Pinterest for business with Jen Vazquez

Looking for a powerful, reliable, and FREE strategy to add to your small business marketing? In this interview, Pinterest expert Jen Vazquez will teach you how to make money with Pinterest and drive traffic to your content. She's sharing all the Pinterest marketing strategy goods with us, so grab your notebook and prepare to grow your private practice and get more clients with these tips!

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. VIDEO: Pinterest for business with Jen Vazquez 
3. Jen's #1 piece of advice re. Pinterest Education
4. What you'll learn in this post
5. Why Pinterest?
6. Secret # 1 - How to work an hour a week on Pinterest and how it could actually bring you more clients
7. Secret # 2 -Two ways to create a pin, which convert and your audience will want to share.
8. Secret # 3 -What actually matters most on Pinterest going into 2023?
9. Recommended resources
10. Let's take action
11. Share this post 

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Intro

It's a whole lot more than recipes and wedding inspo. In fact, it might be just the secret marketing weapon your poor, tired business owner brain has been waiting for!

Get excited, friend. We're talking about Pinterest today.

Now, I'm a huge fan of Pinterest. In fact, I was on Pinterest before I was on Instagram for my business. And Pinterest has been quietly sending a steady stream of traffic to my website ever since! 

But, I don't want you to take my word for it. We're joined today by the Pinterest Queen herself, Jen Vasquez.

Jen has been an expert in my corner, helping me tweak and supercharge my Pinterest strategy so that it continues to work well for me as the platform (and the world!) changes. She has very graciously agreed to join us and teach us. 

Take it away, Jen...!

VIDEO: Pinterest for business with Jen Vazquez

Jen's #1 piece of advice re. Pinterest Education

Today we're going over 2022 Pinterest marketing trends, as well as trends going into 2023.

But, as you may or may not know, Pinterest changes a lot. In fact, I might say Pinterest changes more than Instagram! if you can believe it!

So, my top piece of advice when it comes to Pinterest is to make sure that you're following new education, because if you're watching a video from even six months to a year ago, sometimes some of that content can be outdated. You might be trying a hack or strategy that simply may not help you.

What you'll learn in this post

I'll be talking about service-based businesses, but this advice can also apply to any business.

I promise you: Your client is on Pinterest. I have yet to meet a single person or business that can't use Pinterest for their marketing!

Today, I'll be sharing three secrets with you:

1. How to work an hour a week on Pinterest and how it could actually bring you more clients and build your email list (vs. other platforms where you're battling new trends, new algorithms, etc.)
2. Two ways to create a pin, which convert and your audience will want to share. Even if you aren't a designer or even tech savvy!
3. What actually matters most on Pinterest going into 2023.

Plus: You'll learn the one thing that actually drives your traffic on Pinterest. Let's get started!

Why Pinterest?

I always like to start first with why Pinterest. A lot of people go, yeah, I love going on there for recipes and those 16-year-olds who are saving their wedding photos for their future wedding someday. But I want to talk about why you should use Pinterest as a business owner.

There are over 400 million monthly users, meaning that 400 plus million people are active on Pinterest each and every month, and the number is growing. I can safely say that your audience is on there. 75% of weekly Pinterest users say they are always shopping on Pinterest and users are in the mood to consume according to the company's feed optimization playbook. People who use Pinterest weekly are 40% more likely to say they love shopping.

Shopping isn't just for products, shopping is also for services. 97% of the top searches on Pinterest are unbranded. Why does this matter? Well, it means that pinners are open to discovering new products, new services, and new ideas, not just the typical name brands.

People watch close to 1 billion videos a day on Pinterest. A lot of people didn't even know you could put videos on Pinterest. Not everyone, of course, associates Pinterest with video, but it is a growing vertical on the platform. Vertical means each of the different types of pins. 45% of people in the US with a household income of over a hundred thousand are on Pinterest, meaning people that can afford your services are on there, which of course is very exciting news. 

I know that Pinterest works, but I don't know that it works because people are saying, “Hey, I found you on Pinterest”. Because one thing that always happens, is people will go onto Pinterest, that sort of journey that a buyer is taking, they'll find you on Pinterest, they'll look at your website, and almost always, they will look on Instagram to make sure you're a real person. Then on your contact form or when they reach out to you in a DM, if you ask that question, how did you find me? 99% of the time, they're going to say on Instagram. I always say to take that next step and say, oh great. “Did you use a hashtag?” Cause FYI, we always wanna know that. Or, “were you referred to me”? At this point, most people will take a very big sigh or it'll be real quiet and they'll go, "oh, well actually I found you on your blog post, or I found you on Pinterest”. The problem is that most businesses don't ever ask that sort of second clarifying question.

So don’t assume where your business is coming from. Make sure that you're looking at that. In fact, I look at each month in my Google Analytics and I consistently see between 65% and 85% of my traffic is coming from Pinterest.

That's super exciting and that can also be you if you're utilizing it and utilizing it for a little while. It's kind of like a blog. It's not going to be an instant success. It will take a little bit of time. 

The lifespan of the content that you create and share on Pinterest is three plus months and you can find this stat anywhere on the website, or on the internet.

In some cases, my pins, and the posts that I've put on my wedding, photography business, and Pinterest site, one of the top pins is from six years ago. Can you imagine making content and literally having new people find you from six years ago?

People are still being driven to my website. The only thing is if you have an open and closed cart situation for any of your sales, you can still put pins on there to drive traffic, but you want to make sure that you change that link. Once the cart closes show a wait list so that you're not ignoring that traffic or having that traffic see a 404 error page, meaning it's going nowhere. That's really, really bad on Pinterest. Make sure that you're thinking about any content that you put on Pinterest, and that it has a link that will be active, even if you change what the content is.

Secret # 1 - How to work an hour a week on Pinterest and how it could actually bring you more clients

I recommend about an hour a week of pinning on Pinterest could actually bring you more clients and build your email list, which is gold because you own that, unlike any other platform out there where you might be battling algorithms.

Here's a simple sort of strategy or process that you could use just from listening to this education. Take a piece of content, which could be a blog, YouTube video, a podcast, a lead magnet, or even a course, whatever your main content is, and create three pins that look different.

They have different images, different text overlays, different titles and different takes. I can have a summer wedding at Fortino winery or I can have a winery wedding in winter, you can take and get three different perspectives on the same piece of content that you're sharing.

Use Pinterest’s platform scheduler to pin your pins to the boards that make the most sense. You have three pins, pick three different boards, so you have an opportunity to get seen. However, someone may be searching and using different descriptions. If you can, wait for 7 to 20 days before you pin the same pin to another board. I would recommend actually creating new pins for the same content and pin those rather than re-pinning anything. Re-pinning is not working like it once did.

If you have a pin that stands out and is amazing, you could re-pin that pin. I make three new pins for that same content with slightly different text overlay because that’s obviously rising to the top on your analytics and Pinterest, which means people are searching for that. That's a simple strategy and the best way to incorporate Pinterest in your marketing, and the easiest way to repurpose.

Starting with that core content, YouTube, blog, podcast, email list, course membership, or whatever it is, this is the content that you're going to create each week on a consistent basis. That's helpful for your blog. It's helpful for everything and focusing on solving problems that your ideal client has, giving advice or inspiration or how-tos.

I'm gonna use a blog as an example, take that blog information, take different paragraphs from that blog and create three to five pins on Pinterest. It's great content, you might as well reuse it. Create an idea pin that can be turned into a TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn post. You can make anything from it because YouTube also has those shorts now. I have a lot of clients that are using their idea pins as shorts on YouTube. 

If you just do that each week, you're creating a core piece of content each week. You're putting it all out on all those social media platforms and you're done. That's awesome. If you can do more, great, do more, but I feel like that is a strategy or a system that almost any business owner can use.

Then you're hitting Google and you're hitting Pinterest and you're hitting all the other social media platforms that you're on with the ability to drive more traffic to that content, to ultimately book clients and make more money. 

Secret # 2 -Two ways to create a pin, which convert and your audience will want to share.

Now about ways to create pins, which convert and your audience will want to share, even if you aren't tech-savvy. I'm going to go over with you, the anatomy of a pin, and a Pinterest layout. I use a template that you could create in Canva. You wanna make sure that each of your Pinterest templates has these things on it so that you are doing the best you can to get as many people to see it and for it to have the best opportunity to see the light of day. I am sharing a gift with you, I have a link to Jen's Pinterest templates.

First, we're going to start with the obvious, a clear image. Pinterest is an image-based platform and a search platform. Choosing the right image is really critical. It needs to be clear and relevant and attention grounding so that your audience doesn't keep scrolling, but stops to focus more on your pin. The Pinterest pin size is also important. Pinterest recommends a 2 to 3 aspect ratio, which is 1000 x 1015 pixels.

One thing I will also go over when it comes to the image is it is better to take your own image with your cell phone than it is to use the free images like in Canva because everyone's using it. If you have a paid version of Canva, you can use the pro images.  The focus of Pinterest is fresh images, you don't want to reuse any images on Pinterest. You can, but they're not going to get as many views as if it's the first time that image is hitting anywhere on your Pinterest account, that’s called a fresh image or a fresh pin.

The next step is to go beyond the pin. After you get your pin all set up in the pin template, and you're ready to go, make sure you include a destination link or your main website link at the bottom, the top, the side, or wherever you want. It could be a whole lot smaller than all the other information. For the title of your pin, you want to have the biggest font, so that it's very clear what that pin's about and why they want to click. Including that link on their means that if for some reason that pin image ever gets separated from the content, your title, and your description, they know where to go to find this information.

The next step is text overlay.  As a wedding photographer, that was the hardest thing that I had to do was to put text over my pretty images. I just want beautiful images from my wedding and branding all over Pinterest. The problem is, like I mentioned before, especially wedding photos can end up on a future wedding board, which people are not even engaged yet. Where if you have a beautiful image and you have text that says Fortino winery, summer wedding, if someone is getting married and has picked that venue, you may actually have an opportunity as a wedding photographer to have the client hire you. Make sure whatever your business is that you're going to make sure that the text overlay is telling them, why they need to click, what are they going to see when they click, and what are they going to learn when they click. That's what the text overlay is. 

Having a great image is wonderful, but you're missing out if you're not using the full opportunity on Pinterest of having that text overlay to get your message across, you want to make sure it's what the pin is about, or better yet, what the content is about when they click on that pin. You want to try to keep it to three to five words though you can have more. 

Next is the one that everybody forgets. Marketing people are always telling you, to make sure you have your call to action or CTA. That is the most important thing. People are very apt to do what you ask them to do. Having a call to action should say "learn more" or "buy now" or whatever it is, anything but the words "click here". People will be curious and there's a little bit of FOMO, they want to see what that's all about and they're more apt to click. 

These are the pins that I use, standard pins, video pins, and idea pins. Idea pins are only available right now on Pinterest business accounts.

So if you, for whatever reason, can't create an idea pin on your Pinterest account. It's probably because it's still a personal account and you do need to make it a business account. You're also getting all of the analytic data, which you need when you're marketing to make sure that what you're doing is working.

There are many ways to use idea pins. You can create a step-by-step guide to a project or a recipe or an education of some kind. Uploading multiple short videos with additional descriptive text, text overlay, customizing the colors and fonts of your pin, and improving your targeting with topic tagging are a few other examples.

On the app on your phone, you can actually add Amazon affiliate links. You can add any kind of affiliate link so that you're getting credit. When people click on that you can curate a collection of products.  But again, if you want to, tag a client in an idea pin or for wedding people, tag the venue, tag any of the vendors or you're using an affiliate link, you have to use the app on your phone. You can always do everything on the computer and then go and upload it to your phone.

The next one is video pins and video pins are a great way to tell a more comprehensive story about your brand idea or project video pins. Have a cover image that captures your audience's attention with text overlay, that they play in the user's feed. So as they are going through the feed, when they first go onto Pinterest, they'll notice the ones that are videos, because they automatically start playing, which is really cool.

I recommend having text overlay on them so that people understand what you're saying because a lot of people listen with no sound. Create them in the same way that you would do it for TikTok or for Instagram. Pinterest recommends videos are between 15 seconds and a minute long, but the sweet spot, just exactly like Instagram and TikTok is 60 seconds. You can even push it to 30 seconds, but 60 seconds is the sweet spot in terms of holding people's attention.

I always say if you're short on time, just upload the whole video. If it's a difference between five minutes of your time and 40 minutes of your time go with the five minutes unless you have, which I recommend a dedicated one or two hours a week to do Pinterest, in which case you would have the time to do it. Just getting pins up there and really, the consistency is way more important than having it be sort of perfect in marketing terms.

Secret # 3 -What actually matters most on Pinterest going into 2023?

I'm going to share the juicy secret of Pinterest. What actually matters most on Pinterest in 2022 and going into 2023, learn the one thing which actually drives traffic to your Pinterest and that's keywords. We talked about consistency, which truly is the most important, but in terms of marketing your business and finding paying clients, rather than looky lous, that's all about keywords. Just like on YouTube or just like on Google when you're doing your blog posts, keywords are significantly important.

If you just worry about keywords and consistency, you're gonna automatically by default get really good analytics. Just to be very specific, keywords are the words that your ideal client is typing into that search bar in their browser or on Pinterest. 

You have not only the opportunity to get seen on Pinterest but also to get seen on Google when anyone's making a search, especially if you're using the right keywords.

Now try to avoid the Instagram strategy. Do not use hashtags. They do not work on Pinterest and can actually hurt analytics when you have them. If you have hashtags on old pins, I don't want you to go search for those and delete them or update or edit it in any way. Spend your time creating new pins that don't have hashtags. Avoid industry-specific keywords, avoid using just one keyword and keywords that aren't about the content. Whatever your content is, those are the keywords you want to use. I will add one more to that. You can use generic keywords like wedding photographer or something like that, but it is super helpful if you are using more specific terms.

Like, wedding photographers for fun clients or adventurous clients, or whatever your business is, such as healthcare. Then you want to use healthcare or health or whatever those keywords are that you have put together for your website. You're wanting to use those keywords also on Pinterest.

You definitely want to find keywords that are popular on Pinterest, because you'll take the keywords you already know in your head from your website and you'll put them in the search bar on Pinterest and they'll be a dropdown menu. You'll be able to figure out what is maybe a better keyword or a keyword that ranks better.

Another thing that is important on Pinterest, is consistency, which we mentioned, can be one or two pins a day, I don't recommend one pin a week. It's going to take so long for you to build up the analytics and drive traffic to your website, but one or two pins a day is totally good.

Actually what we've been finding with our clients is that there's a sweet spot. If you have a ton of content do between five and seven pins a day, but anything beyond that is not working. We once used to pin 30 times a day, but that's not the case anymore. Make sure it's a hundred percent your content because your content is what you're trying to rank, not somebody else's. You want to create a smart and simple strategy and workflow that not only works for Pinterest but also works with your busy schedule. 

Then the last thing is analytics. If you are not looking at your analytics on any of the platforms that you're marketing on, then you're missing out. I always say doing marketing without looking at the analytics is kind of like driving a car with a blindfold on, you might get from point A to point B, but you're going to be hitting a bunch of things. You're going to be going into roadblocks, hitting other cars. It is not an effective way to market your business. Even if you look once a month at your analytics and write it down, you'll be able to see areas that are increasing and decreasing because there's a natural flow throughout the year. You will have down periods and you will have up periods, it depends on your industry and a whole lot of other things.

You don't want to feel unsuccessful with a drop in your analytics if you've been doing the same thing unless you're using old ideas or old strategies. It may turn out that it’s just your downtime of the year, your seasonal low, as they say.

So, definitely, definitely do analytics. 

Recommended resources 

Want to explore more ways to build genuine social proof? Check out these blog posts:

• Roundup: My favorite Pinterest resources
• Repurposing your content 
• Pinterest for business
• 5 tips to a killer call-to-action 
• Pinterest SEO

Let's take action! 

Ready to implement what you learned in this post? I like your style!

1. Choose 1 of the secrets in this post and test it out on Pinterest
2. Curious about the copy bank challenge: Join us here!
3. Want more actionable tips + real-life examples to help you reach more of your dream clients? Subscribe to my email list!
    

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