
they kind of started at that point talking about FreshPens, and they
unveiled what they were calling pin stats. So each individual pin and
if it's the same exact image going to the same URL,
then those all of those stats are actually lumped into one
(23:57):
pin in your analytics. So it'll there'll be like a little check mark
next to it. And it says like all variations of this pin or there's some
language along those lines. I
prefer you create unique individual pins and
schedule those and repurpose the description. Maybe you change out
the title a little bit, but have five unique pins instead
(24:19):
of pinning the same pin five times.
Because you're spreading your wings a lot further if you're using five
different keywords and five different titles that maybe the same
description with the same five keywords for all five. That is
totally fine to do, and you're probably gonna see more reach that
way than if you were to do one pin and Pinterest sees it as the
(24:41):
same exact image. If they're not serving it to an
like, if people aren't engaging with it right away and then they're not serving it
but only in search, you're gonna see less
break. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of
sense. Now this may be a little bit of a controversial
question, but one of the one of the
(25:03):
challenges that I've always had with Pinterest is that
it will send a ton of traffic. Don't get me wrong. I've always had
ton of traffic, but that traffic doesn't necessarily convert as much as other
platforms. What's the update on that? Because I feel like Pinterest
users are so much earlier in their buyer's journey. They're usually
planning, they're plotting, they're scheming, you know, whereas,
(25:25):
you know, someone who, you know, searches for something on Google,
maybe a little bit farther along, or someone who clicks something on
Instagram may have, like, the relationship element there.
So, what are we seeing now as far as, like, traffic from
Pinterest and how is that converting? And what should what expectation should
we have on that traffic? That's a really great question and one
(25:47):
I actually haven't gotten from anyone in a long time or if at all.
So I actually still see a very similar
component to what you're talking about for not only students, but for clients.
And it's really it all comes back to how we create our content
and how conversion friendly the content is. So if you
are making list posts, for example, and it's one of those
(26:10):
annoying ones and let's just be clear. I hate list
posts that are food. I do not want to go to a blog post that's
75 recipes for chicken. Okay? No.
I want five recipes or one. So
it just depends on how you're optimizing that content for conversion.
So if you are doing, like, list posts, for example, you're probably not gonna
(26:33):
see those do as well on the website for
conversion as well as maybe on Pinterest. They're getting lots of
safes because they're really idea focused. So we really need to be
creating content across the buyer journey. We can't just create content for the
awareness phase. We also have to be creating content for the consideration and the
purchase phase. This is something that I do for all of my clients. I drive
(26:54):
con I drive pins, and I often refer to it as content, but I drive
pins to my posts, to lead magnets, to products,
all of them, not just to content. So I think where
a lot of people are coming when it comes to this question is they're just
really accustomed. Earlier on in the conversation, you said, are we still driving traffic to
blogs? They're only sending traffic to blogs. But
(27:17):
if it's not a legal page on your website and you want it to get
traffic, you should be making pins to it. So it could be a portfolio page.
It can be a service page. It can be your podcast page, landing
page for products, those limited time offers that you have,
wait list pages, guest podcast episodes.
I I make pins for all of these appearances that I do.
(27:39):
YouTube videos. Anything and everything you can make
pins for. Now I want people to send traffic to their best
conversion tool. So for me, that is YouTube videos.
But I don't wanna send traffic to YouTube. I want them to send traffic to
heather ferris dot com. So that's what I do. I put the blog, on
my website with the YouTube video in the blog, and I drive traffic
(28:01):
to that. And then I know if they watch that YouTube video, I'm more likely
to get a membership member that's gonna subscribe or someone join my email
list because I do my best conversions in video.
So think about that aspect too. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. I love this. This reminds me of,
so one of my one of my best converting things is my free
(28:23):
course. And so I feel like if I were to jump back into the
Pinterest train again, it would make a lot more sense to, like, drive people to
that versus some of the other things. Okay. Interesting. What
about AI? So I feel like AI is like the elephant in the room
where, you know, we we know it can help us, but
we're also, like, a little scared of it taking over the
(28:46):
world. So what is the Pinterest AI update?
Okay. So there's couple different things inside of this
conversation. Number one, a lot of people are annoyed and upset by
the amount of AI images on Pinterest. People just don't
wanna see them. They don't wanna engage with them. They're unrealistic,
and I'm right along with them. I personally hate them.
(29:08):
But AI, when it comes to workflows and
writing copy and generating ideas for your Pinterest strategy is a different
story. And that's where I come in. I actually created an AI bot
for Pinterest strategy, and I trained it on my Pinterest strategy.
And then you train it on your business when you get it. So you
fill out this, like, about my biz worksheet, and then it can take all of
(29:30):
that information, learn about you, take all of the Pinterest
strategy I've put into it, and help you along. So
every time I onboard a new client, I set up a new project in my
Chat to BT. I take all my bot training and train the bot. I take
all their business training and train the bot. So it's individual to each client. But
then if someone's just using a Pinterest bot, they can just use the Pinterest bot.
(29:51):
And we use this to create, let's say, a new
a new use case for this I'm actually super excited about, Canva templates.
Right? Let's say we have a mini infographic Pinterest
Canva template. It's got three fields,
and each field has a header and a subheader. And
there's three of those. So you tell the bot exactly what fields are on the
(30:14):
pin, and then you feed it the piece of content that you want it to
create an infographic for, and it will do it. And then you take
the content and you just plug it into the fields. And
it's doing it for your content. It's taking the content from your
content and it's making the infographic for you. And then you just plug
it into the template, right? So you can have it write pin titles. You can
(30:35):
have it write pin descriptions. You can have it give you a list of boards
that you need to make. I just did a Black Friday launch, and
I did a three hour sprint day with about 15 different people.
And we used the bot to create the Pinterest
strategy based on everything I just told you. And
it literally spit out, like, a list of 20 different boards, and these people are
(30:57):
like, woah. Yes. I think I like all of these except for maybe these two.
So when we're talking about AI from the standpoint of, like, work
flow and getting ahead, generating ideas, yes. When
we're talking about AI from a graphic standpoint, you're
probably gonna have a little bit of pushback from users on the platform. Yeah. I
feel like that's just general consensus right now is, like,
(31:21):
AI for images or video, no. Like, hard no. We
don't like it for the most part. But
as, like, a tool to help us kind of research and,
like, organize and come up with new ideas and, like, spins on things,
love it. Here for it. I love that. I love that it helps with the
infographic too. Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay. What other
(31:43):
tools are we using to help us with Pinterest? We talked about ChatGPT and the
AI bots, but what else can we use? So if you
are looking for a third party scheduler, Pinterest
has, their partner tools like Tailwind, Planoly,
Canva. If you're looking for just an API approved tool, there's tons
of them now like Metricool, and others, among
(32:05):
others. My favorite tool when it comes to tools for Pinterest,
there's two, Canva and Tailwind if I'm using a
third party scheduler. Tailwind recently released the
capability to automatically import your blogs for you and
see, like, your workflow on Canvas so you can, like, add them back
into your queue of, like, scheduled pins if you want to. They have
(32:27):
their native integrated, creation tool, like pin
creation tool, which they are doing a lot of improvements on these days. I still
prefer the control over on Canva. They also have
an AI tool built inside of their scheduler as
well, which can help you do titles, descriptions. I actually use it to
generate my Shopify listings, then edit the description
(32:49):
slightly in the title. And then all I have to do at that point is
just upload my images to my Shopify store and I'm done. So there's so
much that a tool like Tailwind can do for you, but you really
don't need a lot of tools when you get started with Pinterest. You just
need Pinterest. The three methods of searching for keywords on
Pinterest, by the way, are the search bar, the trends tool, and the ads manager.
(33:11):
Just on Pinterest, there's not a third party tool for keyword
research. And then a scheduler. So you can go the free
route on Pinterest or you can go the paid route with, like, a tool like
Tailwind, Buffer, Planoly, or even Canva. You can you can even
schedule your pins using Canva. Yeah. I'm a Canva fan
girl. So I love that one. I used to use Tailwind a
(33:33):
lot too back in the day, when I was on Pinterest a lot.
So I love that. I love it. Okay. So what's what's the future of Pinterest?
You know, there's a lot of drama with, like, TikTok being
banned and Meta banned? Is it not banned? We don't
know. We don't know. So how does Pinterest, like, fit into all
the social media drama? So Pinterest has seen the writing on the
(33:55):
wall with this for a while. So the original kind of
proposed TikTok ban came in 2020. We
saw, within a couple of years of that happening, a lot
of well, we obviously saw the birth of Reels in
2020, and then we saw, going from
2021 to 2022, Pinterest brought heavily
(34:16):
pushed idea pins and were bringing creators on the platform. They introduced their
first inclusion fund, like, where they brought creators
in, and they were teaching them how to create content and things like that. It
it's been about four years ago since they've done that. So they've seen the writing
on the wall for a long time. They've been courting creators for a long time.
They continue to do so. With pins
(34:37):
now just being pins, not idea pins, you can do static, you can do video,
you can do collages. They're actually last year, they
started piloting a program with just me. It was just just me, the
Pinterest education, like, educator program. So
they're looking for vetted Pinterest educators to come and
properly teach on their platform, so they are looking to get more reach. They introduced
(34:59):
the create feature, or the create kind of
education side of their business. It's called create.pinterest.com, where they're
actually teaching people how to create content on Pinterest. So the
future is bright for content creators and
something I haven't even mentioned yet, which is e commerce. About two years
ago, we got a new CEO. The original CEO
(35:21):
and cofounder of the platform departed
after a long, long time, over a decade. And a new
CEO came in, and he was a former chief
executive of ecommerce at Google. So his
goal is to really bring shopping more native, more
on platform, and we've seen that growth and rise in that. So we're gonna see
(35:43):
more shopping. We're gonna see more long form content really starting to
take hold. And by long form content, I mean, they're bringing back
the ability for people's blogs to be seen. They
are showcasing more video that is, like, podcast
esque. They also want to be in a place
that is kind of center to their mission
(36:05):
of we don't wanna keep people on a platform. We want to show you things
that you can do and go do in your life.
So really keeping that mission center
focus helps people to kind of create that
Pinterest strategy for themselves of, like, getting in front of their ideal
users while not capturing their complete attention
(36:26):
constantly. Yeah. So different from the other
platforms, which is all about, like, let's serve you more ads and keep
you in our app specifically. So different. I love
that. Okay. So for those who are listening who are like, yes. I'm here for
it. I'm ready to start my Pinterest strategy. I know you have a free Pinterest
strategy guide. Tell us what we can expect when we get it. Yeah. So
(36:48):
I update this every year. It actually needs, I need to go
update the links in it for my 2025,
update. So every single year, I publish a new video. Pinterest
2025, what I would tell my friends. Just published that a few
weeks ago. With that comes an update to the Pinterest strategy guide.
New updates on workflow. New updates on
(37:10):
Pinterest strategy. What's new? What's out? What's in?
There's a wealth of free resources inside for, like,
videos on how to create Pinterest pins, videos on how to schedule those those Pinterest
pins, how to read analytics. I go through all the pillars of a Pinterest strategy,
and I talk to you about, you know, why each is important, how to implement
them into your business. I give you that work workflow. I give you other free
(37:33):
resources inside. A lot of them are just YouTube videos because I'm I just I'm
a sharer. So what I put on my YouTube channel is probably what I'm teaching
inside my membership. Yeah. And that's it. Like, you can
literally download this, get started on Pinterest, and not pay for
anything for a while and still see some results.
Yes. Okay. I'll grab this. I'm gonna put it in the show notes. This is
(37:55):
gonna be online dreya.com/34nine,
and you'll find all of Heather's amazing links there. But definitely
get the Pinterest strategy guide if you're Pinterest curious, Pinterest
interested, restarting, starting again, starting for the first
time. You gotta get this guide. Thank you so much, Heather. This has been
fantastic. Andrea, thank you so much for having me.
(38:17):
Yay. I am excited for y'all to, like, get started in Pinterest. And thank
you, dear listener, for tuning in to another episode of the Mindful
Marketing Podcast. Coming up this week in the Mindful
Marketing Lab, I do have our content collab session, which is happening
Thursday, March 20. Y'all, if you need all of the ideas, if you need to
brainstorm content ideas, if you need someone to just take a look
(38:39):
at your accounts so that you can go, am I doing this right? Come to
this session. It is for you. We also have a special guest
expert next week, Wednesday, March 26.
Cara Lotta is coming to teach us how to play in our marketing
and in our business. It's gonna be so much fun, but you gotta be in
the Mindful Marketing Lab. To get all that goodness, go to
(38:59):
onlinerea.com/lab to check it out. I will be
back at you soon with another podcast episode next Tuesday.
I'll see you then. Bye for now.
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