The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 9. Using Pinterest as a Blogger with Kate Ahl

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

On today’s episode, we sat down with Kate Ahl, Pinterest guru and owner of Simple Pin Media. She is here answering all of our questions about Pinterest as it relates to blogging.We cover the things that a blogger needs to do and think about when starting to use Pinterest for their blog, optimizing your account, Pinterest strategy and tactics, idea pins vs. static pins, and Kate even shares information about how bloggers can now earn money through Pinterest.If you are thinking of using Pinterest as a way to drive traffic to your blog, check out this episode with Kate!Check out the show notes for links and resources mentioned in this episode!Let us know what you thought of this episode on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsInterested in starting a blog? Join our waitlist for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode9

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. We are here with the Pinterest guru, Kate All, who is the owner of Simple Pin Media. And we invited Kate on today because there are so many questions surrounding Pinterest. And Kate is your gal. She is going to come in hot today with all kinds of information that bloggers need to know in regards to Pinterest. So welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast, Kate. Well, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you ladies, and it's been a long time since we've chatted. So I'm sure we will have more than enough to talk about, especially when

it comes to Pinterest. Yes. So why don't you take a minute and just kind of tell our listeners how you got started in Pinterest, how long you've been in this industry and a little bit about your business. Yeah. So I started my business in 2014 on a hope and a prayer that it would make money. We were super poor living on food stamps, family of five, and it was helping a friend with her website and it was blogging frugal deal couponing because that was really coming out of the recession. And I was doing a lot of Facebook for her, a lot of affiliate marketing, as well as doing some Pinterest a little bit too, as well. We had taken a course in 2013, really helping us see Pinterest in a new way because nobody had really, they'd kind of heard about it and maybe people were on it, but they were like, this doesn't make sense for marketing. So then when Facebook changed

their algorithm for the very first time for business pages, people were literally scrambling going, where do I get traffic? And frugal and deal bloggers needed traffic. It was essential to their growth. And so I started messing around with Pinterest for her and we saw we were getting all this traffic. And so then matched with our ultimate poorness where we were at and ready to lose our income, she said, you should manage people's Pinterest pages. And I said, that's really dumb. No one's going to do it. And she was like, you're poor. You don't have an option. So I said, okay, I'll do it. So I actually bought the domain Simple Pin Media in December of 2013. And I got a couple of beta clients and I said,

I want to see if this really works for you. I don't want it to be a waste of time. So give me all the feedback. Tell me what's wrong. Tell me what's good. And if at the end of three months with this sucks, then we'll just pretend it never happened. And they gave me great feedback and said, this is amazing. I don't know how to figure out Pinterest, but you do. So let's keep going. And I'm going to tell a couple more people and a couple more people. And pretty soon I had a legit business on my hands and realized, hey, there's a market here. And so over the last eight years, I've really become kind of this Pinterest historian, chronologically for people, what's happening and helping them understand it in a way that doesn't bog them down. Because I knew bloggers have a lot on their plate

and their brains are like SEO and social and email marketing. And I wanted how I taught or how we managed to be so simple that it felt like we were taking it off their plate and they could be like a sigh of relief. Because especially today, as we're going to talk about how Pinterest has changed, there is so, so many things to do almost even more than there were eight years ago. Eight years ago, it felt easy, like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, like whatever. It wasn't 7 million platforms. So that's how I got started. And that's still what we do today. We manage for over 100 clients and have lots of students in our communities and just really want to be the best Pinterest management and marketing agency there is. I love that. I love that you've turned a service that you provide also, like you said, into a community with the collective that you have. So that is something that can be really beneficial to bloggers as well. Do you want to talk just a little bit about that too, before we? Yeah, definitely. So one of the things

that people kept asking me for like in 2015 was a course. So I did create a course in 2015, 2016, and it was so overwhelming because Pinterest made these tiny changes and then sometimes big changes. And then I'd have recorded videos and people had different... It was just so hard. So actually in 2018, I closed it completely. And what came out of that was this membership community because we realized coaching was a part of the process. That if people really wanted to understand there was learning, there was coaching, and then there's this in the moment, I'm kind of freaking out feedback, right? So the membership allowed people to come in for a couple months at a time and then leave, consume a course. There's a full suite of content in there. But then also get me to ask me questions twice a month. We do a live call. And actually what birthed out of that was that we had another layer of people who wanted to know about Pinterest ads.

So we actually ended up creating a second membership called the Ad Society All About Ads. Because we see in this day and age, people set their sights on understanding something. They want to master it and then move on. And we don't want to be another course sitting in someone's inbox with 15 hours of videos to play. And you're just like, I'm not even going to hit start because when am I going to find the time?

I want a quick answer in the moment feedback. So yeah, now we have these two memberships and it's been really fun to learn where people are at because Pinterest has changed in 2022. It's a completely different platform. So if I still had that course from 2015, none of it would be relevant. In fact, some people come back to me, they're like, do you still have the master course? I'm like, no, but you wouldn't want it anyway, because it's not going to help you. And a course is just really hard to communicate the necessary things that are needed for any social media

platform because it is a moving target and the goalpost is always, always moving. Yeah, that is the truth. So Pinterest used to be known as a search engine tool more than a social media platform. But at the end of 2021, they announced some big changes. But at the end of 2021, they announced some big changes. So moving forward today, what is your definition of what Pinterest is and how does it serve people? And not just bloggers, but as a user, how are people, how is Pinterest wanting people to use their platform?

Yeah. So it's really tricky because I think it's still search and discovery. So it's a lot of like Instagram, Google kind of mashed together. And the user habits, how you approach it is it's very much about me still. So I'm not interested in following people like I am on Instagram. I catch up with your life, Amy, on Instagram and I get these little bite-sized pieces because I've chosen to follow you and I've chosen to want to learn about your life. But when I go to Pinterest, I still am thinking, how am I going to update my backyard? I'm building a sauna with my brother.

So it's like, how do I get plans for that? I'm not interested in a brand. I'm interested in a task or a dream. In fact, one interesting thing, I was in Vegas last week for a female mastermind and we did this like lip beauty thing, this bite beauty. It was super Vegas last week for a female mastermind and we did this like lip beauty thing, this bite beauty. It was super cool. You got to make your own lipstick. And a woman in there was, she was a redhead and she immediately pulled up Pinterest and searched red lipstick for redheads. So she could have a visual picture on her phone to show the person trying to create the lipstick for her. And so again, it's not about a brand. It's still about how am I going to be served? So I think that part of Pinterest might not change because you'd have to move an entire

user base to using it different. However, Pinterest wants to capture this short form video movement that TikTok has exploded, right? So they're aware that they're like, hey, people come to Pinterest, they find things and they click off. How do we get them to come to Pinterest, still have the same mindset, but consume short form video that's going to give them a quick hacky kind of thing and then not leave. And so that has been the struggle also for business owners, bloggers to go, but wait a minute, you used to send me tons of traffic and now you're not. So I think that's really the main difference is this new consumption of short form video, but the idea of it being search and discovery that is definitely still there. So video is becoming more and more

important on Pinterest. Yep. Okay. I want to talk about that here in a minute, but let's talk to the beginner blogger for a second. Let's talk to the person who just started their blog. What should they do on Pinterest? What would be their first step? How do they need to go about setting up their account? What should they be doing in order to develop a presence on Pinterest? Yeah. I always say the number one thing before you start on Pinterest is know why you're doing it. So are your people there? Go search around, go play with it. Before you even dive in, because that's going to give you the understanding of why you're doing it. It's like, I love Instagram. I can get lost for hours. I got to put strong gates around

it. So as a consumer, I consumed a lot before I started marketing on it, which gave me an understanding of what I liked and what I didn't like. And I think that same thing applies to Pinterest is go use it, go play around with it and have what I just said in your mind that like, they don't really care about you, which sounds like a, such a harsh statement, but it's true. Like I don't go into Pinterest because I'm, I, I'm not even thinking about anybody else. I'm only thinking about me. So that's probably number one. Why are you using it? So for me and my business, I use it because I want to grow my email list and awareness of who Simplepin is. But I know that takes a little bit of time based on what people are searching. So if somebody is starting blogging, then let's say it's like DIY or DIY home decor. We'll say that as an example. think about what people are searching based on what you're going to create and just know that over that first year of investing in Pinterest marketing, it's a lot of ebb and flow. It's a lot

of figuring out where Pinterest is putting your content because people are going to find you by searching keywords, which is the next step. You have to have your profile be very much branded towards who you are and what you do. They don't care about your hair. They don't care about your name. Like they're not interested in this peripheral part of your life. Whereas like maybe an Instagram user might, they're really just interested is can you help me with my board and batten wall? Can you show me how to do that? Cause that's really all I care about. But once you show me, I'm going to invest in you and follow you for a while. So number one is really updating, you know, maxing out your profile, making it super clear about who you are and what you do.

And then we suggest starting with five to 10 boards. And these boards need to be named again, back to that keyword relevance. So if you are doing board and batten walls, like maybe you're just your sweet spot, you need to have a board, a whole board dedicated to that. So we, it, and it doesn't have to be a long time ago, which I kind of hope people have let this go. There was this whole idea that you had to have everything set up and you had to have all your, the perfect images and you had to have all the perfect boards. It's a little bit more nuanced and kind of grow as you learn kind of thing. So don't feel so bound to have 10 boards.

If 10 boards don't make sense to you and five do, go with a five. And then from there, we can get into like images, static, video, idea pins, which are new. But that's what we tell people. Know your why. Set up your profile. Make sure it defines who you are and what you do, get at least five to 10 boards. And should they add like a description on the board? So, okay. So each board have a description of, so board and batten walls, and then the board description would have ideas for board and batten walls, including DIY, inspiration. Okay. So that is

relevant. So one thing to note how the algorithm works is Pinterest takes their whole goal is to have it so that you open up your phone, your smart feed, and this is a personal user, is everything you're interested in, you've searched, you've followed, and of course, you're going to get pitched with ads, right? So if somebody is searching board and baton and they don't follow you, Pinterest doesn't really care about that. They're not interested in only showing you stuff from followers. They're interested in saying, hey, Amy, I want your smart feed fully maxed out for what it is you love, what it is you're dreaming into. So then they look at the boards that are on Pinterest and say, here's somebody with a board

and batten board. The board description kind of supports it. It's kind of a secondary actor. Sometimes you can get a lot of boards that don't have descriptions, but yeah, we say one to two sentences. You don't want to keyword stuff. You just want to like write it natural. And then they'll look at the pin description of the pins in there and they might have board and batten in it as well. And they go, Oh, we like to call her Susie. She's our regular user of Pinterest. Susie clicks on a pin in her home feed. That's about board and batten. And Pinterest says, Oh, we know Susie's interested. So we're going to first show her more from that board. So it gives this opportunity of like re-engagement in the home feed. And then there's also a search feed too, as well, but that's kind of how that ecosystem of the keywords kind of

works because pinners don't read. So that's a big one as we jump next to images is pinners will read text on images, but you know how on Instagram, we see an image or a reel now, because that's all we see is below. It's like you read to give context, right? Pinners don't do that at all. They're just like, am I engaged with it? Do I love it? No, move on, scroll down. That's it. That's very true. When I think about myself as a user of Pinterest, I'm not, I don't spend a lot of time like dissecting it. You know, I, if I don't get the information I need on the pin itself, and then I might quickly glance at who it's from or whatever, but I mean, that whole process is under five seconds. Yeah. It's super quick. Yeah. Yeah.

Like it doesn't probably three really, if you're really thinking about how you take in that information. Yeah. And I think what you said is so important for anybody listening who hasn't invested on Pinterest or is afraid of Pinterest is you just identified, Oh, this is how I use it as a user. And that's why I want everybody to open up their app to see what you like and what you don't like. And if you're somebody who hates Pinterest, that's important to know as well. I don't want to diminish that in any way because if it's hard for... I hate LinkedIn. I hate it. Do you know how many times people tell me to use LinkedIn for my business? Every day. I can't do

it yet. And I think that needs to be said too. Like if you just can't do it yet, tuck all of this away and note it for later, but we totally get it. It's a real deal with this like platform fatigue. There's some legit platform fatigue these days. We were just talking about TikTok this morning and we're like banging our heads against the wall. Like, do we have to get on TikTok? Same question here. I just got an email today saying that TikTok had more traffic than Google last year in 2021. So the answer is probably yes. It is yes, right? So hard. One at a time, one at a time, right? Yeah. But I think it is, people are consuming more video. So speaking of video, consuming more video. So speaking of video, does that move us into idea pins or how else can people create video on Pinterest? How does one do that? Yeah. So there's a couple of ways,

regular video pins, which we recommend are short form, less than a minute 30. Those are getting like a billion views a day. So Pinterest says, right? Like there's that. I do think they are, but it's just interesting. A billion's a lot. The thing that's very interesting about the TikTok movement alongside the Pinterest movement is that they both come with that same kind of aha moment hacks. Like a lot of people I find use Pinterest and TikTok similarly. And they're like, oh, I saw somebody, you know, show me how to make this awesome steak in less than a minute 30. That's what Pinterest has always been known for is this, oh my gosh, I never thought of that before.

That's so amazing. Right? So we do have a little bit of those cultures side by side. And that's where I think then now we moved to IdeaPins and that's where Pinterest was like, And that's where I think then now we moved to idea pins and that's where Pinterest was like, Hey, I want a piece of that, you know, short form video pie too. And idea pins started out, they were formerly called story pins, but then I think Pinterest realized that was too close to Instagram. So you can do between one and 20 slides. They call work cards. Sometimes people call them those and they don't link.

And for bloggers, this was like, you know, such a deal breaker, but you know, a lot of people on Instagram until they opened up the link thing for the swipe up, they didn't have a link there either. It's so hard to get people to move off Instagram, you know, but people on Pinterest up until actually two days ago, they would be called to follow them, to go to their profile and then click the link. Pinterest is now looping idea pins. So they start over instead of this final slide, which we'll talk about that in a minute, but short form video about 15 seconds for one of these slides. You can also do static images as you go along and they're not time sensitive. So they

don't go away like a story on Instagram. They live forever. So the cool thing is that as you approach them, you have to be thinking less of yourself again and more of them. If I want somebody to show me how to make a really cool summer cocktail, they might do the steps and then one might be a video in there

of them stirring, pouring, whatever. But again, I'm still not interested in who that them stirring, pouring, whatever. But I'm, again, I'm still not interested in who that person is, but I'm interested in them showing me this really great cocktail and then I can save it for later. So you still have that save thing. And then if people want to go to their profile, they can click on that and then go to their website. We are still seeing traffic driven through idea pins, but it's obviously a lot less. I think the thing that we don't know in 2022 is how the regular pinner is going to adopt to it. Cause we do hear a lot of people complaining. I mean, my mom uses Pinterest all the time. She's 75. She is so annoyed with it.

She's like, what? I can't, I can't get to all my recipes that I want. She uses it multiple times a day. Same with other friends who are regular users. So I think we kind of have this reckoning between the old Pinterest user just clicks on an image and goes to a website. Now these idea pins are getting folded into their smart feed and they're like, why doesn't this work? And Pinterest's biggest complaint is the link is broken. So I think Pinterest corporate is having to navigate the cultural change with short form video with people staying on the platform. And I think I haven't read the Q4 earnings report from 2021, but I think that's going to be interesting to see what the user base is like. Is it going to grow or are they going to slide

back this year? I don't know. But I think for businesses, you have to lean in and say, what type of content do I people want to consume? And a last tip I'll give, I feel like I'm talking forever, but last tip is if you, as a blogger, you might not want to write a big long blog post, but you might want to seed out an idea. An idea pin is a great way to do that,

to see what kind of engagement it gets. That if you think, well, I do board and batten all the time, but I really want to paint a terracotta pot. Do that in an idea pin and see what feedback you get. And if it takes off, do a whole long blog post about it. Then you can do a regular static image for it and lead to your website. That's a great idea. Yeah, there's definitely so much to do for bloggers. So if they're listening to all this and they're hearing idea pins, video pins, static pins, how can they go about deciding what would be the best use of their time?

And how do they divide it up? Because they're probably just a one-man show trying to figure out, how am I going to be present on all of these platforms? And I want to do Pinterest. What's the best use of my time? Should I be creating idea pins because they're so hot right now? Should I do a static pin? Should I do a mixture? Yeah, such a great question. So I would say, because you always have a blog post, I always tell people have at least one Pinterest image because you know that regular static image, two to three, it has a little bit of text, has some context. I still want that leading back to your website. Because like I just said, we don't know what users are getting in their smart feed if there are more static pins. And we also know there's that element of search.

And when you look at search, it is a combination of video idea and static. So we look at Pinterest now with like a diversity kind of layer, like how many different types of pin formats can we use? Because we just don't know how we're going to connect with people. So always create an image like you would also create an Instagram, Facebook image. That's just kind of your foundation. And then for sure, create an idea pin. Now, one of the things I know is a struggle is video. It's a struggle for me too. I don't know why. It's just, it feels very like I'm climbing a mountain. So then just do an idea pin with static images, maybe four to five, take some of the images, tweak them and walk them through like a high level of the process

in your blog post. And then put that as an idea pin. I would say just start there. You can schedule your regular pin. You can't schedule your idea pin with something like Tailwind or Planoly, which is perfectly fine to use because then maybe you're going to drip it out to other boards. But if you're just starting and you're back at that five to 10 board phase, just do those two things. Put your static image on a board and make sure it's maxed out with your

pin description, all those kinds of things that links back to your website, and then do an idea pin and then get into this rhythm of content creation because that's sometimes the hardest part, right? It's like, you know, sitting down to write a blog post is not easy, right? It's writing and crafting, doing all these things. Just do those two things on Pinterest. And then once you get into your groove, then I think you can add more layers to it.

If you want to get into a video, you can always go back to that and repurpose it again or create a different image. That's the great thing about Pinterest video, you can always go back to that and repurpose it again or create a different image. That's the great thing about Pinterest too, is you can use older content and create a new image. Yeah, definitely. So if you have already have content on your blog, say you have 20 old blog posts that

you've only just pinned a static image, it would be a good idea to go back and create idea pins for those as well. Yes, definitely. We did that when idea pins started to come out. We have about 300-ish, 350 posts on our website. And we identified the ones that were getting the most traffic from Pinterest. And so we actually went back to those first and created idea pins from them. And because they were already high in search and getting lots of good engagement on Pinterest, they also got good engagement. So we just started with the top 10 and that made it easy and approachable. And I don't have a lot of video because again, it's just a block for me. So with that, we just did some static images like how to clean up

Pinterest boards. One, two, three, four. Learn more on our podcast. Now, here's an interesting tip that we have started to do is we have taken our reels or our some mostly our reels from Instagram and repurposed them into chunks on idea pins. Or if they're 15 seconds, we put them over there. Now, the trick is it has to be a tip. It has to be an idea. So it can't be something that's about it. Maybe, you know, you or something that you're doing because you know, you're wanting to connect, but that's the way to repurpose some content too. And if people are on TikTok, you can repurpose some TikToks. People have removed watermarks and stuff like that to make it work. But we do see some TikToks making their way to Pinterest.

I think that that brings up a really good point. You saying how you can repurpose the content. Because I think someone who is a new blogger listening to like, I need to do Pinterest and maybe I should start TikTok or I got to make sure I'm active on Instagram and in stories. And oh yeah, now I have to be consistent with writing two to three blog posts a week. I mean, a lot of them are going to be like, nope, I'm out. So when we really break this down, something that we talk a lot about with our students is when you're thinking about creating content, think about how that one piece of content can be used in all different platforms. So you're creating the idea and the content one time. And then sometimes it is a video, like, especially if it's a recipe or if it's, let's say it's like a wellness blog post about, you know, 10 tips to

start a better morning routine. You can easily turn that into an idea pin as well on Pinterest that it could be static images. If you're afraid of video, or you could get on and literally just say, Hey, check out these 10 tips, you know, and showcase it like doing different things throughout the house that you're suggesting. So I think that's a really good point is we don't want to overcomplicate any one process. And I think it's important to, like you said, if you don't enjoy Pinterest, then you have to decide, you know, is your ROI going to be good there or not? Because if your heart isn't into it, then are you going to be showing up in a way that's going to attract people

to your site, which is essentially the goal? Yes. Yeah, definitely. And I think it's that sometimes just from where I'm at, even so I have simple pin media, it's a well-oiled machine. I have a really big team of like 35 people. Like there's a lot of people doing stuff for me. And now I have this new website of kall.com and I'm doing a lot of stuff on my own. And I've had to get really lean to say, this is all I can do right now. And that's going to be okay because the bandwidth that I have just isn't there, but there's this pressure. And I identify with that pressure of like, oh my gosh, I'm seeing all these people do the things. And I see all these people with systems and I'm super envious of that. And for me, I've just decided I finally backed up and went, I need to get my voice. I need to get my

feel of who I am. And for me, that requires just writing a weekly email newsletter. I still am creating Pinterest images and now I have a podcast, but now I create my Pinterest images, but I'm going to be honest. I haven't done anything with them yet. I have a podcast, but now I create my Pinterest images, but I'm going to be honest. I haven't done anything with them yet. I have a Pinterest profile, but I've given myself a lot of grace to say, I need pretty long runway to make sure I don't get exhausted. Cause if I give a short runway, I am going to crash and burn because I cannot keep up with all of it. Like starting over right now, you know, I obviously started eight years ago. So starting in this new landscape, I want to acknowledge it's hard. So just take the bite size. But the most important part is I think that voice of who you are in your

business so that you feel comfortable with who the voice is, and then you can share it. And I think a lot of times what we see is it's a backwards way. Like I got to appeal to all the reels and I got to appeal to all the Pinterest thing. It's like, who are you? Right? Like who's your brand? Who's your voice? And that's your foundation. Right? And I just want to share that because I totally get it. It's hard starting from scratch. That's excellent advice, Kate. Seriously. Because I think that we can all, seasoned bloggers and new bloggers, new business owners, old business owners, we can get in that rat race of I have to be all the things for everybody. And I think something that's important is serve the community that you have where you are. I don't care if that's 10 people or whether that's 100,000 people.

Those 10 people or however many, like they matter. So serve them well. And if you're not able to serve them well, then what do you need to trim? Or like you said, lean out a little bit in order to show up in your best way possible. Because people want to gain information and insight from someone who they feel is going to provide them systems or help or things like that. And if you constantly feel like a frazzled mess that shows up too. It does. It does for sure. And as you're talking, another thing that came to mind about that piece is when you do have that element of like not being frazzled, you're quicker to adopt to a platform without feeling overwhelmed.

You're like, okay, I can take this on instead of all the things. And there's a lot of shoulds in the online marketing space. And we see snippets of ads and we see snippets of success stories. Like it's really easy to get caught up in this attainment model. Like, oh, I want to attain

what Amy Porterfield has. And it's like, man, Amy Porterfield has been working for like 15 years, right? And you can't take and have that happen overnight. And there's decisions all business owners have to make of where they invest time and money. And sometimes our time gets taken a lot quicker than our money, right? Without even realizing it. So I love Pinterest. I really, really do. I think it's great, but I think everybody has to decide why they're using it before they even go down that road of tactics. And then once they do go, I'm going to invest in Pinterest, it's like, bring it on, let's do it. But then even seasoned bloggers and seasoned people have been in the industry and they are frustrated with this change

and what Pinterest is doing. They are frustrated with less traffic. And I think that's part of being an online business owner, shifting, changing, molding to these platforms are not going to stay the same, right? They're definitely going to keep us on our toes for sure. And some of you need a break, take a break, take a break from a platform. I think that can be the fun part of it too, knowing that they change. So I think when you go into it, knowing this is going to shift and change, then when that shift and change comes, you can take it a little more in stride and say, okay, like this is just something new I get to learn instead of feeling frustrated about, you know, the way it was. Yeah.

I get to learn instead of feeling frustrated about, you know, the way it was. Yeah. Have you ever wanted to start a blog, but had no idea where to begin, or maybe you have a blog that you'd like to update and want some help to make it the best it can be. We know that there are many people out there who have big dreams for their own blog that never happened because they simply feel stuck. The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp is an eight-week course designed to help you create a solid blogging foundation by teaching you how to treat your blog as a business, find your audience, design a website that is optimized for SEO, all while providing support via online coaching calls each week of the course. There is a private Slack channel for students as well, so questions will never go unanswered. The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp will give you the tools and support to create a blog that has the potential to turn into a profitable business.

We are committed to helping each and every student feel empowered and confident with the foundational principles of blogging and the behind-the-scenes work that goes into it. If you don't want to blog alone, we can help. We keep each round small in order to provide each student the attention and support we believe you deserve during this process. Since space is limited, get on the waitlist today so we can help you with your blog. The link to join the waitlist is in our show notes or go to sparkmediaconcepts.com and click on the ultimate blog bootcamp. So something that you kind of said there was Pinterest is more of a long game, which in our society, you know, with Amazon and all that, like we want like the right now, we want everything to happen right now. Like what? I have five block was that, why am I

not qualifying for an ad network yet? You know, I'm working so hard, but really Pinterest is a long game. So is that still the case? Do you believe? And like, how do you know when to, well, one, is it important to have a Pinterest strategy? And by that, I mean, so you said earlier, create a pinnable image, at least one for each post, and then create an idea pin for each post. for each post and then create an idea pin for each post. Beyond that, what would you recommend as a Pinterest strategy for a new blogger or honestly a blogger who may have been in here for a couple of years? Right. So we have an interesting take on kind of that word strategy for us. We look at strategy as our why and tactics as our how. So our strategy is we use Pinterest in order to grow our email list

and awareness to find more customers and also students, right? That's simple pin media. For some people, it might be, I want to find readers. I want to increase ad income, all of those things. So once you start with that and you sit that, then you go, okay, now what are my tactics to accomplish that strategy? And so then from there, that, now what are my tactics to accomplish that strategy? And so then from there, that becomes a little bit more fluid and you can switch it. And a lot of why we started talking about that was because we kept seeing in all these Facebook groups, all these beginner bloggers just lose their ever loving minds when somebody would be like, I did this strategy of standing on my head and pinning 15 times a day

in an hour, whatever it is. And you saw this chasing of, I want this strategy. I want this. And we were like, slow your roll. Like we got to figure out why you're doing it because then what you're getting, what you're buying into is everybody else's tactics. And we don't want that. what you're buying into is everybody else's tactics. And we don't want that. So we came up with a framework here at Simple Pin that we find that every pinner moves through and that's inspire, inform, and decide. And this pinner framework, you have to figure out where you're trying to attract people. So an example, we have a tile company that we work with, our custom handmade tile. And it came because I was talking with her and she said, I need people to be inspired by my design and interested enough

to book a call with me. I don't need the decision to be made on Pinterest because people are putting in three to $5,000 orders. They're not going to do that. But I can tell you every time I get them on the phone, I can sell them all day long. And so we work with her to get in this inspire phase, the aha moment phase. So her strategy is very much built around, I want to inspire people to see that handmade, custom handmade tile is an option for their kitchen or bathroom remodel or build or whatever, so that they will get on the phone with me to either order a sample. Ordering a sample is a big tactic for our strategy for her because she finds that if I can get the samples in people's hands, then they're more likely to buy. And so that's how we kind of have to decide what the strategy is going to look like

and where you're going to hit people is. And that inspire phase, okay, that's how we kind of have to decide what the strategy is going to look like and where you're going to hit people is, am I in that inspire phase? Okay. That's how I want to use Pinterest. I just want to have them go, oh, this is an option, which is actually kind of a relief because then you're not trying to do all those things of get them on my email list right away or get them to buy. And a lot of people go to Pinterest and they're like, I just wanted to buy my stuff. I just wanted to click my affiliate link. Well, that's a great goal, but who is it that's going

to do it? And how are they going to be attracted to you? And then clicking on it. So I think with that sense, and I know there was something else that you had asked in there in the beginning, so I'm hoping I answered it, but that's really where we go with strategy versus tactics and distinguishing those two parts. And do you think that there's like a timeline where when somebody starts sharing on Pinterest, like, is it going to take them six months? Is it going to take them a year before they start seeing any results? Or when can they kind of take that break and say, okay, is this working for me? Is this where I should spend my time? Yes. So the long tail marketing piece. Yeah. So if you are investing in Pinterest, we want you to invest a whole year. We want you to buckle down

and do that. The interesting thing about the introduction of idea pins. So before we would say static pins, you want to pin them 45 days in advance, which really lent to this long people are planning. I mean, Christmas pinning happens in July, frankly, all year long, right? With idea pins, you can pin closer to the date, which is actually pretty cool because you have two different options of connecting with them. So if you're new, idea pins are, since Pinterest is putting priority behind them, kind of similar to if you're new on Instagram, we would be like, you might want to figure out reels pretty quickly. Same thing with Pinterest.

You might want to figure out idea pins a little bit more quickly because that's what Pinterest is pushing. That's what's showing up in their algorithm. So that's great. Actually, I love that part because let's say, I mean, Valentine's day is in a couple of weeks. You can do an idea pin now, but if someone's telling me, actually it's in a couple of weeks, you can do an idea pin now. But if someone's telling me, actually, it's in a week or something, somebody is telling me like, oh, I have all this great content on my blog, but I've never done Pinterest images. I'm like your windows past, like you can put it on there, but you're kind of hoping for next year, the idea pin speeds that up. So I do love that

aspect. So if you're new, definitely spend more time in idea pins. Our promoted pin director, she's been on Pinterest forever, but she even said that the other day, she's like, I'm kind of scaling back static pins and really leaning into idea pins because that's what they're showing to everybody. So why not play the game? It's a game, right? It's all the game. You're just playing by new rules. And Amy, I love that you love that unpredictability and the newness of it because I hate it. So I'm, I'm encouraged to hear that you love it. I do. Cause I think it can feel, I think you can with blogging, it's like always something kind of new. So like I got that email today about TikTok and I'm like, Hmm, like my brain starts working. Like, how can I make this work? You know, I just, I love change.

I mean, I, we've been married 16 years. I'm living in my eighth house. So let's just say, and we're not. I'm living in the only house I bought and we've been married 20 years. I like change. I think change can be like a really good and beautiful thing. And you just never know what's going to be that thing to make it really pop and go, you know? And so otherwise I think that people can get stuck in this mindset.

Like, well, I guess I just wasn't ever supposed to be a blogger. Like I'm, I just haven't found their sweet spot yet. So maybe we have people who have been on Pinterest that the static pins are just simply not getting them anywhere. Maybe this is encouraging them to give idea pins a try. Maybe video is super easy for them. They love video, but they hate creating images for pins and videos easier. So I think we're talking to a bunch of, you know, different people. I mean, Jennifer and I own a business together. I'm a very visual person. She's not as visual. And so it's, we ingest things differently. We see things differently. We teach things differently. So I feel like a lot of times

that's really helpful because we have both sides of the brain when we're looking at something in our business and it ends up working because I'll be like, they're going to, they're going to want a video of that. And if she sees the video, she clicks off. Totally. I'm like, I don't need that. She's like, what do people just watch these videos all day? You know, it's just, I know like people spending hours on tick. I'm annoyed at reels. I'm like, I see a static like image on Instagram and I'm kind of like, like image on Instagram. And I'm kind of like, Oh, that's so nice. I can stop for a minute. And then the real is just like this, you know, whatever. But I, one thing that you just said that I think is really interesting. And this is for Jennifer and I is buying templates or taking a quick class. So to just to put a plug in, you guys can have a link to this, but we are starting

to teach one-off workshops for people who are like, I just want to know about idea pins. And it's $27. Get straight to it. Learn about it. Get a template. And then also buying Pinterest templates. I can't create Pinterest images to save my life.

They're literally the worst, right? On the team. Like I'm the worst. I can tell you it looks good, but I can't actually put that in Canva. So the best thing for you is also to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Like if they're not visual like you, Amy, and can't kind of put those things, get a template. Like there's no metal for the person who spends seven hours on Canva. That's just the dumbest use of your time. Get a template,

throw in the stuff, go. Some of the ugliest pens on Pinterest actually drive the most traffic. Yeah. Raw chicken breasts, right? Like, I don't know what it is. Don't click on it all the time. And part of it is that everybody has chicken in the freezer. I mean, obviously not a vegan or vegetarian, but you know, most people have chicken. They're like, oh, I can make that. Yeah. It makes it approachable. Yep. Yeah. Do you have pin templates that people can purchase from you as well? Yeah, we do. And we actually broke them down this year. We used to sell them in like a bigger pack, but we actually broke them down with our design team into niches. So if you're a product seller, you're going to need a different type of image. If you're in the DIY, if you're in the food, if you're in the lifestyle space. So we have links to all of

those that we can send you, but yeah, we decided to break them down because they're just different. A food image shouldn't look like a product image. Right. A hundred percent agree with that. And if you have both on your site, I would recommend using different templates. And if you have both on your site, I would recommend using different templates. So I will say if you are wanting to start on Pinterest, I wouldn't even waste time trying to create your own templates. I would just buy them. Just don't waste your time. You can get pin templates.

We'll put Kate's in the show notes that you can take a look at. You can also get some on Canva. But if you just want a really quick and easy way to do it, just use some of the simple pin ones that they've already created and start there. Just you, all you do is pop in the image that you want to put in for the pin and then change the title and add your website on it most likely. And you're done and it's good. You upload it into the post and then that's what you can use. So yeah, we have to learn to simplify these things. You know, as you said, in the very beginning, there's a lot of moving parts for bloggers to do. And so how can we simplify all these different areas that are important that we're on for growth? How can we simplify it?

And that's a really great way to do it. Yeah. Is it also okay to create templates to use for the idea pins? I've heard a little bit on both sides on that. And so I've kind of been scared to jump into idea pins because I'm definitely a template user. And so I would rather have something I could just drop in and then post. Do you find any difference in how those perform if you do use templates? and how those perform if you do use templates? You know, no, we haven't yet. So I'll say we've done a really well manicured idea pins. And then here's what I did the other day on the couch. Cause actually I was being so lazy.

I took screenshots on my phone of our recent podcast, right? So I was taking screenshots, just editing on my phone. And then we have some presets that we do use for idea pins that actually my social media director had sent to me. I saved them on my phone, saved them to Pinterest. I literally went through and did the first idea pin was the cover image. The second one was the blank one that was like a template. And then I added text third one, the same thing. And then at the end, it was like a call to action. I think it got like, I don't know. I'm not going

to guess, but it was a lot of impressions and saves and clicks right away. And I created it in 10 minutes on the couch, actually just thinking, let's see if this works. Well, let me back up. Actually why I created it was because I wanted to force myself not to be lazy anymore and have somebody else create it for me, which is very easy for me to do because I'm a natural delegator to just never have to work in my life. So I was like, I need to do this, especially Tabby, my social media manager. I got to get in with her and just do it. It took me 15 minutes.

So in that sense, you can have these presets in there that go in there, but you do want to create on mobile, especially with affiliate link tagging and product link tagging. So that's something new that Pinterest added back in October is the ability to do affiliate link tagging. You can link Amazon. There's lots of rumbling in the industry if that's okay or not, but it was definitely announced at the Creators Festival that it was okay. So there's that as an option too. So

then you use a sticker, you can tag in there. That's why it's important to play around. So we haven't seen a difference between templates versus no templates, but we do think there's a lot of limits with creating on desktop. Get off your desktop, get onto your phone because most of your users aren't on the desktop and then it limits you to what you can do. I forgot about this. I do want to share this for bloggers because I think it's important. On Pinterest, you will go to your profile and you'll see something called creator hub, a big red button. They are now creating opportunities for bloggers and content creators to earn money. So when you click on that, you'll see at the top,

I believe it's hub and then earn. I do not have earned because I am business to business and there's not a whole lot of opportunities, but you'll see hub and earn and then tools. Click on earn. It'll show ways that you could potentially create idea pins because obviously they want more idea pins. And then they're paying people to create these particular idea pins. I haven't had a chance to walk through it, obviously, because I don't have it yet. We do have some clients that have it, but we highly encourage you to explore those two opportunities because they're new ways to monetize your blog with the

affiliate link tagging with idea pins and then the opportunity under the creator hub to earn. So just look for those two things. Because Pinterest is going more in that direction, correct? More like on-board posts and things on the platform. Yeah. They're definitely... It's kind of like they're going a little bit YouTube model too as well and monetizing. I know eventually there's a creator monetization program that's coming down the pike too as well, as well as brand sponsorship. So bloggers have media brand sponsorships in their future. That is also going to be something that Pinterest wants to explore down the line as well.

And if you do start to work with brands doing sponsored content, put Pinterest in there. Say, I will do an idea pin or I will do a static pin. And then you can tag them too on there. It's another way to like increase maybe what you can ask for in your media kit. Good ideas. So do you think that somebody needs to be active on Pinterest every single day,

whether it's an idea pin, a static pin, do you think that that's important? Like we, you mentioned earlier using Tailwind. So Tailwind is a scheduling tool that you can schedule out your static pins and kind of, you know, filter them out to go at what they call optimized times throughout the week. And you can schedule those out, you know, for a while by using Tailwind. But do you think that there's a difference in using scheduling tool versus just what we would call live pinning? And that means, you know, just getting on the platform. Let's say you set a timer for 15 minutes and just live pin. Do you think that there's a benefit to one over the other?

Yeah. No, never. We've tried it. We've tested it so many times. I've tried to prove myself wrong. Nope. You can do scheduling or you can do live. I don't recommend, I recommend that something is going onto the platform every day, but you don't necessarily have to spend as much time. Like we've done time analysis. You can spend about six hours a month on Pinterest, whereas you're spending 15 hours a month on Instagram, right? So still the time value is much less. We say one to three idea pins a week is really optimal. Some people might want to do one a day, but we don't recommend that, especially if you're new, because that's a great pathway to burnout. So one to three idea pins a week, we do recommend at least one to three of your static pins going out per day.

But again, if you're new and you don't have that yet, that's okay too as well. But consistency is important so that the algorithm can start to understand what your keywords are in the pins. And then I would recommend, obviously since you're gonna be doing one to three idea pins per week,

you are gonna have to open up the app and look at it. And then check would recommend, you know, obviously, since you're going to be doing one to three idea pins per week, you are going to have to open up the app and look at it and then check out the analytics have gotten better on Pinterest. So definitely look at the performance of what it is you're putting on there. That's where you also want to spend maybe about an hour a month looking at how did everything do? What did people click on and what seems to get the most engagement? Okay. So when a blogger goes on the platform and whether they're live pinning or whether they're scheduling it, should they just be pinning their content or should they be pinning other people's content

that is similar to their own? Is there a benefit to having other people's content on your feed or not? There's no benefit besides if you want's content on your feed or not? There's no benefit besides if you want to be a nice person, right? Like that's pretty much it. A long time ago, there was a belief that if you pinned other people's stuff, that would increase your engagement and increase your reciprocity and Pinterest would think you're awesome. But that's not how it works. People who look at pins, they don't really know who originally pinned the pinned, whereas they did before. So we tell people, if you want to do reciprocity with people in your community that you support, do it for that reason. But there's really no like algorithmic reason for doing it. is people will join communities or they'll join Facebook share threads. And people don't pin your stuff to relevant boards.

They pin your stuff to a crap board or a secret board. That's not reciprocity. That's just checking a box. So when it comes to pinning other people's stuff, only do it if you feel like it benefits. Or even for me, I'll pin other people's stuff about Pinterest marketing because I support their business. I think what they're teaching is really sound, solid business stuff. And so

I'll pin it to my boards because I think they're great, you know, but that's, that's pretty much it. And along the same lines, is it possible to pin something too much? So if you are only pinning your own content, you decide that's the most beneficial and you want to create multiple pins. Can you pin your own content too often? Yeah, we tell people that if you're pinning things, the same stuff all day, then that's too much. But it's okay if you want to take a post and let's say you could pin it to 10 different boards. We drip that out about a week apart. If it's close to an event or a holiday, we might shorten it and get it closer together. But a lot of people have a fear of pinning too much because of being marked as spam. Because there has been a lot of cases where Pinterest will mark you as spam. And it's an accident.

Almost 99% of the time, you got caught in a spam filter. And in fact, this summer, they had a really huge debacle where they pretty much marked everybody on the platform as spam, which was a mess, right? So with that, we just tell people, think about the user experience. Somebody coming onto your profile sees what you have pinned first. So it used to default to boards. So I would just see what all your boards were, but now I can see everything in chronological order that you've pinned. So we'll go on to people like even the middle of a consult. And we're like, hey, let's look at your profile.

And it's like 30 of the same pin. It's like, pump the brakes. Like, this is not a good user experience. I want to come onto your profile and see a diversified amount of content that you're pinning. Do idea pins go in that sequence? They do. Okay. So as your- In fact, they go,

they default. Yeah. To the top there. There's not, yeah, there's not a idea static. It's all idea pins first. That's right. Yeah. I have created a few really, if you know how to create an Instagram story, that's about as easy as it is to create totally an idea pin. It is not hard. That's about as easy as it is to create an idea pen. It is not hard. I kept hearing about them and they felt just scary. But one day we were, Jennifer and I were talking and I was like, I just got to do it. Like, I just have to figure this out and do it.

And it's one of those things that when you finally just do it, you're like, that was not that hard. I did that way harder in my brain. Yep. And I just needed to be quiet and quit being a baby about it and just do it. Yep. That's how I felt on the couch the other day. Yeah. Yeah. So kind of wrapping this up, is there any last thing that you think would be really beneficial to new bloggers or, you know, people who have just been blogging for a year or two, what, what information do you think is the most important for them? Any, any last thoughts you'd like to share? Yeah, I would say the most

important thing is to be grounded in that why you're using it. Like that is what we see time and time again is just people falling prey to other people's, you know, strategies or, or whatever it is. And I find that the most successful people on Pinterest have kind of these few things in common. One, they know why they do it. And then number two, they're very clear on their metrics that show how they're doing. And then number three, they're play the long game.

They'll just ignore those hysterical like feelings because they're like, I know I'm using it. And yes, traffic has dropped like that. That's not a secret. That's not anything I would ever diminish for people who have been on Pinterest for a long time, but it's still a higher traffic driver next to Google than Instagram or Facebook or any of the other ones. Like people don't move off TikTok. So yeah, it can drive a lot of traffic on the platform, but people aren't coming from TikTok to your website. Like, so I think that's an important distinguisher is you see it like you see Google, you invest in SEO because it is a long game. You're like, yeah, it's Google. It's kind of

the same with Pinterest. Like it's a search bar, you know,, yeah, it's Google. It's kind of the same with Pinterest. Like it's a search bar. You know, it's where people go to look for ideas. Excellent tips. Thank you so much. Yes, you're so welcome. I really just appreciate you. You just always have a very simple way. Hence the name.

Now I know why you named your business that. But if you will just take a few minutes, Hence the name. Now I know why you named your business that. But if you will just take a few minutes, tell our listeners where they can connect with you. We will put the pin templates in the show notes. And also we'd like to put links to your communities that you have available in the show notes. If you just want to tell them how they can connect with you, Kate. Yeah. I think the number one thing is we actually do have a link to a quiz where you can figure out what level you're at. So instead of you trying to navigate through all that we have, which

we have a huge Pinterest library, a podcast, the Simple Pin podcast, blog posts, resources, just start with the quiz and we can get you guys a link for that too as well. Go through it and that's going to guide you as to where you're going to go and where to start consuming content. And we've really thought that through over the years of people saying like, man, I wish there was just a roadmap or a path. We've created that finally. So it'll lead you down the pathways to where you need to go. Awesome. Thank you so much, Kate. Yeah. You're so welcome. Yeah. Thank you. I've learned a lot today. I really appreciate your time.

Yay. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at Spark Media Concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp.

The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.