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Work Less, Earn More is the podcast that explores how to get the most out of every hour you work. Gillian Perkins brings more than a decade of experience as an entrepreneur and educator to help you design a business that's not only flexible and fulfilling, but highly profitable. She shares strategies that are working in her own business to save time and maximize profits. She also features interviews with successful business owners on how they’re achieving big things in their businesses with crazy-little time investment. Share Work Less, Earn More with an overworked entrepreneur you know who could use a change of pace!
Gillian:
[0:00] Hey friends, you're listening to Work Less, Earn More. I'm your host, Gillian Perkins, and today we're diving into a platform that there's a bit of uncertainty about right now, but it's still delivering some serious results for content creators, coaches, and service providers. So I'm excited that we're talking about it. And the platform on my mind here is Pinterest. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about what's actually working right now in 2025. Joining me is Heather Farris, a Pinterest marketing expert who's been in the game for over eight years. Heather has managed client accounts, including mine, through all the algorithm shifts and platform pivots, and she's built a membership where she helps entrepreneurs turn Pinterest into a steady stream of traffic and sales. She also happens to be one of the most down-to-earth practical marketers I know, and she has a real gift for keeping things simple. In this episode, Heather's going to be sharing what's working on Pinterest today, what kinds of pins are actually performing best, and the easiest Pinterest strategy that she recommends if you are short on time, but still want to see results. So if you've been wondering if Pinterest still works to generate traffic and leads, or if you know you're interested in this marketing channel, but you've felt like Pinterest was just a little too complicated or time consuming to get started with, then this one's for you.
[1:14]
[intro bumper]
We became entrepreneurs because more than anything, we want freedom. We want to be in control of our own schedule, income, and life. But unfortunately, that isn't always the reality of being a business owner. I'm Gillian Perkins, and I'm on a mission to take back entrepreneurship for what it's supposed to be.
In every episode, I'll share with you how to get the most out of every hour you work so that you can work less and earn more. Let's get to it.
[/intro bumper]
Gillian:
[1:51] Hey there, Heather. Welcome to Work Less, Earn More. It's great to have you here today.
Heather:
[1:54] That was such a great intro, Gillian. Thank you so much.
Gillian:
[1:57] For sure. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to get into this topic. I've got questions about Pinterest right now. So let's kind of start with the elephant in the room. Okay. Anybody who's logged on to Pinterest in the last year or so has noticed how AI has kind of taken over the platform. It seems like Pinterest has just kind of been flooded with a whole lot of AI pins. I first noticed this on this isn't something I look at a lot. But over the years, I've looked at hairstyle pins a fair amount off and on, right? And I started noticing there was something off with these hairstyles. I was like, this braid doesn't make sense. There are too many strands in this braid. They're coming from parts of her head that don't make any sense. What's going on here? And that was the first little thing that clued me in, along with all the like, so perfect airbrushed faces, you know what I'm talking about. And that's just made me suspicious of everything I see, not just on Pinterest, on the whole internet, right? Who am I kidding?
Gillian:
[2:52] So tell me all your thoughts about how AI is affecting Pinterest. Is Pinterest still working for business owners, for marketers with all this AI content on there? But how is the AI content affecting it, even if it is still working?
Heather:
[3:05] Okay, so that is the biggest elephant in the room. And I truly hate all the AI images. I do not advocate or use AI in any of the images I create for myself, my clients. I don't teach it in a membership. We can get around to how I use AI with Pinterest. In this conversation. I'm super happy to do that, but it's not with images. And here are my general thoughts. Number one, I do not think they have a place on any sort of marketing platform where you are actually leading someone to the other side where they're expecting like a hairstyle, a recipe, a DIY project. So like, if you didn't make it, why are you making AI pins to justify what you are putting on the other side? Now, if you're curating these for yourself because you like making AI images, can you just put that in the description? Like,
Gillian:
[3:54] Right. It's like the definition of false advertising, right? It's like advertising something that literally doesn't even exist.
Heather:
[4:00] Yes. And so there's a problem with this. And we have made our thoughts known as creators in the Pinterest educator program. We've made our thoughts known there and they've introduced AI labels. And those are really starting to take hold on all of these AI images. Now, one of the problems with this are there are creators who are backdooring AI images, trying to strip them of their AI metadata to sneak them past. You'll always have creators like that. There's a pretty big creator on YouTube that's actually teaching people how to create AI recipe blogs and flooding Pinterest with these pins, which is just like...
Gillian:
[4:37] This was like a terrible idea.
Heather:
[4:40] The bane of my existence. So like we're fighting back against all of this. And step number one was us getting labels. Now I'm currently advocating for filters. So account-based filters. So we can tell Pinterest as an account owner, I don't actually want to see AI content at all. So if it has the label, if it's any sort of generative AI imagery, that's what I'm personally advocating for.
Gillian:
[5:04] So when you're talking about these labels, are they labels that Pinterest is applying to the images? Like it's trying to identify what is AI and then tag them? Or the creators are supposed to put the tags on if it is AI?
Heather:
[5:19] No, it's forced on the image by Pinterest. So that metadata is still on the image, which most creators don't know how to remove it. I don't even know how to remove it, Julian. Like, how do you even do that? I don't even know. So it's forced onto the images by Pinterest. So we're starting to see that in all major spaces now.
Gillian:
[5:35] Well, that's good to know. It reminds me of a conversation my husband and I had several months ago, I don't know, maybe a year ago when we started seeing these AI images pop up. And he was like, there's always a tell. You know, like basically AI can always tell if it was an AI image. And I immediately just told him like three ways I could think of to get around. And I'm like, I don't even want to say them in content. You know what I mean? I don't want to give people ideas for how to get around it. But I'm like, I hope it works. Like, I hope that they can be tagged. And I'm not against AI in general. I think it's a really interesting technology. And just like any technology, like it can be used for good or it can be used for evil. And we today are seeing it being used for good and for evil. It certainly right now, at least, is making the world a more complicated place. Yes. like a place that we're not sure how to navigate, a place that, you know, we don't know what is coming down the road because of it. And I think that that's, you know, always the case, like I said, with any new technology. It's just a little bit more obvious this time and it's certainly like a bigger shift than normal.
Gillian:
[6:38] Anyhow, let's get back to Pinterest and how it's actually affecting Pinterest. So thanks for telling us about the tags. How are you seeing it actually affect like your ability to rank clients' pins, to get clients' traffic, that sort of thing?
Heather:
[6:49] So one of the biggest faces that's been impacted, and we are seeing negative impact because of this, and we have some new updates to the algorithm that are going right along with the AI labels and AI content. So we'll get to that in a second, I promise. But in the food space specifically, we are seeing some drops because of all the AI content in the food space specifically. So we're combating that currently, we are shifting and navigating around, making sure the client content, student content gets ranked. Now, one way that Pinterest has just, in this month, like in April of 2025, introduced an algorithm update to try and combat this. And they hadn't said specifically it's AI, so I can't say that either. But they are saying that it's for quality of content. So they've introduced a new bot that will scan websites the same way that Google does. And they make sure that the content on the page matches the content of the pin. And if they don't match, they hide the visit site button in a menu. So it's actually harder for users to leave the site from that pin. So the pin will still be there. We'll still see it. It makes it hard for people to scam the system and like generate ad dollars for fake food recipe sites.
Gillian:
[8:00] Sure. Yeah. So it's kind of like lowering the incentive for people to do that. It's not directly helping the user problem because personally, I find it like frustrating when I can't easily find the site button. You know, if I click on a pin, it's normally because I want to go visit the site. So I'm like, where's that button? So it's kind of frustrating. But I see how that, like I said, like it will reduce the incentive for people to be posting that sort of content.
Heather:
[8:22] So they're also introducing some other factors into that formula. They don't tell us exactly what they are, just like any other platform, but it's almost like a quality ranking system. Is the quality of the domain good? Does it match? Is the content match? Are we doing bait and switch here? If all those things like little X's in the boxes instead of green check marks, they're like de-incentivizing those in there.
Gillian:
[8:44] Okay, let me say this back to you. So are you saying that they are using basically like domain quality sort of ratings or domain rating? So like the quality of the website as a factor for how the pin will rank on Pinterest?
Heather:
[9:01] On an individual content basis. That's how I understand it.
Gillian:
[9:05] So that seems like a great idea.
Heather:
[9:07] Yeah. Someone lands on a fake pin on Pinterest that's a bruschetta or whatever, and they try to go to the website and it's really bad AI content or it's not actually bruschetta than Pinterest, just like de-incentivizing that chain to be placed in the feed.
Gillian:
[9:21] Yeah. So basically becoming a little bit more like Google, where on Google, we search for something and then you click on a result that looks like the right thing. You go to that website. And then if you don't stick around there, if you just click off the page right away, then that sends Google a signal. Oh, people, that wasn't really what the person was looking for or the quality was bad or something like that. Yeah. So obviously, Pinterest is a search engine. So it makes a lot of sense that it could behave that way.
Heather:
[9:45] Yeah. And they've always had the... Like if someone clicks to your website and leaves immediately kind of ranking with the domain being claimed and such. You've always had that. And Google is the same way. If you click on something and then leave immediately, they know you're just not satisfied.
Gillian:
[10:00] Yeah. Well, it seems like in the really early days of Pinterest, it was based mostly just on like how many likes a pin got and things like that to rank them. In the search results. So I'm glad to hear that they're paying more attention to the fact that people are using a search engine and using it to like find websites to visit and the signals that they're getting from that. That kind of gives hope to people who have good, actually good quality content on their websites, even if maybe the image of their, I don't know why this is the dessert I'm picturing, but I'm picturing like a cake with like whipped cream and blueberries on it. I don't know why, but maybe I saw like an AI image of this. And I was just thinking about how somebody who just like takes a picture of the thing they make, it would be so hard for them to compete with like a glorious AI image of a dessert like that. Exactly. And so how would they compete on Pinterest? How would they get their pin to rank? But if Pinterest is taking into account the user's end result as they navigate to the website and how they respond to that website, then it gives the creator who really made the blueberry cake a chance to potentially still get seen.
Heather:
[11:03] So as this develops, We'll see more. We'll hear more. I'm hoping it goes in the direction that I'm really wanting it to go, which is DNS and devising AI content, but we'll see if that happens.
Gillian:
[11:14] So considering everything that's going on with AI right now and how it is affecting Pinterest, what are you recommending to your clients and students in terms of strategy adjustments?
Heather:
[11:26] Yeah, so my biggest thing with Pinterest strategy, and you don't even need to take a course to do this, is just to find your keywords that you want to rank for on Pinterest and use them consistently. Because we don't have keyword cannibalization on Pinterest. You don't have to worry about Pinterest not knowing what to rank. So let's just consistently use our keywords and then pin your old blog posts and your products and your email list offers. Don't just like pin free blog posts or free lead net, like do all of it, full funnel, everything, features even. I pin all the podcasts that I'm featured on. I make pins for them and link them to podcast players or if there's a show notes on the podcast creator's website then I link to those show notes and so any of those media features anything that you create on your website bring all of that in and just use a really solid keyword foundation now the other side of that was your board strategy with too many people just way over complicate board strategy or they don't focus on it at all like it's
Heather:
[12:24] Really underwhelming. So it's one side or the other of the coin. There's nothing there. They have like real and generic boards, like eats, travel. It's just like really generic. I want you to use keywords for your boards. They're really well thought out. And actually people are searching for on Pinterest. So start with your board strategy, figure out what the boards should be related to your content. What are all the different ways that someone is searching for how to start a podcast and then make boards on those topics and pin the pins to those boards that are most appropriate, continuing to use your keywords consistently.
Heather:
[12:56] Volume does seem to be something that is becoming more of a focus these days. So it became less of a focus about three, four years ago. We didn't have to pin as much to get the same amount of reach. So that seems to be kind of inching back up. So if you can pin four to five times a day instead of one time a day, you're definitely gonna see growth faster. But if you can still only pin one time a day, then I would rather you pin once than none.
Gillian:
[13:21] Okay, okay. Okay. Let's pause there because I've got several questions now. So first of all, just an observation. It sounds like it's almost like business as usual. Ignore the AI. Really? Yeah. Okay. Is there anything specific that you would recommend people do to take like the AI into account or to navigate the way that AI is impacting things? Or should they really just kind of keep their head down with these basics?
Heather:
[13:45] I would keep your head down with the basics, but you could definitely search for your main keywords. So if you're making like a blueberry compote or whatever. Go search that on Pinterest. See what images are coming up first. What are the formats? What are the colors? What keywords are they using? And use that information to inform your own keyword research strategy, your own image design strategy. Try to stay on brand for yourself. Pinterest best practice and stuff like this is to stay on brand so you're recognizable across pins. Use video. A lot of AI creators, because they're creating content in mass, are only using images and they're not really using video. So if you can use video, that's normally something that is and should be used.
Gillian:
[14:25] What like links and formats of videos are performing best on Pinterest these days?
Heather:
[14:30] There's a variety. So pretty much anything informational or how-to or quick tip. Those are kind of the same style of video. Step-by-step videos like food, hands and pans style videos or quick tips like how to style this black dress five ways. A really quick tip, fast, actionable. Storytelling is even very compelling if done correctly. So like 60 seconds to a minute and a half, storytelling style pins, and then bring it around to an eventual like solid call to action. So if you are creating a piece of content, teaching people how to kick their hair off their skin, use your story of how you did that and then incorporate in the thing that you're selling at the end.
Gillian:
[15:14] Does it work to cross post your TikToks, reels, YouTube shorts onto Pinterest? Or does the links need to be different or anything like that?
Heather:
[15:25] So Pinterest has recently introduced in the length of the last six to nine months an integration with Instagram, where you can claim your Instagram account and you can auto post if you want. I'll give you the full strategy. You can do this two ways. You can claim the Instagram account and turn off auto publishing and then bring your content over natively. So if you're already editing it in your phone or on CapCut or whatever the new Instagram app is or wherever, I use Riverside myself. Bring that into Pinterest and then bring it into Instagram. So that's manually in two platforms or auto-publish to a secret board. What it's going to do is it's going to remove the watermark for you. It will mute the music if it's copyrighted to only Instagram because Pinterest doesn't always have the same catalog of music. So it will mute the music. So if the music is a deal breaker, then that's where I would go back to step one, which is upward natively change the music. If the music doesn't matter for the reel, then you can bring it into a secret board. Now the steps are simple. Number one, you're going to go find a solid keyword for that piece of content. So if it's a reel that you've made Gilead teaching people how to start a YouTube channel, you're going to use the keyword how to start a YouTube channel. That's like one of the main keywords for that particular thing over there. You're able to put that in title. So five steps to start a YouTube channel in 2025. That's your title. It doesn't come over with a title on Instagram. You're going to write a description. Now, this is where I do love to use some AI for Pinterest.
Heather:
[16:50] I hate writing copy, especially 500 character descriptions. Like you can ad lib it, but I just use my bot. I made and I put my keywords in the bot and tell it what I want. It writes a description. I put it in the box. Then you change the link. So instead of linking back to Instagram, you're going to link to your webinar, your course, your YouTube video, your blog post, wherever you want it to go. And then you're going to move it to a public board. So out of that secret board, put it on the public board. And that's the full strategy for how to repurpose Instagram content to Pinterest. I don't know if they're working on a TikTok integration. I do know a lot of people bring TikToks to Instagram. So if you do TikTok Instagram, then it can automatically go Instagram to Pinterest and you don't have to really do much other than optimize and move to a public board.
Gillian:
[17:35] Yeah. Okay. So a couple of questions here. Does integration go both ways? So your Instagram posts and videos automatically get published on Pinterest and vice versa or only one way? And which way is it?
Heather:
[17:46] Instagram and Pinterest. And that's it.
Gillian:
[17:48] Okay. So if I post something on Pinterest, it won't be automatically posted to Instagram. That's what I thought you were saying at first, but then I just got a little mixed up. So okay. And what would be the advantage to manually uploading to both platforms instead of just posting on Instagram and letting it auto post on Pinterest?
Heather:
[18:04] Really, the only advantage is if you are using copyrighted music from like universal music or whatever, and you still have access to that catalog and they have to mute it. And people freak out when they get the email saying, we muted your music. They think they're getting like shadow banned or something, but it's like a legal thing. They have to do it and they have to notify you. So that's really the big advantage here is to move it. Now, there could be another one, and that's just time management. So if you're not really good with managing your time of loading manually or in reverse, like logging into your Pinterest account and optimizing those reels and then moving them to a public board, it could just be a time management thing. So how do you prefer to work? What is your workflow? How much time do you have? Do you have 20 minutes a week to sit down and move your content out? I guess it also depends on how much you publish. If you're publishing three, four times a day on Instagram, That's a lot of content. Something else I didn't mention was carousels. Carousels are really big on Instagram again right now because they're getting like engagement, like fire again, apparently. Pinterest brings those carousel pages over in single pins. So if you have a 10-page carousel, they come over as 10 individual pins. You might not want that, and it might actually be more advantageous to make that a video when you download it out of Canva and upload it as a one video file to Pinterest natively.
Gillian:
[19:23] Yeah, that makes sense. And then you were talking about using a secret board on Pinterest, which is just like a private board, right? It's just a board where people can't see your pins. I can see why that would be important. Maybe if you're doing the auto... Publishing from Instagram to Pinterest because you want to go in there and add the description and the title and all of that before people are seeing it. If you're publishing manually on both platforms, do you still need to use the
Gillian:
[19:47] secret board or you can just publish straight onto a public board?
Heather:
[19:50] Straight to a public board.
Gillian:
[19:51] Okay. Well, that's very interesting. So let's go back to you were talking about frequency of publishing on Pinterest and what's working right now. And you said publishing a little bit more frequently, like four or five times a day is working better. Is that the sweet spot or would even more be better than that? Like, where do you get to a point of diminishing returns?
Heather:
[20:09] I don't have any accounts right now that are so large where we're pinning 20, 30, 40 times a day where I could tell you firsthand. Like, I have anecdotal experience. I have a lot of accounts I've been auditing lately where they are pinning sometimes even 30 pence a day. I can see the data. They're obviously getting a lot more reach as with any platform. The more you post, the more reach you're going to get. But ultimately, that's going to trickle down into the things that we care about. So conversions, meaning saves to Pinterest, outbound clicks, email signups. So, I mean, there is data to correlate. The more you publish, the more results you're going to get, the faster you're going to grow. But I personally operate on a sustainability. So what can I actually sustain consistently versus all at once and then burnout?
Gillian:
[20:55] Yeah, yeah, for sure. but in general it sounds like you're saying more is better as long as it's sustainable up to at least 20 or 30 pins and we don't know past that no past that yeah and so when you talk about pinning four or five times a day or 20 or 30 times a day what are you like what kind of content should we focus on obviously you said the videos are better we're probably not going to be publishing 20 or 30 videos a day no so are we talking about just pinning you know an image from our website, video? Like, would it be better to just do like one video than four or five pins from our website? What about pinning other people's content? Like, what should our content mix look like ideally?
Heather:
[21:38] Great question. Okay, so image pins are obviously the legacy style pin that everyone knows.
Gillian:
[21:44] And many of us still prefer.
Heather:
[21:45] Yeah, and it's the thing that I always revert back to. So in kind of your image pins, it depends on what industry you're in truly. You're a content creator and you are in a fashion space. Then you can probably do a mix of content of text on your pins and no text on your pins, as well as videos and curating other people's pins to your boards. It's not something you cover. So let's see your fashion creator. And you mostly do dresses and jewelry or whatever, but you don't talk about hats. You don't talk about shoes very often. So you could curate things around those spaces.
Heather:
[22:20] I obviously just prefer image pens to start. So always add those in when you have a video added in. Now, one thing that I do like to do is take the videos and pop them into the image templates that you normally would just have an image in there. You can do stock videos if you don't have a lot of videos of your own. So if you wanted to make like a video pin and you have an image pin template and it's like a background image and there's like big text over the front of it and the background video does not matter. It doesn't matter. It's not the point of the pin. You just want to add some movement. You can always do that. This works really well for one of my service provider clients. She's a service provider and she sells done for you templates for Canva for businesses. It's really kind of a niche account, but those work really well for her. So like moving background pins. So we take the image pins and turn them into videos. We also animate pins. That's also an option. So in Canva, animate the page to make some movement happen. So it's not a lot of extra work.
[23:19]
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[/mid-roll ad]
Gillian:
[24:26] Would you say that the video pins work better on Pinterest than the static image pins because the algorithm is programmed to promote those more or because people respond to them better, like they get more engagement?
Heather:
[24:41] I think it's the latter. People are responding to the videos. I just created really great video pin examples on my Pinterest account. Actually, if anyone wants to look at them, there's literally a board called How to Make Video Pins. And inside is a section called Great Video Pin Examples. And within that is a variety of niches of different like actual video-driven pins. These are probably reels that people brought over to Pinterest or TikTok videos, but it's anything and everything from food creation to fashion to lifestyle to DIY projects and beyond. And I think that's a really good place to just get some inspiration.
Gillian:
[25:17] So obviously where Pinterest kind of like really shines or like is really popular is with these more kind of like craft related businesses, I'll say really loosely. So food blogs, hairstyles, fashion, crafts, all sorts of things like that, right? A lot of my listeners are B2B businesses of various capacities, right? So they're service providers for businesses, they're freelancers, they're contractors, they are course creators, and they do information businesses. So they can't rely just on a pretty picture, right? There isn't really a good, pretty picture of what they're doing. And they're also looking for people who are looking for something else. How have you seen that change over the past couple of years in terms of like, does that content continue to be moderately popular on Pinterest, even though it is obviously like less popular than these other categories? And what are you seeing work well for people who do have more like information brands or B2B brands?
Heather:
[26:15] Yeah, great question. So I'm in the same space. And when I started on Pinterest in 2018, 2019 for my Heather Farris & Co. Pinterest marketing Pinterest account, which is how you found me, by the way, not popular. Like Pinterest marketing topics on Pinterest were not popular. They weren't in a trends tool. They weren't in the ads manager tool. Like you could find no volume on these keywords.
Heather:
[26:35] We now are in both places with over 5 million monthly searches in my little tiny niche of a niche. So it's growing. That's what I'm saying here is it's growing. And I'm seeing more service providers popping up on Pinterest these days. Obviously, I would love for them to continue to pop up. It is an underused platform. About 570 million monthly active users worldwide.
Heather:
[26:58] So given that, what I would suggest for any service provider listening is to start with how-to style and your informational how-to style content. Pinners are in a phase typically where they are like in their customer journey phase where there's still like awareness and or consideration. So they really are looking for like how to start a YouTube channel or how to write a sales page or how to build a Squarespace website. So they are searching for those how-to keywords. I noticed this with my own content, the how-to stock is way more popular. Any pins that I put the words how-to on outperform other pins. And then on the flip side of that, if you're not necessarily creating general how-to content, like if you can create content around the tools that you're using or teaching people to use. So if you're someone teaching people how to create systems, I would say one of your favorite tools is ClickUp. Any pins that I do system-based, tool-based content on, those pins also outperform the rest. So anything Canva, anything Chachpt, anything ClickUp, Dubsado, HoneyBook, really outpace. And I really think it comes down to the fact that the end user looking for that already knows they want it. You've made a beautiful pin. You're giving me what I want. and I can get to my ankle faster.
Gillian:
[28:13] Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. What type of pin are you seeing work well for those informational pins? Is it more where the pin itself is the tutorial, like it's an infographic almost or something like that? Or does it just have like the title of the blog post and they're going over to the blog? Or it's more of like a stock photo of somebody working and then there's just like maybe even the title of the pin or the caption of the pin or text on that image?
Heather:
[28:41] So I actually use brand photos of myself And then I use mock-ups for any digital products or freebies that I'm making pins for. So I actually make mock-ups with those pages and designs or whatever. The mock-up pins work exceedingly well. So if you are selling a HoneyBook course, then make a mock-up with the actual content, like what your actual HoneyBook course looks like on the back end. If you have brand photos, use those. If you don't have brand photos, stock photos are fine. So find a theme, find a vibe. If you need to purchase some stock photos so you're not in the same kind of resource pool as everyone else using Canva, then do that. Bring them into Canva and make your pins using those. That's what I see work the best. So anything mock-up and then the traditional text overlay pins with brand photos or stock photos.
Gillian:
[29:29] So you mentioned earlier to pin pins or pin images from throughout your funnel. So free blog posts, yes, but also landing pages for your opt-in offers and even images from your sales page and whatnot. For those of us who are especially like service providers or B2B or that sort of thing, which one would you recommend we focus on? Are you seeing Pinterest mostly work best for like driving traffic to free content or for driving opt-ins or actually for driving sales?
Heather:
[29:59] Free content and opt-ins first has been what has historically performed the best, just because the audiences are typically more in the earlier stages of their buyer journey on Pinterest. There are conversions happening though there, so make sure you are prioritizing a couple of times a week products and product funnels as well. Portfolio pages are really good for service providers, especially in the space where we're doing with design work. I have a design client right now who works primarily on Show at Squarespace and Shopify for website builds. And we drive traffic to her portfolios and those really outperform anything else we've tried.
Gillian:
[30:36] That makes sense. Okay, this is a kind of random question. Several minutes ago, you mentioned there isn't keyword cannibalization on Pinterest. And so stay focused on your keywords. Could you explain what you mean by keyword cannibalization?
Heather:
[30:50] Yeah. So let's say on your website, you're writing blog posts, and you're like me, you're teaching about Pinterest marketing strategy. If you use the same keyword across multiple different blog posts, Google's not going to know what to do with all of those blog posts you're trying to rank. So ideally, you're not cannibalizing your keywords in your website. That's not the case on Pinterest. So if you have a set of brand keywords that you want to rank for all the time and your content generally follows those themes. So for me, it's Pinterest marketing, organic, Pinterest marketing paid, graphic design for Pinterest, and then automation for Pinterest. I have a list of keywords for each of those that I call brand keywords. I want to rank for them no matter what. They match the topic at hand. Every single time I make a pin about it, it's relevant. I use those keywords so often that Pinterest has no choice but to rank multiple variations of those pins in those search results.
Gillian:
[31:40] Sure. That makes sense. Thanks for explaining that. Okay. So one thing I definitely wanted to talk to you about today is basically a simple yet effective Pinterest strategy. Like, if somebody doesn't have much time, what is the minimal amount of time that they could invest into Pinterest marketing and still expect to see, like, I'll just say results. Not even necessarily good results. But, you know, when you put like... The tiniest bit of time into something a lot of time you don't see any results you have to put a certain amount of time in before you start seeing results at all and then oftentimes there's kind of this zone where like the more time you put in the bigger and better result you see and then you get to points of diminishing returns so what's kind of the minimum amount of time you would say someone needs to put in to actually start seeing like substantial results of some sort i.
Heather:
[32:25] Would say beginners to pinterest who don't really know how to find keywords you're not really well versed in making images quickly for your pins,
Heather:
[32:34] Probably 90 minutes a week to two hours to start. Now, once you have this workflow down, you'll get faster and you can get it down to about an hour a week, which is what I spend. And I've been doing it about nine years. Now, a strategy that I would tell you to employ kind of the workflow or the system on the back end is number one, I want you to organize all of your Canva account, not all of it, but like at least the Pinterest part, so you can quickly make your pins. So I want you to create templates. If you can create between 20 to 40 templates and have like a template pack with their preset, with fonts, with colors, with your logos, placed how you want them to be placed and do a variety. So if we're talking about service providers, coaches, course creators right now, you need a variety of mock-ups. So iPad, iPhone, computer mock-up style pins, but you also need pins with just like frames and text top and bottom, bottom and top, kind of mix it around. I also want you to toss in some template that are just plain background colors with text on them because I have noticed those working well lately as well. So I have 20 to 40 like preset templates that are ready to go. So you can quite literally just plug and play in just in text. Now the workflow is simple. I want you to, once you have the Canva part set up, I want you to also create a spreadsheet and I want you to drop all of your content and funnel links and product links in a sheet. Now, if you get to the point to where you have like 100 links in that one sheet, I want you to break them into three sheets.
Heather:
[34:03] I mean, if you're Evergreen, which most coaching service providers are, you're going to just rotate through those. So focus on one sheet for one month, find keywords, write copy,
Heather:
[34:14] Make pens, publish that sheet, and then go to the next sheet the next month, the next sheet the next month. Now make sure your sheet is equal. It has freebies and products as well as free content for each. And then as you start adding new content in that you want to promote, so if you add a new funnel, add it to one sheet, Just make sure you're mixing and matching those up so one sheet doesn't get heavier than the next. That's what I do for all of our clients. That's the system I run. A commonly asked question, Gillian, that you might not ask or maybe haven't thought of is, I bet you have because you're a smart cookie. How often can we pin the same URL? How many pins can we make to the same URL? I don't really care. Just try not to do more than five in a day and make individual images each time. So if it's one URL, make five images. And then I like to actually spread those out over a month instead. So, you know, one a week instead of five in a row, five days a week.
Gillian:
[35:09] So let me say this back to you to make sure I understand what you're describing here. So basically, you're saying that every month you should go through all of the different URLs, basically the piece of content on your website that you want to be promoting. And you should be doing the research to decide, you know, what keywords you're going to rank them for and what titles you're going to put on the pins and actually creating the pins and then posting the pins. And then next month you'll do the same thing for all the urls again unless you have a lot of urls then you'll break it up and rotate through them like one batch one month one batch another month one batch another month and then go back to the beginning and so when you're talking about like that work that you're doing in one month you're working on this batch of urls are you saying that you want to create one new pin and pin that pin in a month or that you would be doing multiple, images, multiple pins for each piece of content in that month.
Heather:
[36:02] So inside of the client content I do, I always do more than one image per URL. That's what our clients are paying us to do, though. If you don't have time to do that, start with one. If you do have time to do that, then maybe do four and do one a week. That's easy for people to correlate in their mind and make more content. Now, you can reuse the same title and description all four times and just do a new image. And that will get you to an end result a lot faster.
Gillian:
[36:29] Is that what you would recommend? Do you think that's better than doing different captions?
Heather:
[36:33] So I will use the same description often and I will swap the titles. If someone's paying me to do their strategy, I'm obviously putting as much effort and time into making sure that it's the best that it can be. But when it comes to my own, I'm definitely reusing a lot of copy.
Gillian:
[36:50] Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. So it sounds like step one is identify the keywords that you want to go after and make a list of the URLs that you want to promote. And then step two is on at least a monthly basis, but probably it makes more sense to break it into like a weekly basis. You are going through and you are making pins for those pieces of content and then posting them. And then you're kind of rotating through like one batch of your content each month. Is that right?
Heather:
[37:16] Yeah.
Gillian:
[37:16] That sounds really simple, really doable.
Heather:
[37:19] It really is. And honestly, it's the most redundant and repetitive marketing strategy you're going to employ and it's going to feel boring. So what I like to do is set my iPad up and turn on a movie or a show. Like right now I'm binging Virgin River. That's what I'm binging. And so I know when I sit down and it's time to either research keywords or do design work, my brain switches into work mode when I either light a candle or turn on some music or like... So set yourself up for that. So whatever you do that makes you productive, do that thing while doing Pinterest. You don't have to turn on a camera. You don't need to do your makeup. You don't have to comb your hair. You don't even need to get out of your pajamas to do your Pinterest marketing.
Heather:
[38:00] That's why I love it so much. It is boring. It is repetitive. But it works if you do it consistently and over time.
Gillian:
[38:07] Okay, I've got just a couple tiny follow-up questions about this so that the listeners like really are set up for success because you made this so easy, right? So I feel like they can just jump in and start doing it and start getting results. One thing I want to ask you about is other people's pins. We used to repin other people's pins on our boards. Should we be doing that? Or should we just focus on pinning our own content?
Heather:
[38:28] You know, Pinterest just came out with a new update for board strategy in March of this year. And they actually brought us back. Share rating other people's pins. If you have boards where you are not creating on that topic, at least, share rate other people's pins. You don't have to do it. I haven't been doing it probably in five years. And I've still seen success from itself and clients. I've started creating some more boards though that I think might be good for my brands because Pinterest does work on an engagement algorithm basis so if someone engages with some of the pins that you've saved I'm just going to then show them more of your content or more pins that you've saved including your own so if you want to curate some content you can do that it's not something you need to do or prioritize if you don't have time
Gillian:
[39:10] Okay sure and I guess my final question on this would be, what about tools that people might want to use or software? Is there anything that people can do aside from, I know you mentioned using
Gillian:
[39:21] something like ChatGP to help write those descriptions for the pins. Definitely doing that. But we used to use like some auto posting, auto pinning softwares, things like that. What's the name of the game today?
Heather:
[39:34] Save yourself for money. Just use the native Pinterest scheduler. I've even taken it a step further and start using the CSV file scheduling method. There's a bulk creation method where like bulk schedule up to 200 pins at a time for you.
Gillian:
[39:47] That's native with Pinterest?
Heather:
[39:49] Native with Pinterest. Wow. Save yourself some money. Schedule right inside the platform. You can add tags. You can tag products while you're scheduling your pins if you have products to sell. I have a Shopify store where I sell one-off digital products that are also in the membership. So I will make pins for that store and tag the products as I'm scheduling them. You can schedule videos you can schedule image pins you can make carousels you can do it all right inside of pinterest and you can schedule up to 30 days in advance so you don't really need any paid tools save your money invest it somewhere else for sure
Gillian:
[40:20] Well, Heather, thank you so much for breaking this down and making it just like so simple. So no fluff. I love that. If the listeners maybe think, you know, this sounds great. It sounds like it would work really well for my brand. But I don't have a couple hours a week to invest in this or that sounds really boring. And they want some help. I know that that is exactly what you do. So can you tell us a little bit about the services that you offer and how people can connect with you to learn more about those?
Heather:
[40:48] Of course. So I offer organic Pinterest management where we do everything A to Z for you. I have some clients that still prefer to make their own images. So if that's the case, you just have to let me know. We'll work that out. Otherwise, we do all the keyword research. We do all the image creation. You can review them, say yes, say no. We publish, do all the publishing for you. So that's, you know, one option. I also do strategy edits. So if someone's been doing Pinterest for themselves for quite a while, I can audit what you're doing, give you suggestions and strategy to make it better, fill some gaps. We do build VIP months where we'll set it up. We'll notate it for you. So if you are like a course creator, coach, you're busy like Gillian and you don't have time, then assign a team member to do it. We'll do all of your strategy, all your setup, and we'll plug them into a completely customized course just for the business owner. So I'll take you up on options to work with me. And then I also have the memberships if you just want to plug a team member
Heather:
[41:43] into it and let them do it, or you want to plug yourself into it and do it yourself.
Gillian:
[41:47] Perfect. And where can people find all those resources?
Heather:
[41:49] Just heatherfarris.com.
Gillian:
[41:51] Okay, perfect. Well, we will definitely link that in the show notes for this episode. And again, thank you so much, Heather. This was awesome.
Heather:
[41:59] Thanks for having me, Gillian.
[42:01]
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That's it for today's episode. But before you go, I want to remind you about the Start Scale Succeed virtual conference happening October 21st to the 23rd. It's a completely free three-day online event designed to help you grow your digital business with practical, actionable strategies. You'll hear from more than 15 inspiring speakers and get a chance to learn, connect, and take your business to the next level, all without leaving your home. Don't miss it. Grab your ticket today at gillianperkins.com/sss-register. Again, that's gillianperkins.com/sss-register. I can't wait to see you there.
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[42:40]
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Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Work Less, Earn More. Now, here's what I want you to do next. Take a screenshot of this episode you're listening to right now and share it out on your Instagram stories. And when you do, make sure you tag me at gillianzperkins so I can see you're listening. Sharing on stories is going to help more people find this podcast so they too can learn how to build their business in a way that allows them to work less and earn more and if you really love the show head over to apple podcasts right now and leave work less earn more a review to give it a boost and help even more people find it okay let's wrap this up i'm gillian perkins and until next week stay focused and take action.
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