013. How to Market Your Business on Pinterest with Serena Waller

Episode Transcript

013. How to Market Your Business on Pinterest with Serena Waller

[0:58] Hey Serena, thank you so much for joining me today. I am so excited to talk to you about all things Pinterest so I'm really glad that you're here.

[1:07] Me too well I would love to just introduce you to my audience and just let you tell us in your own words who you are and what do you do absolutely so. Hi everyone I am Serena Waller and I am the owner of delegate and and we are a social media marketing agency that works a lot with female entrepreneurs and very heavily in the wedding industry as well and I started the business about six years ago now because I identified that as business owners we do all of the things and we don't need to be doing all of the things yep and Pinterest just kind of grabbed my eye very early on as something that I wanted to be able to help people with and now I help people with Instagram Pinterest blogging all the social media things to get it off your plate so that you can focus on your actual business. Pass I was saying this earlier before we started recording you are like my go-to I love following you on Instagram and just all social media because you always have the latest and greatest tips if nothing else everyone should be following you because you just always have like so much information I'm like where does she get all of this so you're a great person to follow for all things social and especially Pinterest I'm really excited to talk about so.

[2:27] With that I'm wondering if you can just talk a little bit about what makes Pinterest different or unique compared to platforms like Facebook or Instagram. You know it's Pinterest social media like all of these other platforms or should it is it really different like what's the deal with Pinterest yeah so I think that thing that a lot of people assume about Pinterest is that it is a social media platform but that is definitely not true Pinterest is a search. Form so it is definitely a super important marketing strategy if search engine optimization or search as in general is important to you you're going to have a much wider reach.

[3:05] The algorithms are very different but at the end of the day it is really a strategy about increasing your search ability across okay that's super interesting so you said if you're someone who is who needs search who's using search and wants to increase searchability so who is that what kind of person would like fall into that category yeah so I think really in even in any business can truly benefit from Pinterest but the businesses that don't have a geological or geographical I should say geographical you know destination that they have to serve. They're missing the boat if they're not on Pinterest because really your reach with Pinterest can be global so that's super important and really if your if you're living in a location where you have a really strong density of people you know if you're in a major metropolitan area then Pinterest is also going to be super powerful for you as I said it can be beneficial for anybody to use Pinterest but the people who want to reach an audience outside of their current market it's going to be super powerful for them okay that's amazing so Pinterest is really all about reaching a wider group of people than who's already sitting right in front of you whether that's your local area like physically geographically or whether that's online you just want to.

[4:31] Reach more people than maybe are on your current email list or currently following you on social that's super interesting and I feel like. On most social media it's about having conversations with the people that are already there but that's not really what Pinterest is.  Pinterest is almost about like sparking interest to rhymes with people who don't follow you already it's not so much the conversation it's more about the.

[4:57] Getting them through the door does that make sense does that does that feel accurate yes absolutely you know I think that's something that then I think trips a lot of people up with Pinterest is that they feel like they have to write these super compelling captions like they have to spend all this time on Instagram writing these great captions or they have to spend all this time on blog making it personal you can strip out your personality and Pinterest which is awesome like you can just think about what do I want people to find me for like what are my keywords what's actually happening in this picture or graphic and you can be hyper descriptive so it takes out the guesswork in terms of. Like what's going to make people interested in what I have to say and more about what is it that I'm sharing and let me find all the different ways I can describe that and you don't have to fluff anything so that's a really great.

[5:46] Perk about Pinterest I mean gosh what a relief to know that what I need to reach more people I can go and use Pinterest and be released of that that need to constantly be teaching something you're constantly be like getting deep into these captions I can be a little more surface-level or a little more just like. Straight up this is what's going on rather than having to dig super deep that's amazing yeah absolutely it's not a you know it's not a platform for starting conversations at all. It's really a form for getting you exposure you know plain and simple okay that's super cool so what type of content with that should you be sharing on Pinterest what. What should we be making for not starting conversations what should we be putting out there when were using Pinterest yeah so you know one of the things about Pinterest is it's very industry-specific what people are searching for so depending on who you're trying to reach you kind of have to think.

[6:40] Twofold what is the psychology of my ideal client or customer and what are they searching for when so Pinterest has a lot of seasonality with it so you're going to see spikes of traffic. To your site during say Thanksgiving because people are searching Thanksgiving content or Christmas they're searching Christmas content so they're searching seasonally but you need to be ahead of the game buy a couple of months to pin that content so you know if you're thinking about getting Christmas traffic you need to be starting your campaigns in September or even October November at the absolute latest but whatever it is that you want to be pushing a couple of months from now so you know that's the thing that a lot of people I think.

[7:24] Confused about Pinterest is there like oh well I made this great blog post I'm going to go ahead and share that and then they're like wait a minute it didn't work and I needed that for Christmas and most people just. Too late so you know the first thing is whatever you are trying to push you have to be thinking ahead so calendar creation content creation ahead of the game is super important.

[7:46] But also really if you have a product of course you can pin it all year round it's always going to be received while products do extremely well on. If you have a service you really should be pushing your your downloads or your freebie or your opt-in or any of that kind of content that can draw people into your email list because ultimately that is one of the best metrics if you have an email list to be able to track your success in your conversions on that if you don't have an email list then you're likely just going to track your traffic and if you've got your Facebook pixel installed then you can go and do Advanced advertising to them later on down the road but anybody who wants to grow a list Pinterest is going to be super powerful anybody who has a product that they want to push Pinterest is going to be really powerful and if you have a service and your you know working with other women you know and you're doing coaching or you're trying to get calls in or something like that then that's also in a great opportunity but there are tons of men now but are using Pinterest that weren't for so that's a whole other demographic that you can tap into that you might not be tapping into on Instagram or spoke or other platforms okay that's amazing so two takeaways here so Instagram Instagram Pinterest you've got to be starting early so if you want to do something for like you said Christmas you've got to do that one to two months ahead longer three months ahead so typically speaking.

[9:14] It will take a couple of months for pins to get really good traction and that's just because of searchability and algorithms and you don't know depending on when you're painting it when it's going to kind of thicken hook into that system and be able to get that keyword so definitely I would say at least two months sometimes three is even better because you kind of have to think like most people start their Christmas shopping and I know we keep coming back to Christmas but it's a really easy yeah simple to give yes big push that last quarter but you know when you think about Christmas shopping people start Christmas shopping Black Friday so really you know if you don't have that content available and fresh and ready for them then there you're going to miss that buying window so whatever the buying window is for your product or service start at least six to eight weeks out even better if you can do 12.

[10:05] Okay okay that's that's super actionable first and foremost so anyone who's listening I hope you're writing this down because that's really actionable so if you don't have a marketing plan yet you need to get one because you got to know what you're planning to do so that you can actually get this going so the second take away that I had was that Pinterest is great for growing your list so growing your email list and so I want to throw something out there for all of our listeners who are anchor card subscribers that if they don't have lead magnet set up on their anchor card they need to get those because Pinterest is a great place to share your lead magnet so I'm curious do you think that people can successfully use Pinterest without having a Blog could they just be sending they're traffic directly to lead magnets or landing pages do they need to have blog style content what do you think about that because I feel like blogs is.

[11:01] Plots are blogs is like plugs are what I see. Almost the most unpin interest like in the maybe that's the most of what I save but do you think it's possible to be successful on Pinterest without a Blog yeah I think the reason people think you have to have a Blog with Pinterest is because it's such a heavy marketing platform for bloggers. So you know it's one of those things don't start a blog and not use Pinterest you know it's more like you can you have a Blog without Pinterest no can you have Pinterest without a Blog yes. Um so you know but you have to kind of consider the user experience so depending on what your penny. You want people to be able to find whatever that content you're talking about on the pain super easily so if it's a product then of course you can pin that individual product.

[11:47] Or you know like make sure that it links back to that individual product and it's fine if you don't I have a Blog and you're creating all these graphics and you're directing people just make sure you're really directing them where you want them to go and not just necessarily that like front page if you have that Magnet or landing page that's fantastic but make sure also if you direct them to a landing page you have whatever other page that they could go to somewhere on that landing page so you really just kind of have to think about the psychology of if they're not necessarily in a purchase place but they want to go and find out more about you that you make that information accessible frequency for Penning if you don't have a Blog is going to be different and that's really the only thing you have to consider like if you have a Blog. You could probably pain you know 3 6 10 times a day because you can create new graphics or you know make sure that there's lots of pictures especially in the wedding space like our average blogs are like 50 images so I can pin to Great month I can get you all the content that you need in a month but you know it's one of those things that you just kind of have to think about.

[12:54] What that strategy is and then kind of back up into the number of tens that's feasible if you don't have a Blog does that make sense okay yeah it does and I love what you said about depending on what content you're putting out there will sort of dictate how many pins you're actually pinning so if you have a Blog it's going to be more if you don't have a Blog it may not be as many and it's just nice to know that.

[13:17] It's not one-size-fits-all it's not you have to do this there's a golden rule that you have to stick by so do you when creating content for Pinterest should you be creating all your own content from those blogs or from those products or do you think that it makes sense to also reap in content from other people maybe somebody else's blog post or someone else's product or.

[13:38] Inspo pics that sort of thing yeah yeah so once upon a time Pinterest was all about let's pin 80% of everybody else's stuff in 20% of my own the rule is not that way anymore now it's definitely an as much of your own content in a little bit of everybody else's and you know my rule of thumb is the only benefit you're going to get from Penning other people's content is you're going to get a greater number of Impressions and you might get you know somebody might stumble upon a pin that you did that with somebody else's and then be able to follow you or find your content from that. But really you know.

[14:16] You have to think of it as if I'm pinning other people's content what's the purpose of Penning it is that am I okay with the fact that I'm just going to get impressions or in my pending other people's content because I'm trying to give my ideal client and added value so I'm going to direct them to my Pinterest page and I'm going to let them see here's my favorite recipes here's my inspiration for this here's a mood board for that you know here is this out of the other of something that you know that you haven't created but could be complementary to what it is you're doing so if you are say you know if you're selling a makeup product you might want to have a board for makeup looks like application tips you might want to have you know aboard say you're selling those makeup products obviously most of the time to women so let's just say you might want some work out tricks you might want some like time management you have to kind of think like okay I'm working with women in these are their main struggles so what content can I pin that belongs to other people that that my client is going to find valuable and then it kind of gives them that added driver to go to your Pinterest page and consume.

[15:21] Not just the stuff that you're doing but the stuff that is valuable to them so that's my main rule of thumb when it comes to pending other people's content is you may not feel like you're the expert in that and you may have no business writing about something but you know it's going to be important for your client to get at that information so then it's okay to pin somebody else's stuff okay that makes perfect sense and so this is really like a point to drive home as you've got to know who your ideal audiences when you're on Pinterest.

[15:47] Because if you if your ideal audience is say moms with a bunch of kids at home and like they're managing their families and.

[15:56] Working a job on top of it that's a very different person with very different struggles than say somebody who just graduated college and is paying off student loans while mom might be paying off student loans to but just graduated college is working on paying student loans off they've got three jobs to manage it all they're still looking for their long-term career like those two people have such different problems in their life even just you're talking about if you're not someone who has any business talking about Fitness maybe write like you're selling one thing and fitness isn't related. What you actually pin for Fitness from other people will be different because mom might have a Peloton at home but college student probably doesn't and so you've got to know not only.

[16:42] What they want from you but what's going to be relevant for your audience from other people that you're repinning from as well so if you don't know who your ideal customer is got to figure that out you've really got to get that down mhm yep and that's really with any marketing platform but definitely when it comes to Pinterest you know there are some kind of those kpis that we all talked about you know we have to really kind of identify a lot of things before we start any marketing platform but there's a lot of research that you need to do before you just jump in but it doesn't have to take you a long time it's just something that you have to be willing to do before you jump in yeah and all Point anyone who's listening who maybe doesn't have their ideal customer nailed down I'll point you in the direction of episode 1. Of this podcast because I do actually talked about.

[17:29] Figuring out who your ideal customer is and that can help you at least get started and then there's also tons of resources online that you.

[17:37] To help you narrow down who is your ideal customer so this is something that's talked about like Serena said all over the place everyone knows. When it comes to marketing got to know who you're marketing to and so this is something where if you type in a Google search how to figure out your ideal customer you're going to find information on this so don't feel like this is some big overwhelming thing that is being added to your plate because it's well talked about and there's lots of information out in the world so you can get started on this pretty quick and easy and then once you know it only serves to benefit you so with that I'm curious should your Pinterest be strictly business or can you kind of mix in personal stuff like I'm selling marketing services and marketing tools.

[18:21] If I want to pin my recipe is should I be putting my recipes or should I have a separate business account for that yeah I mean that's really up to your personal preference so my rule of thumb is generally like if you want to present this nice pretty you know kind of branded business when people pop onto your Pinterest just put all the other boards Secret you know it's not going to rain thing like if you want them to get a mix of your personality and things that you know are important to you as a person and you know just generally to your business then yeah go ahead and leave those two so rarely do people like really sit there and like dissect your boards especially if you have a ton of them because they're generally you know kind of utilizing it more is that search like here I'm going to search for this specific thing and then that particular image is going to pop up just like you would use a Google search so if you want to mix and mingle them that's fine I love the drag-and-drop feature where you can rearrange your board. I normally just put my personal boards on the bottom and let the business be on top or like I said I just put them as the secret function and then you can still access them but then your.

[19:26] Okay that's perfect that's kind of nice to know because I always thought that it was like. You absolutely have to be a strictly business and absolutely have to keep everything separate and I do keep many of my boards on secret but I feel like.

[19:39] Many of them like for my cooking boards give on secret but I feel like having some of that personality could potentially benefit your audience depending on what type of business you have if you have a business where it's sort of like you are not the face of your business and you are not. Connecting with your audience in a personal way then maybe it doesn't make as much sense but for many of our listeners here where all representing our business as us it's a personal brand even if we sell a product especially our direct sellers who are listening to this are selling a product from another company. But they're building a personal brand that stands in front of that that leads the business and so if.

[20:20] Connecting with your audience on a personal level then it might make sense to give them some of that personal side and just be aware of like what the ratio is of business too personal but still give them a taste of who you are as as a human yeah absolutely well we don't have these hard and fast rules anymore where it has to there's this strict Line in the Sand that says you know business versus you know personal once you own a business there's just so much blur that you might as well embrace it.

[20:50] Yeah right yeah seriously if you spend all your time trying to completely separates kind of like worth like work-life balance yeah but if it doesn't yeah exactly doesn't necessarily exist just finding the Rhythm in the routine that works for you and.

[21:05] Rolling with it and adjusting and kind of going with the ebb and flow as life goes on so do you think that thinking about that being really like on brand matters as much as on Pinterest so sticking with just your brand color sticking with. Just the fonts that you use on your website maybe and having that really on brand image matters or could you potentially. Use other colors other fonts and and test out different styles than what you might normally show on say your website where it's going to be really curated and specific or even Instagram where people.

[21:38] At least for years and years and years people like to have that really curated feed where everything was like picture perfect do you need to have that on Instagram or can you kind of deviate from what your branding is.

[21:51] Yeah so I mean you can deviate but I actually do recommend that you stay on brand where you can because it will give you more instant recognition as people are looking for pens so if they know these are their colors those are their fonts they're going to start to recognize that as they pain more and more content and if they do a general search and they've seen one piece of your content and then they're scrolling down there like oh I recognize that because I've seen that color palette before I liked their stuff so you know kind of think about like food drop bloggers there are a couple that I follow and they have very distinct pain Styles so when I'm scrolling through my saved pins and I can't remember the name of the recipe I will know what font to look for for that particular food blogger in my saves stuff. So you kind of have to think about it as an opportunity for you to create a cohesive look from your website to your Pinterest and expand that reach and then in Google search and the judges those things will come up so you can play with it a little bit especially like you can play with templates for example like you could have 10 different templates you use. But you're going to switch it out to your five brain colors for each of those 10 templates and then you're going to maybe switch the script font and your standard San serif or serif font and you're going to you know like interchange those every now and then and you're going to play with that so you can give yourself some guidelines but definitely I encourage you to stay on brand on those.

[23:15] Graphics sometimes you're going to pin images where they're not going to have graphics and that's okay because you need to kind of test which does better for your audience or the ones that have graphics and images in there are fantastic and they perform really well but if you can stay on brand with that that is definitely the preferred just for that cohesive. Online presentation yeah okay so staying on brand mixing.

[23:41] Graphics and images so talking about mixing graphics and images.

[23:47] I pretty much only pin Graphics right now should I be mixing in how much should I be mixing in images should I be like upping that quite a bit because I have a tendency to make a graphic or I'll whenever I release a podcast we make 25 graphics for that podcast and then those get shared like. You know throughout whatever amount of time should I be also sharing.

[24:11] Images instead of having always like a graphic that I make in canvas or something like that do you think that images are worth pinning as well because I have never it never dawned on me yeah dude images so if you can do images that's always good and here's why Pinterest when they they have this special algorithm that can recognize in image so the more often you can switch that content out the better so like if you have a Graphic do the graphic but then switch out the like keep your overlay like you know text and all that the same and then put a an image behind it and then we rinse and repeat kind of thing just to test because historically speaking people tend to gravitate towards graphics with imagery more than just a straight image or a straight graphic because you can you know kind of guide them through the call to action but you can also let them know what they can expect and then people just are drawn to that kind of image and you're going to get better search ability because Google's going to get super smart and be like oh there are people in that image and somebody just did a search. People you know so it's one of those things like you want the image to be relevant but if you can mix it up that's great because once you've pinned a pen Pinterest no longer considers that a new pen and they want new pens so if you can have those 25 that you do for you know the podcast and then.

[25:34] 25 of those with an image in the back like those are all considered new pins and obviously the work is not as intensive for you once you've created a template and you can do an easy swap so hopefully that helps kind of understand a little bit on that back end of what the algorithm. Yeah it absolutely does and it's so interesting because I think what I'm thinking about social media and even websites you want to have images that like literal pictures instead of only graphics because people really can see themselves and you can really show people you know this is who we work with so if you work with.

[26:10] Those 20-somethings who just graduated from college will that to you can feature in your images and so that's going to draw the people that see themselves like a mirror back they see themselves in the image versus mom's where you might show parents and children in your images or you might show if you're serving people who are a little bit older than we are right now maybe in there. 60s or even 70s for it. Whatever you're doing you might show someone who's in their 60s or 70s in your images and so it kind of makes sense it really makes sense that you would want to bring that same idea over to Pinterest. And sort of reflect back to people.

[26:51] This is who you are and you are who I serve therefore you are in my picture you are the type of person that I'm showing in my images so yeah that does make a lot of sense yeah and mock-ups are another great one like if you have a pop-up that you can add that's an image and you know it's kind of graphic element to so those are a really great one at for whatever your freebie is like slap a mock-up and image do you think that photos need to be like picture perfect high quality like I mean not like I'm not asking if they can be like you know the worst photo you've ever taken but do they have to be professional images or do you think that you can use like if someone's taking a photo themselves in their office and they have like a window with decent lighting.

[27:33] Can a photo like that work on Pinterest or does it really need to be those really high quality. Crisp clean images maybe from like a stock photo company or professional photo shoot or something like that you know this is going to be unpopular answer but it's a a craft and I will I will tell you one of the best performing pins one of my client has is a picture she took on her phone four years ago it's like slightly crooked like but the description was really good and it got pain like you know like 60,000 times I'm like and she probably is like oh my God Serena that's like the worst picture ever but you know it was one of those things like it was.

[28:14] Was a true representation of what you know it was it was a centerpiece so you know and I didn't have the professional pictures back yet so I just went with what would she had and it does is great it's still like paying her back in spades so you know it's one of those things like it's okay to test things out and try it just to see because you know sometimes people like the re relatability factors so depending on your client you know they may not feel like they want it perfectly Polished so give yourself a little Grace with that and again like just test it and see what happens because you just you never know you never know I feel like that's almost the answer is all things marketing it's like try it if it's terrible don't do it again if it's great do it a lot that's so interesting I feel like people are sometimes drawn not even sometimes I feel like most people are drawn to the authenticity like they just want to see a little bit of what their actual life looks like like.

[29:17] We don't always want to see that picture perfect curated feets it's okay to throw in some of the real everyday stuff and if it doesn't resonate with your audience you can watch your metrics and. If every pin you have is outperforming and this goes for anything and Pinterest Instagram or Facebook if every other post you have is outperforming that one and that one just like down at the bottom well you know that probably doesn't resonate but yeah if it's up there why not mix it in tap water off to yeah and if you feel really like drawn to making it super picture-perfect that's fine too you could experiment with video pens because video pins exist now stories pins exist is so you can actually take that less curated look and you know create a video with it or. You know create a little behind-the-scenes or something like that and then you know test it that way so there is the opportunity to use both kind of like with Instagram Stories versus the grid you know the stories is meant to be the less perfect so you can play with that and Pinterest as well and even if you only want to do video pens for a little bit like you could work on that if you feel like not tech savvy enough to get into canva or you don't want to hire somebody to help you with it or. You're like getting custom templates creative but you want to get started on it now like throw some save some of your stories and turn them into you know pins.

[30:36] Okay that's so interesting because I saw a thing on my Pinterest the other day and it was like you can pin videos and I have never done that and I had no idea what it meant and I did not look into it looks like this is one more thing that I've got enough figure out so pinning stories or rather pinning videos think I said stories before I meant to say videos.

[30:56] Are these meant to be like your stories on Instagram like short little Clips are they meant to be like reels are tick-tocks or they meant to be more like full-fledged videos like you might do a Facebook live or share a training or something like what is that really for. Yeah so you want them to be slightly longer you know you're looking for up to 15 minutes so like if you have a YouTube channel and you have some short like digestible YouTube so you could be sharing those as pens so you're not looking like really long ones but you're definitely looking for those ones that people are those micro episodes four to 15 minutes are kind of that that ideal you can certainly repurpose your tick tocks and stuff like that and you know give that a go.

[31:44] It's definitely the stuff like you see it a lot in the food world or the fashion world but food is really popular because you can show people how to make a recipe and you can generally do that in that short you know period of time or you can do lots of before and afters or a makeup application or you know like as you're picking out an outfit you can do like you know if you're doing a capsule wardrobe or something like that and you can go through what those capsules are and like you know try those on so it's really one of those things like the things that you don't have enough time to do on Instagram but you don't necessarily want to go full on into YouTube like it's kind of a little bit of your middle ground but it's definitely something that you can repurpose from other sources especially if you're like piecemealing things that you've already created together.

[32:28] Okay this is so interesting I have a million questions I'm not going to ask a million questions but I've got a few so are these supposed to do you keep them like your regular video size like like what is it 16 by nine or something or do you make them into your like normal Pinterest size which is that tall I don't know what the dimensions are off top of my head but that tall image yeah so you can do either but you know it's really funny because I feel like I just I just wrote this down because I wanted to make sure they were right so for. So it's four seconds to 15 minutes to gigabytes is the biggest they can be in a DOT mov dot m4v or dot Impe for and then as far as videos it's a standard video 1 by 1 square or 2 by 3 4 by 5 or 9 by 16 so like.

[33:20] And then Max witty. Max width is the one by one square or 16 by 9 so it's kind of all that standard video like any of them work it just depends on like if you want to embed them into another. Pain like I have a designer that I work with and all of her pens or like scrolling mock-ups within a graphic so it's a video pain but it's also a graphic pen and it works you know beautifully but she put it in that standard pen size and then we're also testing just the video size okay this is seriously so cool you know that I love content repurposing or URL know that so I am instantly thinking okay so I do my. Facebook lives in my Facebook group those I always keep them to about 10 15 minutes max because the amount of time that we all have on her hands and so then I can take those and I usually will put them on IG TV and then I'll put them on YouTube and now I can put them on Pinterest to and that is. So cool to be able to let that content live on and work so much harder for you that if you just leave it in that one original location like.

[34:24] Spread it out.

[34:25] With the information everywhere because your people who are on Facebook are not necessarily the same people on Pinterest not necessarily same people on Instagram so you can take content and like distribute it everywhere yeah people won't get tired of it yeah and pins live on a lot longer than other. Platforms right yes they are you know your Evergreen content is fantastic so cool.

[34:50] That's amazing okay so if someone were getting started with Pinterest they you know they've got a couple of pins up what metric should they go and look at to get started in like see what's working like what matters what are a couple that matter the most because when I went into the Pinterest analytics there was a lot to look at there and I was like I don't know what matters more my first guest was outbound clicks matter the most because I want to get them on my website and that's like the ultimate. Then I thought maybe saves might be the most so I really don't know can you give us some insight on that yeah and I mean this is going to sound like a very can generic answer and people like it and some people want but that's going to be a very personal decision as to how you want to track your metrics so of course.

[35:37] I would say don't use Pinterest unless the ultimate goal is to increase you know your overall visibility and people to your websites but you have to be kind of patience so in the beginning it might be about making sure that you're checking your impressions and that you're getting that overall visibility and exposure that you need. And then honing in on trying to get link clicks and conversions from there so you really kind of have to think about what's that cycle like are you at this stage in your business where you're just working to build that necessary brand awareness. So that people will then start to see you on other platforms and then all of a sudden it's going to start clicking for them and then they're you know then they move through that cycle but click saves and Impressions or kind of those top ones I mean there you can really get into the Analytics the Pinterest in its it can be super fun but sometimes you're like wait a minute that's down but that's up and you know at the end of the day. We all kind of want to sell more of our product or service right or we want more email lists or you know whatever it may be so really paying attention to those clicks is important but it is not the end-all be-all metric of it because it depends on if. Directing them to your site after they've already become customers and you're using it to nurture them or if you're just if you're using it at those beginning stages to get them in so you also kind of have to think about that so I tell people when you're diving into Pinterest like first identify.

[37:04] And get clear on what your metric that you want to measure and why you're using the platform don't use it just because you feel like it's the trendy thing to do or you've heard that everybody needs to use it like why are you trying to use it and then it makes it a lot easier for you to then create the necessary content to deliver within that and it helps you do the necessary research on you know the types of content.

[37:29] Oh my gosh that was incredibly helpful and you said that you need to know why you're using it don't just do it because like someone said you should probably do this so everyone who's listening.

[37:39] No this you do not need to use Pinterest because we're telling you to use Pinterest you need to use Pinterest because either you're getting wanting to get more leads on your email list so you're sharing your lead Magnet or you're trying to make sales or you're trying to nurture your audience but before you go and do that get in tune with who it is you're serving and what it is you want to do with Pinterest why are you using Pinterest. What is the main purpose because that it sounds like is going to really dictate what metrics actually matter so that you can pick the two or three or maybe just one to get started of what are you going to track what are you going to watch and try to. Because if you need them on your website you need those outbound clicks if you're trying to increase awareness then you need the Impressions or even saves and what you're trying to do is really going to dictate.

[38:28] What you want to track and how you're going to know if you're actually getting that result yeah and you've got to be patient with it too because depending on what kind of content you're Penning if it's something that is super timely for the moment you know it might get an uptick and then it I mean that pain might be completely irrelevant for the next 11 months or it might be something that you want to get traction you know a couple of months from now so you also have to give yourself a little bit of grace and patience to not see results right away and I normally tell people you know give it three to six months but the clients that I've been working with for say for years like I mean it is amazing the amount of traffic that they get now because of the efforts that we put in a couple of years ago so you know it's one of those things that's returning on the investment years from now and we don't have to be as aggressive yeah we don't have to be as aggressive with our strategy now because of all the work that we put in at the beginning so we still put out fresh content but you know it's one of those things it's like compound interest you know it's just keeps giving once you put the initial foundational work.

[39:30] Oh my gosh okay Pinterest is the gift that keeps on giving I feel like other platforms like when you're using social media that isn't always the case like you'll gain followers when people will immediately leave you as soon as they don't see what they want but people on Pinterest. Everything you do just adds up and adds up and adds up and adds up so it's really it's a long game so be prepared to take some time to get started. Don't feel like if you're not getting you know whatever the result you're trying to get if you're not getting it immediately don't get discouraged because this is something that you got to go into knowing that it may take a while. But the work that you do will add up and it just grows on itself to serve you and serve you and serve you for years to come which is. Amazing and makes this a platform I want to invest my time in even more because I don't see any other platform offering that to me yeah it is her it's great you know it's great to be able to say if someone says they found you on Google it's possible they found that pin that you did on Google because they post so nice together so you know it's one of those things that you know if SEO is in your radar at all starting with Pinterest feels like to me it's the lower level entry point that's not as overwhelming is actually diving into a full-blown SEO strategy you can test the waters and Pinterest and then get more aggressive or vice versa that's amazing.

[40:54] That's amazing okay so before we wrap this up if someone wanted to use Pinterest as part of their marketing strategy what would you say are like the basic steps to. That they should take right away like they're leaving this podcast or like I'm ready to get started what should they go and do for the next you know our or weak or you know whatever it is what do they do next so of course get clear on why you want to use the platform and then do some research on.

[41:20] Some keywords so what's great about Pinterest is actually pretty easy you can just open the you know the platform. And then in the search bar search for whatever it is you think you want people to to find you for and then from there it's going to give you just like in Google it's going to give you all kinds of suggestions underneath that and then click through those and then at the top bar there's going to be like these little Bubbles and those little but if if it's a good keyword there's going to be bubbles if it's not a good keyword there won't be bubbles but then there will be bubbles of all of these other things that are similar that people have searched for so it feels a little bit labor-intensive you can go through and you can look at Pinterest friends and you know you can do some stuff in there but that's the super quick and easy like let me identify this so I just did this for a client this morning I went in and I was like okay so let me look for wedding stationery and then I you know pulled like the first five and then I'm like now. For wedding invitations and then I pulled the next five and I was like these are the ones super easy low cost of Entry you know and I say low cost of Entry because it didn't take you a lot of time to find it.

[42:23] And these are things that I know that people are interested in so then you can really start to like Conan but if you. Is Pick 5 to 10 it lets you know okay these are the Search terms that I need to be paying attention of and then just make sure that before you do anything after you've identified those two things. Is set up your lead Magnet or set up your email list your pop-up or whatever or you know like your landing page just make sure you have somewhere to two people two and then get super clear on what you want your aesthetic to look like if they were going to make sure it's cohesive you know those are kind of the steps before you dive into anything just to make sure that you know that when you do dive into full-scale like okay I'm going to go pin crazy now you have all these foundational elements in place to make it easy for you to hit the ground run okay that is absolutely amazing all right so we've set everyone up they have plenty of info to get started they've got the steps that they can take.

[43:21] Going into this next week or even you could do this right away if you want to just Implement immediately after listening to this episode so I have a couple of rapid-fire just for fun questions for you so I'm curious what is your favorite business. So I love to read and I read a lot so this is really hard for me I would say I think one of the best is the entire you are a badass series they're super easy to read. I got through them really fast they definitely are like you're kicking the butt like here's my pep talk everything is all good like great. All-purpose business. But if you love you know if you're further along in your business I'm also right now reading Clockwork I know you are too and loving it it's definitely here I am six years in and I'm feeling like that is kind of my level up up that I need to be reading my oh yeah absolutely there was another book I'm looking over at my bookshelf here. Traction that's another one of those like level up books where it just like takes whatever you're doing and it says okay here's what's next.

[44:24] All right I love that I haven't actually read any of the you are a badass series but I know I've seen them all over the place and they're colorful covers right like they're a solid color which is like totally my thing. Oh and I don't know they're upstairs next to my bed green yellow and like another one I can tell I can't believe I haven't picked them up strictly for the colors because I love me some color but I have seen other people reading them this is not the first time I've heard about them so I definitely will have to check those out okay so next rapid fire question is a tool or software that you use in your business that you can't live without. You know this one's also hard for me because I have several but I had to I'm like okay if I think about the one that really makes my life easier and then I literally could not keep up with without it would be plan Ali because I do Instagram management without plan Ali I would be swamped because when I started this business. Is the I didn't have an Instagram scheduler so I had a very set number of clients that I could take on because there was no way for me to scale it oh my gosh holy. But if I had to pick like two and three because I can never just pick one of anything Asana and Deb Sato has been really. For me to I need them all for different reasons and they all make my business run better.

[45:37] I can get behind all of those like all three of them absolutely amazing love Asana plan Ali was the very first Instagram scheduler I ever used and I have used it literally for years I did recently start using Tailwind for Instagram because it has a cool feature where you can say what type of post it's going to be for each day like you can set categories almost yeah you can go ahead and click yeah and I liked that. Um but plan Ali was a very first one that I used and I have used it just up until the past Maybe.

[46:11] Two months I mean that recently and that's the one that I recommend to absolutely everyone and it's such.

[46:18] It's such a cost-effective tool like you can send stuff to Facebook and it's like 10 bucks yeah I'm definitely a big fan and if you know for Pinterest for Pinterest specifically Tailwind is. Okay yeah definitely don't feel like you have to with this whole conversation don't feel like you have to go and manually pain.

[46:38] Like you can write in Tailwinds like so if you didn't know about Tailwind like definitely. The heck out of them you know this can take you a few hours a month or it could take you out you know a few minutes everyday I've minutes yeah oh my gosh I would almost say Do not even think about trying to patch them all at once on your own manually like you're going to be exhausted and you're going to think Pinterest is the worst waste of time you are yeah but if you batch it you'll you'll feel a whole lot better about the whole process okay last rapid-fire question which these are not so rapid fire but that's just so fun to have these conversations what is your favorite thing to do to unwind when you're not working so I love some sleep I love you yes I do math it's gotten harder as I've gotten older because my son you know like when he napped I used to nap and then he stopped napping and I couldn't have any more but he's older now so I can adapt and he's really noisy so you know if it's not napping it is reading um

[47:37] Yeah and maybe occasionally baking as well when I'm in the mood for love.  That's amazing napping reading and baking it sounds like my perfect life.

[47:47] All right so Serena if somebody wanted to connect with you outside of this podcast where can they.

[47:53] Yes you can always find me on Instagram at delegate and Elevate I have another profile which is at pops of pretty stock as well that's my stock photography business so those are the two main ones I'm on clubhouse to these days under Serena Waller so spending a lot of time there. And then my websites just delegate and Elevate that.

[48:15] And I'm just going to throw it out there I said this at the beginning but everyone needs to be following you you give the best social media tips so that's your great person to follow. And then do you have anything that you wanted to share their any services that you offer for Pinterest or social media or. Any special things that you want to share with our audience yeah so I have a special offer just for your audience I'm not doing it for anyone else it's a quick like virtual Pinterest.

[48:42] So if you want somebody that somebody would be me to go on to your Pinterest. Tell you some keywords give you some ideas for boards that you need help you with some organization just kind of give you the quick Lowdown and dirty like action plan I will do that virtually for you so I know you've got the link and I'm sure you'll put it in the show notes but you can sign up for that. Forty seven dollars and I will go and record a video of the whole process and then give you a checklist of stuff to. So that's a super quick and easy thing that you can opt into I also have done for you Pinterest services so if you're like I don't want to do this I know it's important but I don't want to do it you can contact me and we can talk about the various plans and then also if you want to go to delegate an cam / freebie I will have a Pinterest planner and therefore everybody to just kind of help you get some of your thoughts on paper it's just a quick add a little digital download so that you can kind of work through it.

[49:38] That's awesome okay love this I will definitely make sure your freebies listed on the website and I'll put links to all three things that you mentioned in the show notes so those are easy to find I hope that everyone goes and follows you and you had a lot of great new connections from our audience we've got some amazing people and your.

[49:55] Apollo so thank you again for being here with me today Serena this was an amazing episode I feel like I just took a whole Pinterest course in. 50 minutes so now is absolutely great thank you for sharing all of that knowledge it was great chatting with you thanks for having me.