📌 How Pinterest can grow your business + a paid ads primer — with Brooke Basso

Amelia [00:00:02] [Music overlapping with introduction to the episode] Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients. I'm Amelia Hruby, writer, speaker, and founder of Softer Sounds podcast studio. On this show, I share stories, strategies, and experiments for growing your business with radical generosity and energetic sovereignty.

Amelia [00:00:22] Download your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig and join us as we do it all off the grid [music gets louder and then fades out].

Amelia [00:00:38] Hello and welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients. I'm Amelia Hruby. I am a writer, speaker, and the founder of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs and creatives. I am also, as you might have guessed, the host of this podcast, and I like to think of myself as your guide and fellow explorer as we launch and grow thriving, feel-good businesses without social media.

Amelia [00:01:04] It's hard to believe, but this is Episode Ten of Off the Grid. And today we have a really special guest joining us who I'll introduce in just a second. Before then, I have two quick reminders for listeners.

Amelia [00:01:17] So, the first reminder is exciting news.

Amelia [00:01:20] We are hosting a giveaway. You might have caught our bonus episode where we announced it. So, one lucky Off the Grid listener is going to win an Instead Deck from Inner Workout. The Instead Deck is a really amazing card deck that invites you to stop scrolling and take a moment for self-care. I love the deck and its creator; my dear friend Taylor Elyse Morrison will be on the podcast in a few episodes.

Amelia [00:01:45] So, if you want a chance to win, all you have to do is ask a question for our listener Q&A episode. It's going to end to Season One. So, to do that head to speakpipe.com/offthegrid, it's linked in the show notes or below, to leave us a message with your question. I love voice messages. I would be so grateful if you left us one, but if you're not comfortable with that, you can also enter the giveaway by emailing a question to us at hi@softersounds.studio. It's truly that easy, so let us know what you want to know and what questions I can answer for you later this season.

Amelia [00:02:23] Okay. Moving on to announcement number two. This is a reminder to download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit. So, this is a resource that I created to help you plan an exit strategy if you want to leave social media and create a fun, feel-good marketing plan whether you want to leave social media or not. So, there are three of my favorite marketing tools of all time inside that toolkit, and you can get it for free at softersounds.studio/byeig, that's b-y-e-i-g. So, all you have to do is drop your email and you'll get a magical email in your inbox with the toolkit in it.

Amelia [00:03:04] That is it. So, we're going to dive into today's episode. If you have been following along with Season One, you know that we're in the second part of Season One where we're exploring different marketing channels, strategies, and platforms for you to grow your business that are not social media.

Amelia [00:03:23] So, today I am joined by my Pinterest manager, Brooke [giggles], who I'm so happy to have with us. She is a passionate, creative, digital media enthusiast, and the founder of Embody Socials. So, Brooke helps entrepreneurs and creatives connect with their audience through high-quality, authentic content. We love to see it. While providing them with the confidence to know that they're showing up for their community in the most supportive way possible.

Amelia [00:03:52] I knew I had to have Brooke on the podcast to chat with us about Pinterest because she's really helped me integrate Pinterest into Softer Sounds marketing strategies. So, I am really pumped to have you here today, Brooke. Thanks for joining me.

Brooke [00:04:05] [Gasp] Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I was preparing for this last night and I was like amping myself up.

Amelia [00:04:11] Yay. I love a good, like, pre-podcast—

Brooke [00:04:14] Oh yeah.

Amelia [00:04:14] Pump up session.

Brooke [00:04:14] Oh, yeah.

Amelia [00:04:15] I know I just read your bio, but I wondering if you wanted to introduce yourself to listeners and maybe tell us a little bit about how you got into Pinterest management and working and— starting— founding Embody Socials.

Brooke [00:04:28] Yeah. So, I obviously took this route to go through school, but when I was going through school, I fell in love with the way that you can just create really good relationships online. You know, I was like part of all of these different groups online. I was up on Tumblr; I was on Twitter. I used to be a big One Direction fan, so I was all over One Direction Twitter—

Amelia [00:04:53] [Laughs heartily] Yes.

Brooke [00:04:53] And I ended up meeting and making friends with some of, like, at the time, my best friends. And so, I just fell in love with the way that you could connect with other people from all over the world online.

Amelia [00:05:05] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:05:05] So, as I was going through school for communications my interest kind of, you know, moved over to social media and marketing and all that kind of stuff. So, when I came out of school, I got to work for a few different companies and most recently I was working for an agency, and then I was like, "You know what? I really just want to do this on my own terms, get to choose who I work with, get to choose what kind of work I do." And I was very, very lucky because the agency I was working with, it was a small agency and it was the sweetest team ever. And they have such a special place in my heart. But I was kind of excited to go out on my own and try— do it on my own terms.

Brooke [00:05:40] After a very challenging year and a lot going on in my life, I was like, “It's now or never. I gotta do it.” And so, I started in Embody Socials about a year ago, almost a year ago, and I knew that I wanted to incorporate Pinterest. It's a tool that I've been using since, you know, I was thinking about this yesterday, I think almost ten years now. It's a tool that's so special to me, just in the way that it functions and how fun it is. So, kind of turned into the focus of my business. I think almost all my clients right now are Pinterest management. Yeah, like I said, it's just it's a tool that's near and dear to my heart. And I knew that if I could help small businesses kind of in the way that you help them move off of social media and be more intentional with their digital movements, then—

Amelia [00:06:29] Yeah.

Brooke [00:06:29] You know, Pinterest is the way to go. And I wanted to help people understand that.

Amelia [00:06:33] Yes, definitely. You definitely helped me understand that—

Brooke [00:06:36] Good.

Amelia [00:06:36] Which is awesome. I also just want to say that I love this career journey of fandom to professional [laughs].

Brooke [00:06:44] I think it's— it's a thing, like, if you're— if you weren't in a fandom in your late teens and you're not a social media manager or some type of someone in the digital space [Amelia laughs], like I don't believe it [laughs].

Amelia [00:06:59] Yeah, it's like that meme— the Venn diagram of social media managers and people who are in fandoms in their teens is just a circle [chuckles].

Brooke [00:07:06] Yeah.

Amelia [00:07:06] They're all the same.

Brooke [00:07:07] That's like, I love that about just social media and, like, the internet and digital culture is like the jobs that people are just creating with these tools that didn't—

Amelia [00:07:18] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:07:19] Exist however many years ago. Actually, I think this year in Canada they created something to recognize influencers and creators as a real profession and to incorporate—

Amelia [00:07:30] Mm.

Brooke [00:07:30] It somehow into your taxes—

Amelia [00:07:31] Cool.

Brooke [00:07:31] A section in your taxes or something. But it's so legit and people are just figuring out ways to make it work and it's so— it's so cool. Especially growing up with the beginning of the Internet and seeing how it's—

Amelia [00:07:45] Mmhm. Yeah.

Brooke [00:07:46] Expanded and turned into something so beautiful.

Amelia [00:07:47] Yeah. Uh, I agree. Okay, before we just nerd out on how great the internet is [Amelia and Brooke laugh together], I'm going to take us back to our chat about Pinterest.

Brooke [00:07:55] Yeah.

Amelia [00:07:55] It's so hard for me to stay on topic sometimes.

Brooke [00:07:59] Mmhm.

Amelia [00:07:59] We've already alluded to this, but I wanted to just directly ask what makes Pinterest such a great tool for small business owners? Maybe you could start with, like, a really quick, what is Pinterest in case someone's tuned in and they're like, "What the fuck is Pinterest?"

Brooke [00:08:12] Yeah.

Amelia [00:08:13] Hopefully we all know, but like what is Pinterest and why is it such a great tool for small business owners?

Brooke [00:08:18] Yeah. Yeah. I was laughing to myself after I created my Pinterest Starter Kit because I was like, "People are going to go through this and think, you know, she works for Pinterest. She's just like gassing them up so much [Amelia laughs heartily]." I promise I'm not— I'm not affiliated with them. I just love the tool.

Brooke [00:08:32] But so, Pinterest is— not to give too much away, but it's a platform where you get to share visual elements that kind of link to other places that you want people to go. So, that's my favorite part about it, is that it's very visual and I'm very visual person. Other platforms, you know, you create your content with a goal in mind, you try to reach the people that you're trying to work with, and you know, build a community with them.

Amelia [00:08:57] How does that benefit small business owners specifically? Because I feel like we talk about small business owners should be on Pinterest. What's your, like, pitch for like—

Brooke [00:09:05] Yeah.

Amelia [00:09:05] A couple reasons they really should be?

Brooke [00:09:07] Honestly, I think the first thing that comes to mind is just how we use the platform. We don't use it like any other platforms. Well, maybe one—

Amelia [00:09:15] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:09:15] But we can talk about that later. Yeah, we're just not using it in the same way [Amelia chuckles] that we're using other platforms, which if you think about how you use Instagram or Facebook or especially TikTok, at least for me it's a lot more passive when I go on, you know, from a user perspective, from a business owner perspective—

Amelia [00:09:35] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:09:35] It's a little bit more different because usually you're going on for a specific reason, but typically we're using it kind of mindlessly. We're using it to catch up with our community, see what the world is up to, or just playing roulette, seeing what comes up. You know, it's kind of— it gets us trapped in that— in that cycle. Whereas Pinterest— when we're going to Pinterest, we usually have a goal—

Amelia [00:09:56] Mm.

Brooke [00:09:56] You know, when people are popping onto Pinterest, they're like, "Okay, I need to find something." And whether it's how do I start a podcast or you're looking for design inspiration, you're looking for a designer to work with, or even simple problems that you have of what am I going to cook for dinner? Or—

Amelia [00:10:12] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:10:12] What am I going to wear tomorrow?

Amelia [00:10:15] Yeah.

Brooke [00:10:15] Or I'm trying to— I'm trying to manifest this life; I need a vision board.

Amelia [00:10:18] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:10:18] So, when you're going on Pinterest, you're like, I'm ready to take action, which is actually part of their— their mission or what they even say about themselves is people go on Pinterest for three reasons.

Brooke [00:10:28] The first one is to find inspiration.

Brooke [00:10:31] The second is to find new ideas—

Brooke [00:10:33] And the third is to take action. Which the last one is the most important to me. If you think about your approach to social media platforms, I feel like there's so many steps between finding the right person, making that connection, then saying, "Hey, you have this problem, this is why it's bad. Here's my solution." You know, there's so many steps.

Amelia [00:10:54] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:10:54] Whereas when people go on Pinterest, they're already at, “I have a problem. I need a solution.”

Amelia [00:10:59] Mmm.

Brooke [00:10:59] So, just by taking a little bit of— adding a little strategy into your approach and taking a few hours to figure out how you're going to optimize that, you can do so much to get your content and get your solution in front of the right people who are actively looking for you. I mean, that alone is—

Amelia [00:11:18] Yeah.

Brooke [00:11:18] Such a good reason to hop on. There's this idea that even going back to your episode about the social media myth—

Amelia [00:11:24] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:11:24] And talking about how it's easy and it's free, but if you think about—

Amelia [00:11:29] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:11:29] The amount of time you're putting into creating your content, even as someone who content is like my main creative medium, and so I love doing it. I love putting my energy and putting time into it. And I'm sure that's not the case with everyone [laughs], all business owners—

Amelia [00:11:47] Like me [chuckles].

Brooke [00:11:47] Yeah, I know [laughs]. You know, when we first started talking, you're like, "Why am I doing this? I don't want to do this." But for people who aren't necessarily fully enjoying themselves—

Amelia [00:11:56] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:11:56] The time they're putting into this, you want to maximize that.

Amelia [00:11:59] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:11:59] When you put it on Instagram, it kind of goes away in 24 to 48 hours. And then this thing that you spent, maybe like— maybe you spent a week creating, like, a really good post and no one sees it. And then you're just left in this cycle of feeling bad about yourself.

Amelia [00:12:16] Yeah.

Brooke [00:12:16] But on Pinterest, the nice thing is it lives on forever.

Amelia [00:12:20] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:12:20] The feeds are— they're not chronological, they're personal. So that means that when I— like in three years, if I go search, "How to start a podcast," our content for Softer Sounds might come up. It can still circulate that way. In fact, that's usually how it works. You don't see the results in the first 24 hours. It slowly builds, which is kind of—

Amelia [00:12:40] Yeah.

Brooke [00:12:40] The approach that we're trying to take with our business. So, it's really nice. And I think just overall, it's— it's a lot more relaxed of a platform, in my opinion.

Amelia [00:12:49] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:12:49] It just feels less like you're on a stage trying to compete with Instagram models. Yeah. You can be, [Amelia chuckles] like, a lot more authentic with your content.

Amelia [00:12:59] Yeah, everything you just said was so brilliant [Brooke laughs]. And I want to, like, just point to a couple of things that really stood out for me.

Brooke [00:13:05] Yeah.

Amelia [00:13:05] So, your first point about people go to Pinterest with a search in mind. I think many of us, if we've ever used Pinterest, maybe we know that because we have used the example of 30-minute dinner recipes—

Brooke [00:13:18] Yeah [laughs].

Amelia [00:13:18] Or like dinner with insert weird vegetable I have in my [Brooke laughs] fridge here, you know like we've gone to Pinterest in that way. But for me, it was a huge mindset shift and I was like, "Oh, I can use that for my business too—"

Brooke [00:13:30] Yeah.

Amelia [00:13:31] Because in my opinion, any good business solves a problem, right [chuckles]?

Brooke [00:13:34] Yeah.

Amelia [00:13:34] Like it's giving people something they need or desire, or it's giving— it's like a solution.

Brooke [00:13:40] Yeah.

Amelia [00:13:40] All of our businesses are solutions to something. And so, if you're aware of the problem your business solves, you can go to Pinterest with that problem and, like, present yourself as the solution in so many different cool and creative ways.

Brooke [00:13:52] Yeah.

Amelia [00:13:52] And if we want to use some, like, marketing language, you know, people on Pinterest are already problem-aware.

Brooke [00:13:58] Yeah.

Amelia [00:13:58] They're already aware of the problem because they've gone there with the problem [chuckles]—

Brooke [00:14:02] Yeah.

Amelia [00:14:02] As opposed to what you were saying on Instagram or TikTok or, I would say, Facebook or even Twitter. People are often not problem aware. So, you have to make them like— and that's a huge thing—

Brooke [00:14:14] Yeah.

Amelia [00:14:14] To convince somebody that, like, they have this problem. So, for instance, if I use my business as an example, something I say a lot and we've talked about, I think— I'm not trying to convince people they need to start a podcast. I'm not trying to take people from I don't want this to now I want this. I'm starting with the problem-aware people who are already like, "I want to start a podcast and how— how do I start a podcast?" So, I think that piece, I agree, like number one reason Pinterest is so great for small business owners because you can target a problem-aware audience—

Brooke [00:14:46] Yeah.

Amelia [00:14:46] And something that when I've talked to my ad manager at Pinterest who is an employee of Pinterest [laughs], something that they've said to me more than once that always makes me laugh because it feels very— it's like very slogan-y [Brooke chuckles]. But they always say, "Pinners are planners [laughs]."

Brooke [00:15:03] It's true. It's true [giggles].

Amelia [00:15:05] They don't say it in that voice, the voice is purely me—

Brooke [00:15:07] Yeah, they should—

Amelia [00:15:09] They should [giggles]. I know. It's so catchy. If you— especially if you run a service-based business that is so helpful for you, like, this problem-aware audience that you just plug your solution in for. Alternately, it is visually oriented so if you run a product-based business, you put your amazing product photos up there and they will just— people will eat them up.

Brooke [00:15:31] Yeah.

Amelia [00:15:31] And that was actually my first experience of Pinterest because I went to Pinterest first to promote my book. So, when Fifty Feminist Mantras came out, I just made a bunch of pins that were these beautiful photos of the book that I had. And that was a year and a half ago now and I still have pins that get thousands of views a week and I'm not doing any— like I'm doing anything with those [laughs].

Brooke [00:15:49] Yeah.

Amelia [00:15:49] They're just there. And that really speaks to the second thing I wanted to point out that you said although maybe I'm way beyond two now, but the second big thing you said, which was longevity.

Amelia [00:15:59] Pinterest is not about urgency. Pinterest is a place for your content— attention to your content builds over time and is actually even rewarded in that way.

Brooke [00:16:10] Yeah.

Amelia [00:16:11] Instagram and TikTok reward newness and that's why we constantly have to post more and more and more and more frequently on those platforms. And that's not the ethos of Pinterest.

Brooke [00:16:20] No.

Amelia [00:16:21] Ugh, I love that, too.

Brooke [00:16:22] Yeah.

Amelia [00:16:22] My dream.

Brooke [00:16:23] I think when I— so I was reading on some statistics about Pinterest, and I think one of the things I came across was saying that 70% of pinners will say that they go to Pinterest with buying in mind.

Amelia [00:16:37] Wow.

Brooke [00:16:37] So they're going on the platform and they're like, “I'm looking for— I'm looking to take action with a brand that I find that I feel like I can trust. And I'm ready to spend my money and ready to work with someone—like, I'm ready to make that move.” And so that just— like I said, it just takes out so much of that middle part.

Amelia [00:16:54] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:16:54] And I'm sure you can relate to this, but part of my values when I was starting Embody Socials was, I don't want to, especially in the time that we're living in now, I don't want to go up to someone and be like, "You need to buy this T-shirt— this T-shirt— like your life is worse if you don't have this T-shirt." It just felt—

Amelia [00:17:16] Yep.

Brooke [00:17:16] So yucky to me. And so, how I see my business and how I explain to my clients and I use this kind of metaphor a lot— or analogy, but I imagine you're gifted this little plot of land and you're allowed to create your own retreat space there—

Amelia [00:17:33] Mmm.

Brooke [00:17:33] Like, what do you do with it? What— do you have maybe, like, a bulletin board that says, "Oh, these are what's coming up." And then you have, like, little group sessions that you do with your community and you're not going out and telling people, “You need to come here or else your life is going to suck.” Because that was [Amelia chuckles heartily], you know, when I first started dipping my toe in the world of online business, it was, like, in the center of the like #girlboss, boss babe space—

Amelia [00:18:01] Mm.

Brooke [00:18:02] Very like hustle culture-y. You know, I learned a lot of things, but it was basically how to manipulate people and it felt really yucky to me and I knew that—

Amelia [00:18:12] Yeah.

Brooke [00:18:12] That's not what I wanted. And Pinterest kind of allows you to have a digital retreat space and, like, you can make it what you want—

Amelia [00:18:20] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:18:20] And people can come along and you're like, "Hey, I have this thing, like, I'm still going to be your friend if you're not buying from me, but I'm here if you need me." And I feel like that— I've seen that just be so successful. Such an authentic and successful way for— for many intentional entrepreneurs. And yeah—

Amelia [00:18:36] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:18:37] Pinterest is such a— has been such a supportive tool in that.

Amelia [00:18:40] This is really reminding me of a core difference for me between Pinterest and Instagram. Something for me that feels so different about Pinterest than my experience on Instagram is that on Pinterest you do have a profile, but you're not trying to get followers. Very hilariously, this is [giggles] perfect timing. This morning, the day we're recording this, I got an email from Pinterest that told me, "Your account has ten followers."

Brooke [00:19:12] [Amelia and Brooke laugh heartily together] Yeah.

Amelia [00:19:12] And I was like, "LOL. Ten followers!"

Brooke [00:19:16] Yeah.

Amelia [00:19:16] But like, the views are in the thousands and thousands.

Brooke [00:19:20] Oh my god, yeah.

Amelia [00:19:20] Because Pinterest is not about follow— I mean, certainly you can follow people and I do follow some people, but I think early on in the Pinterest days, there was a lot of push to, like, integrate— connect to your Facebook profile, and then follow all your Facebook friends. And I know that because the only people I follow on Pinterest are my Facebook friends from like eight years ago [Amelia and Brooke laugh together heartily].

Brooke [00:19:41] Yeah. And their profile pictures are like the weirdest, oldest pictures and you're like, "Who is that [laughs]?"

Amelia [00:19:47] Yeah.

Brooke [00:19:47] Because they don't use it anymore.

Amelia [00:19:50] Oh yeah, we don't do this anymore. You know, you have a profile and your business will have a profile. But as you mentioned before, like, it's not set up so that you're like comparing yourself to, like, the Instagram model but Pinterest version—

Brooke [00:20:01] Yeah.

Amelia [00:20:01] Because there isn't really a Pinterest version of that.

Brooke [00:20:04] No.

Amelia [00:20:04] It's so focused on the pins themselves and not on getting people to follow you, the brand, or the person.

Brooke [00:20:11] The top pins are— like if you search whatever keyword— the top pins that come up are, like, not beautiful [giggles and Amelia joins in]. Like, you know, they— they do their job, but it's not— it's not something you'd share on Instagram—

Amelia [00:20:24] Yeah.

Brooke [00:20:24] You know, a stock photo and big chunky text that's basically saying, like, "Here's the solution you're looking for." And I'll click on that every time, even if it's not my aesthetic whereas on Instagram if I'm scrolling through, like, I probably won't— I mean, unless your content's really good and I'm interested in it, I'm probably not going to follow you if your content is ugly or like doesn't— it's not aesthetically pleasing, right? Because there's that—

Amelia [00:20:50] Yeah.

Brooke [00:20:50] There's that idea that, like Instagram is— well, I mean, it started as a visual platform as well.

Amelia [00:20:56] Yeah.

Brooke [00:20:57] The focus was on photos. So—

Amelia [00:20:58] To continue comparing these two, [Brooke giggles] like, I have always been so annoyed by how shitty Instagram search is. Like you cannot search for anything on—

Brooke [00:21:09] Oh my god, no.

Amelia [00:21:11] Instagram and like how often I will like be remembering a post I read and I can come up with like some keywords, but that's useless.

Brooke [00:21:16] Yeah.

Amelia [00:21:16] If you didn't save it, you will never see it again. Or like, if you don't know who posted it.

Brooke [00:21:21] Yep.

Amelia [00:21:22] And— and Pinterest is the opposite, right? Like you go with a search and when you find the pin that's the solution for the thing, as you're mentioning, like, what it looks like is less relevant because you're not going to go follow that person's content and suddenly get all of their not so beautiful pins—

Brooke [00:21:38] Yeah [giggles].

Amelia [00:21:38] You just got this one thing and that thing is what you needed.

Brooke [00:21:41] Yeah.

Amelia [00:21:41] And like that is the focus. And I think that that's such a clear difference between the platforms. I'm wondering while we're on this topic— at Embody Socials, you work with Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Pinterest for your clients.

Brooke [00:21:55] Mmhm.

Amelia [00:21:55] So, what are some other differences or similarities you see between those platforms like both the experience we have on them and like the content strategies you built for them?

Brooke [00:22:07] Mmhm. So, I think it's kind of tricky because they're all ever-changing.

Amelia [00:22:12] Mm.

Brooke [00:22:12] Like even as you're saying, you know, Instagram is so hard to search. I know one of the things that they've started incorporating is, like, better SEO. So, now instead of hashtags on a post, people are just putting keywords, you know, a paragraph of keywords at the bottom of their post. And, you know, I know that they're— they're shifting in that direction. But I think really the similarities between the platforms are, of course, they're all, from our perspective, the way that we're using them. They're all business tools that you're using to—

Amelia [00:22:40] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:22:40] To grow your business, to connect with your audience. You know, when it comes to why you would choose one platform over the other, I feel like it really comes down to your target audience and their behaviors, which is completely unique.

Amelia [00:22:54] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:22:54] And that's— you know, you would know that best. And then yeah, like I said, I think they're all to some extent SEO-based. So, SEO is going to be kind of your best— your best friend in this— search engine optimization— by focusing on those keywords and the things that, you know, your people are searching for. That's kind of how you're going to do the best on these platforms or get your content where you want to get them.

Amelia [00:23:17] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:23:17] And then, the last similarity that I can think of is that your goal is to connect with your audience. So, like, I'm thinking, you know, I resonate with Pinterest so much because the brands that I am connecting with through that are meeting me where I'm at. They're communicating in my words. They know me really well, but I'm thinking about my dad— never goes on Pinterest. So—

Amelia [00:23:40] Yeah.

Brooke [00:23:40] Golf Town [Amelia laughs] is probably not going to be on Pinterest to connect with him, whereas they’d probably be on Facebook—

Amelia [00:23:48] Yeah.

Brooke [00:23:48] And they probably pop up between like those weird random videos that come on [laughs]. I mean, they all have—like, I'm not one to kind of pooh-pooh on— on any platform because they all have their— their purpose, and they all can be very valuable. But yeah, I think depending on your business and your goals and who you are as a business owner, which one you choose might—

Amelia [00:24:13] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:24:13] Might vary, but yeah, there are so many differences, I know. Pinterest isn't social media. It's not that— it's not— it's not the same tool [laughs lightly].

Amelia [00:24:21] Yeah.

Brooke [00:24:21] It's a search engine. So, it's kind of like pretty Google.

Amelia [00:24:24] Yeah.

Brooke [00:24:24] Whereas like these other platforms, they're competing for your attention and they're trying to keep you on the platform. Now, Pinterest recently started integrating idea pins, but idea pins are kind of their like step in the direction of keeping you on the platform. But the nice thing with that is the content being shared through idea pins— it's like one piece of content. It's not like, "Oh, here's a little hint and come with me for the rest." You know, for the most part, it's like, here's what you need to know. And the algorithm just works a lot more in your favor. So, we were kind of talking about that a little bit before that, like the algorithm wants you to find what you're looking for. They want your—

Amelia [00:25:00] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:25:00] Dream clients and customers to find you, whereas on these other platforms they kind of just want to keep your attention and keep you kind of tuned in—

Amelia [00:25:11] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:25:11] And— and keep you scrolling. And so, yeah, I feel like in some ways you can see them as like, you know, just from a high-level perspective, they're all tools. And you follow the rules, you use the keywords, you talk to your clients, you should be able to find your people. But when you kind of dive in a little bit deeper, I find that Pinterest just really meets you more where you're at and helps you out more to find those people rather than trying to just keep the attention on the platform.

Amelia [00:25:41] Yeah, I really like that distinction and it's definitely one that I have felt even in, I think this is jumping ahead a little, so I won't go too deep into it. But like even in my experience of doing ads on different platforms, just the way Pinterest presents it is really about people getting to your site and not about people— like how many people just see your ad or just— like how much time they spend—

Brooke [00:26:07] Yeah.

Amelia [00:26:07] Looking at your stuff, which I feel like is much more of the metrics— metric focus on Instagram and TikTok. I think Facebook does a lot more on, like, getting people to your site as well. But for me, Facebook at this point is like— Facebook and Instagram I find are also really gate-kept. If people don't have accounts, you can't look at them.

Brooke [00:26:26] Right.

Amelia [00:26:26] So, you are in a— as a business owner limiting yourself quite a bit—

Brooke [00:26:30] Yeah.

Amelia [00:26:30] If you put your content there because your Instagram and Facebook posts are not showing up in searches because they're behind this, like, Facebook log-in wall and like TikTok, you can view a TikTok without being logged in, but you can't like scroll someone's profile without being logged in. I know all of this because I don't have any of these accounts [Brooke laughs] and I'm constantly trying to see content [laughs]. So, if you're a business who only has an Instagram, I can't see any of your stuff. But anyway, I want to back us up a moment. So, I feel like we were super deep in one of our favorite places, which is just like talking about social media strategy and Pinterest strategy. And I want to back us up to someone tuning in who was like, "Okay, Brooke and Amelia, you've convinced me I'm going to get on Pinterest."

Brooke [00:27:14] Yeah [Amelia chuckles].

Amelia [00:27:16] What do you suggest they do first and what best practices should they have in mind?

Brooke [00:27:21] Okay. So, I think when you're first hopping on the platform, I'm assuming if you're a little Pinterest curious in terms of your business, you probably already interacted with it on a personal level. You probably, like, have some boards of recipes or, like, outfits you like or whatever. So, I'm assuming you know how to get to the platform and you might already have an account. So, the first—

Amelia [00:27:44] Yeah. Pinterest.com.

Brooke [00:27:45] Yeah [Brooke and Amelia chuckle together]. There you go. That's— That's your first step [Both still laughing]. Yeah. But I would say before going into your account and doing anything, I would do some really good keyword research—

Amelia [00:27:57] Mmm.

Brooke [00:27:57] Because that's going to carry you through kind of setting up the rest of your profile and even creating pins, so I would start before anything else, just starting to compile a list of like really good keywords.

Brooke [00:28:07] So, there are a few ways to do this— free, easy ways to do it. I think there are some, like, paid tools, a little bit tougher, but you don't need those. I don't use them. My favorite way is to just go on Pinterest and I know like you're going to know keywords already associated with your business. For me, I would look into social media or digital strategy or what have you, but start typing in your keywords in the search.

Brooke [00:28:32] And then when you do search that, usually there's bubbles that come up. If you're looking something like really obscure, there might not be the bubbles, then Pinterest might not be the place for you. It might say, like, no one's looking for this— no one's looking for this [Brooke and Amelia laugh together]. Your people are not here.

Brooke [00:28:46] But assuming that the little bubbles come up, they're going to have keywords. And those are usually words that are either related so people are also searching those or they're searched together.

Brooke [00:28:56] So, I would start just, like, writing a list of these and then start actually going through the pins that come up and you're going to see words that come up over and over again and you're going to know, okay, that's a— that's a keyword, that's a keyword. Sometimes I'll do that and I'll find words that might come up a bunch, but it's not super relevant to me. And so, I'll kind of just trim the fat away from there. And then you have a really good list of— of keywords. And like I said, that's going to be a great place for you to start. Then you can start integrating those into the rest of your account and the rest of your pins when you—

Amelia [00:29:29] Mmm.

Brooke [00:29:29] Start creating them. So, this is typically what I would do when I start working with the clients, start going through their—

Amelia [00:29:35] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:29:35] Account. And I would optimize your account, which I— I say that and I forget sometimes, like, I know what that means [chuckles] and people are like, what does that mean?

Amelia [00:29:43] Yeah.

Brooke [00:29:43] But basically, you're just going to want to go through and set it up in a way that maximizes the real estate that you have so that your people can find you. So, that's what I go through in the Pinterest Starter Kit that I created. So, taking you through setting up your account, your business account, kind of best practices when it comes to what your name should be or what your bio should be, setting up your boards and descriptions, and then going over the types of pins, and the content that you need for that, and all that kind of stuff. So, then I would make your— your account just very clear to people who are searching you—

Amelia [00:30:22] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:30:22] Because remember, they're coming onto the platform to take action and they're looking for you. So, you want your platform to say, "I'm over here." Like, "I'm who you're looking for!"

Brooke [00:30:31] And then, yeah, I would just start pinning. When— when you start pinning, I would keep in mind the three things that we talked about. People are looking to be inspired. They're looking to find new ideas and they're looking to take action. And then I'm not one to say, you should do this, you should do this, you should do this.

Amelia [00:30:49] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:30:50] I'm very much an advocate of learn the tools, experiment with them, and then figure out if it works for you because—

Amelia [00:30:56] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:30:56] You might learn how to use Pinterest. Try it out and find, “I hate this so much. I do not want to do this [laughs].”

Amelia [00:31:03] Yeah [chuckles heartily].

Brooke [00:31:03] “I want to hire someone to do it or I don't want to do it at all.”

Amelia [00:31:07] Yeah.

Brooke [00:31:07] Or you try these things and people are not responding. And I'm getting a lot more response on Instagram and I'm having a good time there. Great. But what works for me isn't going to work for you. And I think that is like one of my biggest pet peeves in marketing is, you know, I did this and it worked for me. And now buy this course, it's going to teach you how to do it yourself—

Amelia [00:31:29] Yeah [chuckles].

Brooke [00:31:29] For thousands of dollars. But that's not how it works. Your strategy is going to have to be as unique as your business. So, I say experiment—

Amelia [00:31:37] Mm.

Brooke [00:31:37] And figure out what works for you. And then just like get your— get your feet wet, learn how to use the tools and— and explore and create and have fun.

Amelia [00:31:44] Yeah, I love that advice [Brooke laughs]. It's very much the vibe of this whole podcast—

Brooke [00:31:49] Yeah.

Amelia [00:31:49] You know. And as much as we are, like, talking about how great Pinterest is today, I completely agree. Like, it doesn't have to be the thing for everyone. It is not a magic bullet or a one-and-done solution. I don't believe in those in business or in marketing and you kind of alluded to this before, but like my journey with Pinterest was very much that I was— I was very sure and I know that there are people who want to start podcasts on Pinterest, and I run a business that can help them start a podcast.

Amelia [00:32:17] So, I was like, "Great, I should be on there." But I— and I made all this amazing content on my website. It's full of free resources. And then I got my butt into Canva and I would try to make pins. And Brooke, let me tell you [Brooke laughs], the Friday night that I was in Canva at like 9 p.m. trying to make pins from this awesome blog post I wrote. And I was so mad and I was so unhappy [both laugh together]. And I was like, "Why am I doing this? I hate every second of it." I hated it. I was like, because every course or workshop I had taken was, "Write an amazing blog post and turn it into at least ten pins."

Brooke [00:32:54] Yeah.

Amelia [00:32:54] And I was trying and I was like, "This can just fuck right off—"

Brooke [00:32:56] Yeah.

Amelia [00:32:57] "I hate this [laughs]."

Brooke [00:32:57] Well, that's the thing. And I feel like that goes back to creating content and social media isn't free and it's not easy. Like that's your time that you're spending.

Amelia [00:33:05] Yeah.

Brooke [00:33:05] And not only is it your time, but you're having an awful time [both laugh together]. So, like, why would you do it? You know, I mean, to be fair, the pins that you created from that, they're good pins [laughs].

Amelia [00:33:16] Thank you [laughs heartily].

Brooke [00:33:17] But yeah—

Amelia [00:33:19] Their juju is bad because my spirit— my feelings were bad [laughs].

Brooke [00:33:22] Yeah. Yeah. Just think about that energy and then imagine you're putting in that energy like, I hate this, but I have to do it because, you know, so-and-so said I had to do this and then you put it on Instagram. And when no one sees it, you're just like, "This isn't for me [laughs]."

Amelia [00:33:39] Yeah. And I want to be clear that, you know, I'm like not a believer that, like, if your pins aren't doing well or if your posts aren't doing well, it's because you have bad energy. That is not [Brooke giggles] what I'm saying here. We are not blaming anyone for anything—

Brooke [00:33:52] No.

Amelia [00:33:52] Especially for your experience on these algorithm-focused platforms. But I think the key for me was just realizing, like, I was having this horrible experience that was the antithesis of my fun, feel-good marketing plan that I'm always talking about.

Brooke [00:34:08] Yeah.

Amelia [00:34:08] And so what I did was I hired you to make the pins and schedule the pins and manage that piece of it so I can still be over here making like the A-plus blog content that I'm making and like making. And then also I can still be on Pinterest, where I'm still experimenting to see how successful is this at bringing people to my website.

Brooke [00:34:31] Yeah.

Amelia [00:34:31] So, I want to share a little bit here about kind of the strategy that we're using on my Pinterest account. And I will talk a little bit about ads—

Brooke [00:34:39] Mmhm.

Amelia [00:34:39] As we head— we get even deeper into this conversation. So, something that I have had the most success with, this was a strategy we agreed on— on for Pinterest is, Pinterest is where I share my three lead magnets. So, we are really promoting the free content that I've created, most of which is designed to get potential clients or customers to give me their email address in exchange for something super valuable.

Amelia [00:35:05] So, if you've been listening to the podcast, you've heard me talk about lead magnets before. I'm not going to give the whole spiel, but I think it's important to say that for a service-based business, you are most likely— you're not necessarily creating pins to just advertise your paid services. That might be successful in some instances, but I don't think it's the most successful strategy. You really want to be promoting these like free, radically generous resources that you're creating because that does the work of trust-building that's going to get people on your mailing list where you eventually get them to buy something.

Amelia [00:35:37] So, if you go to the Softer Sounds Pinterest account, you're going to see all these beautiful pins that Brooke made [Brooke laughs]. You're going to notice that they advertise like our free Podcast Launch Checklist and Workshop, our Leaving Social Media Toolkit, and podcast. And then a few of the other lead magnets that we've created.

Amelia [00:35:54] So, I think that that's like a important thing to say because sometimes I know when you got a new platform, you're like, "Amelia on Off the Grid told me Pinterest will help me grow my business. Let me just tell everyone everything I'm selling [Amelia and Brooke chuckle together]."

Brooke [00:36:04] Yeah.

Amelia [00:36:04] That is not necessarily the case for a service-based business. I think Pinterest does work really well in that way for a product-based business—

Brooke [00:36:12] Mmhm.

Amelia [00:36:12] Because there's Pinterest shopping and all these places where you can just straight up put your products on there and get people to buy them. But that's a different approach. So I'm wondering Brooke if you want to add anything to that or speak more to that level of strategy?

Brooke [00:36:22] Yeah. No, totally. I think that is kind of one of the components when you're considering whether Pinterest is going to be for you or not, is do you have somewhere to send the traffic—

Amelia [00:36:34] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:36:34] That you're getting from Pinterest? Because before idea pins with— well even just when Pinterest was just static pins, the point is to catch someone's attention and then they click off of Pinterest to go to your website.

Amelia [00:36:47] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:36:47] So, you want to have somewhere to send them and you want to have a way to then build your community. So, going back to the idea of having this, like, little retreat space, your Pinterest is going to be like the community bulletin board where you can put your flier and then people come and find you and then they join the community. So, having that lead magnet on the other side of that pin to capture their email and then start building that relationship through email is very important. So, Pinterest goes hand-in-hand with your content strategy. So, there are a lot of—

Amelia [00:37:20] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:37:20] People who don't have any content strategy, don't have a lead magnet, don't have, you know, blog posts, or— or anything to share. And it makes it a lot harder because you're right, if I were just to put my services list, that's not the problem that people are looking for. But if you have a lead magnet that's, “How to get started with a podcast checklist.” People are going to go—

Amelia [00:37:44] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:37:44] Through that and then they can meet you and jive with you and build that relationship.

Amelia [00:37:48] Yeah, exactly. So, I think like when we look back at that question of like if you want to get started on Pinterest, how do you begin? You begin many [Brooke laughs] steps before Pinterest. You began with your website, with your clearly defined offerings, and then your content strategy where there's content living on your website to point people to, and then your community strategy where you're bringing people into a mailing list or somewhere else that's in your community. And then you go figure out your keywords and then [chuckles]—

Brooke [00:38:15] Yeah.

Amelia [00:38:15] You set up your Pinterest account [Brooke laughs], right? And I think that's another reason that platforms like this can be overwhelming or can, you know, people could get on them and be like, this doesn't work for me because it really is about— you have to go that many— for a service-based business it's really a lot to do before you get on to Pinterest.

Brooke [00:38:32] Yeah.

Amelia [00:38:33] And again, I think that is somewhat different. If you have a Shopify shop and you're just pinning these gorgeous photos of your products, you don't necessarily need a content strategy. You need a great keyword strategy. But you don't necessarily need a content strategy to get the Pinterest traffic to your products the way that you do for a service.

Brooke [00:38:51] Yeah, I think that's part of the— the process of starting to use Pinterest is doing a little bit of research and figuring out is this platform actually for me? I mean like we kind of just chatted about if you are so turned off by Pinterest that you want nothing to do with it, it's probably not the platform for you. You could go to your list of 100 ways to share [Amelia and Brooke chuckle together] your work offline and go through that list. And I'm sure there's various—

Amelia [00:39:15] Yeah.

Brooke [00:39:15] Ways on there that make you really excited and make you— you lit up. And that's kind of why I started Embody Socials. I knew that there were entrepreneurs and business owners out there who, you know— when you start your own business, a small business, there is so much on your plate, you have so much to do. And there's probably some of it that you don't want to do or you don't know how to do it [Brooke and Amelia chuckle together]. How many times has social media— make social media content or, you know, make an Instagram post been on your to-do list and—

Amelia [00:39:47] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:39:47] You don't even get to the rest of it because you're just avoiding it.

Amelia [00:39:50] Yeah.

Brooke [00:39:50] And then think of all of the time that you could be spending on the rest of your business. So, that's kind of one of the— the core values with Embody is that, like, I want to do the things that I like doing because this is the stuff I enjoy—

Amelia [00:40:03] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:40:03] So that you can do the stuff that you enjoy doing. Because I know you don't want to be doing the social media stuff, the digital stuff. And so, yeah, if it's not something you want to do, I'm very much an advocate— don't do it [Amelia and Brooke chuckle together]. Don't it. Because—

Amelia [00:40:18] Yeah.

Brooke [00:40:18] What's the fun in that? Like creating this business to do something— I'm assuming to do something more enjoyable than what you've been doing before. And so, enjoy your time. Choose platforms, choose methods, and strategies that you do enjoy, that light you up.

Amelia [00:40:32] 100%. I mean that's what I say about like the fun, feel-good marketing plan—

Brooke [00:40:35] Yeah.

Amelia [00:40:35] Is what makes it fun and feel-good is that you do things that you find fun and that feel good—

Brooke [00:40:42] Yeah.

Amelia [00:40:42] Or you find a way to find the things that aren't so fun— like you find a way to make them feel good or you find someone who can bring on your team to do them for you.

Brooke [00:40:51] Yeah.

Amelia [00:40:51] So, if you have ever been me making your pins at 9 p.m. on Friday because you put them off all week [chuckles] being really unhappy on the couch. Don't do that. Go find yourself a Brooke or hire Brooke [laughs].

Brooke [00:41:04] Yeah, yeah. I will gladly help you out. It's so funny too because there are parts of my business that I'm like, I don't want to do this, but I know I have to. And then I start—

Amelia [00:41:14] Yeah.

Brooke [00:41:14] Creating content for clients and I just, like, get so lost in it. And for me, it's like arts and crafts, and I just get to like—

Amelia [00:41:21] Yeah.

Brooke [00:41:21] Get lost in it and do my thing. And I know there are parts of your business that you feel that—

Amelia [00:41:27] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:41:27] And making pins is not one of them [laughs].

Amelia [00:41:28] Oh yeah. No way. I mean my whole business is premised on, like, they hate editing their podcasts—

Brooke [00:41:35] Yeah.

Amelia [00:41:35] Where like they're doing that on the couch at 9 p.m. on Friday—

Brooke [00:41:38] Exactly.

Amelia [00:41:38] And instead you can hire me to do it.

Brooke [00:41:40] Yeah.

Amelia [00:41:40] So, you know, that's what service providers are, is like doing these things that either we don't like to do or we just need the support to do—

Brooke [00:41:47] Yeah.

Amelia [00:41:47] Or don't have time to do and, like, plugin in that way. I wanted to just bring one more layer to the conversation before we wrap up, which is to talk about ads.

Brooke [00:41:57] Yes.

Amelia [00:41:57] So, on Pinterest paid ads, I would say they're not required, but boy, do they drive traffic on that platform. And you can really start with a relatively low investment and just see the, like, views and clicks come through pretty dramatically in my experience [chuckles].

Brooke [00:42:14] Yeah.

Amelia [00:42:15] What advice might you have for people who want to get started with ads?

Brooke [00:42:19] I think ads— they're such a great tool if— if you do want to take, kind of, the paid route. I think what illustrates that is a lot of my other clients that I was working with before I started working with you have had their Pinterest for a while and there was a period where they put a lot into it, so they created a lot of pins, and now we're kind of seeing the fruits of that so that was all organic and we started running ads. Obviously, the feedback that we're getting [laughs] with your account—

Amelia [00:42:47] Yeah.

Brooke [00:42:47] Is exceeding that. But yeah, the nice thing about ads is people, when they're going on to Pinterest, they're not necessarily looking for brand recognition. They're not thinking like, "Oh, I want to buy the certain Lululemon crossbody bag." They wouldn't be going to Pinterest for that. They're going to the Lululemon website. It's not about being like, "This is my brand and this is my service." And keeping it very simple and still incorporating those elements of your brand is going to be what really brings out success for you because people are just looking for the visual element. And I always think about— there's one Squarespace ad that always comes up for me, and it's so simple. It's just like a picture— a picture of a phone with a picture on it and little text and a little button. And I'm assuming their logos on it, but it's so simple and I can't even tell it's a Squarespace ad looking at it.

Amelia [00:43:41] Mm.

Brooke [00:43:41] But I see it all the time and I'm like, “That's a beautiful picture. I want to click on that.” So yeah, I think the nice thing is— is there's not all this mystery around stepping into ads. And I feel like ads are kind of—

Amelia [00:43:53] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:43:53] They're kind of seen as something scary. You're like, "I— I don't know how to get over there." But the— the ad platform itself on Pinterest is super user-friendly. And they walk you through—

Amelia [00:44:02] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:44:02] What everything means and what you're looking at and they'll explain it to you right there.

Amelia [00:44:06] Yeah.

Brooke [00:44:06] It's a very easy platform to use, very easy to set up. It's very fruitful. It's kind of like the booster to, you know, maximizing your content and really getting the most out of it is putting a few dollars behind it. And like you said, you don't have to put thousands and thousands of dollar strategy behind that. You can just put a little bit and the platform that's already doing so much to connect you with the right people, it's just doing that 10x [giggles]—

Amelia [00:44:35] It's like on hyperspeed. I think that you know, you're speaking to, like, it can be almost intimidating to start with ads or overwhelming. I think for me I definitely felt that. And I also felt a little bit of, like, I think I would call it like shame—

Brooke [00:44:50] Yeahhh.

Amelia [00:44:50] Is it cheating to do ads?

Brooke [00:44:51] Yeahhh.

Amelia [00:44:51] Like, should it just be organic? If it's not all organic, does that mean I'm not good enough?

Brooke [00:44:56] Right.

Amelia [00:44:56] Or like I didn't try hard enough or my content isn't pretty enough or cool enough or smart enough? And I definitely realized that was kind of something that was blocking me from working with paid ads. When I got over that [giggles], basically what I reminded myself is that in most parts of my business, I spend money to save time or save energy on things.

Brooke [00:45:19] Yep.

Amelia [00:45:19] And I think that what you just pointed to, like, the growth is happening at a much faster pace because I'm spending money and I understand that not everyone has an ad budget for Pinterest or Google or Facebook or anywhere that you might buy ads. And I also think that for me, there are different layers of the values-based stuff here. Like I don't currently do any retargeting, which is where you really get to that point of following individuals around the internet to—

Brooke [00:45:44] Right.

Amelia [00:45:44] Show them your stuff all the time. That's the stuff that like Facebook, or Meta now, has made all their money on with all these retargeting ads. I have conflicting critique. I have critiques [Brooke laughs] of it from a values-based perspective.

Brooke [00:45:56] Yeah.

Amelia [00:45:56] But I think what makes me feel good about doing ads on Pinterest at this point is that people are searching for this thing, and what I'm paying for is just boosting the content that I know is super valuable and is definitely answering their questions. Frankly, I'm just getting mine up there above like some of the super spammy and weird stuff that I see on there sometimes [laughs].

Brooke [00:46:16] Yeah.

Amelia [00:46:17] So, I mean, maybe that's just a justification and I'm happy if people want to write me and be like, “Paid ads are not aligned with our values, Amelia.”

Brooke [00:46:23] Yeah.

Amelia [00:46:23] I mean, like, I take that.

Brooke [00:46:26] Yeah.

Amelia [00:46:27] But it's definitely just like something I kind of worked through. And this is the one place— and I think because I feel like I never, ever, ever did paid ads on Instagram. And I think it has to do with that thing we talked about of Instagram ads feel like an interruption, it feels like an intrusion. But on Pinterest, it's like, no, I went there because I want this thing.

Brooke [00:46:47] Yeah.

Amelia [00:46:47] And so I just feel like I'm helping serve people.

Brooke [00:46:49] Yeah.

Amelia [00:46:49] And I guess you could use that same justification on Google or elsewhere as well. But for now, it's me on Pinterest.

Brooke [00:46:54] Yeah, well, that's something that like this is very much I'll speak from like a personal perspective, but when I'm on Pinterest, it feels far less predatory [laughs] than Instagram. And I think a lot of that, too, is probably going back to where I got my start in this space. It was on—

Amelia [00:47:13] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:47:13] Facebook, pretty much like learning how to use Facebook to trick people into—

Amelia [00:47:16] Yeah.

Brooke [00:47:16] Giving you a lot of money. Honestly, that's like my favorite story to tell because I can't believe some of the things that— that were just okay back then. But I feel like as a Pinterest user, you have a lot more— there's a lot higher ability for you to consent to what—

Amelia [00:47:32] Mm.

Brooke [00:47:32] You're consuming, because it's not a post— an organic post from a brand that is about a product and then another one and then a paid ad and then the same thing over and over again. There is a lot of— depending what your search habits are, there's a lot of just lifestyle content. It's based on your content strategy. It's not just your services and your offerings and buy this and buy that and— and it feels a lot less bombarding. Now it's a— it's been a week and a half since I deleted TikTok because that was—

Amelia [00:48:05] Congratulations.

Brooke [00:48:06] Thank you. That was a very unhealthy relationship that I had with that. And that just goes back to how I was using it. I was using it at the end of the day, I'd finish work and I'd lay in bed for hours and just—

Amelia [00:48:16] Yeah.

Brooke [00:48:16] Numb out scrolling. And it got to a point where understanding business and kind of the back end of it, I knew every single post was a pitch. It would say like, "Hey, do you struggle with this?" Like, I know the formula of it.

Amelia [00:48:31] Yeah.

Brooke [00:48:31] And every post was just the same thing and I was— I need to consume content for entertainment. Like I need to go watch a movie or like—

Amelia [00:48:39] Yeah.

Brooke [00:48:39] That's easy— scrolling through— like, my favorite thing is to scroll through Pinterest and just save pictures that, like, are pretty [Amelia laughs]. Save pictures to, like, my vision board. And that's so nice—

Amelia [00:48:50] Yeah.

Brooke [00:48:50] And relaxing and no one's selling me anything. So—

Amelia [00:48:52] Yeah.

Brooke [00:48:52] I think there's a lot more consent that you can have in what you're consuming on—

Amelia [00:48:58] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:48:58] Pinterest or what kind of ads you're seeing because you are searching for it.

Amelia [00:49:01] Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like just speaking to what you just said about TikTok too like I've never heard anyone say I'm addicted to my Pinterest [laughs].

Brooke [00:49:10] No.

Amelia [00:49:10] I don't— like I don't think— I'm sure there are people out there who have that experience. And I'm not like shaming or judging them.

Brooke [00:49:16] Yeah.

Amelia [00:49:16] It's just like I hear everyone talk about addiction— social media addiction, and what they mean is Instagram and TikTok. And I just don't hear people talk about Pinterest in that way.

Brooke [00:49:25] No.

Amelia [00:49:25] And to me, that's a good clue towards something else that we'll talk about in one second. But before we get there, I really wanted to share [laughs] on this episode some things I learned about Pinterest ads from my Pinterest ad manager, and this is, like, now just going to feel very interjected [Brooke laughs]. But if you—

Brooke [00:49:43] It's okay. It's important.

Amelia [00:49:43] Are a business owner who wants to run ads on Pinterest, pause this episode and get out something to write these things down with because they are game changers for my ads, and this advice comes straight from the source, which means I'll explain how I got it [giggles].

Amelia [00:49:59] So, after I experimented with— after we had experimented with some ads on Pinterest, super low budgets [Brooke giggles] like $50 a month, right? Like very little money. But we're just trying it out. I got an email from a Pinterest account exact saying like, "Do you want a complimentary call to talk about Pinterest ads?" So, I took that call and I learned all of these best practices for ads that I can't find anywhere on their website so I don't think it's just like freely available. But here on this podcast [Brooke giggles], they didn't tell me I couldn't share it so I'm sharing it with you.

Brooke [00:50:30] We've got the in [laughs].

Amelia [00:50:31] Yeah. We've got the in.

Brooke [00:50:31] Yeah.

Amelia [00:50:32] So you want to run Pinterest ads, take note of these things, like write these down so your ads— like your— is the best use of your time and money.

Amelia [00:50:40] So it's just like five things— six things.

Amelia [00:50:43] So, the first one is about design. So, what they say is that all pins should have a logo, an image or graphic, and a call to action. So, it can be as simple as that Squarespace pin that Brooke was talking about, right? Beautiful photo. Probably a tiny Squarespace logo at the top or the bottom, and then a call to action that's probably something like, "Make a website." That's [Brooke laughs] probably not what Squarespace does. They say weirder things now.

Brooke [00:51:08] Yeah.

Amelia [00:51:08] Like, "Be yourself online."

Brooke [00:51:09] Yeah.

Amelia [00:51:09] Whatever [Brooke and Amelia laugh together]. But that's what all your pins should have. So, that should be super— just like those three things— logo, image, call to action.

Amelia [00:51:19] The next piece of advice they have was about stats. So, when you look at your analytics, they are really focused depending on your goal. My goal is get people to my site. So, we focus on two things: the click-through rate, which is how often people are clicking to open the pin, and then the outbound click goal.

Amelia [00:51:37] The click-through is opening the pin.

Amelia [00:51:38] The outbound is going to my website.

Amelia [00:51:40] So, a good number on Pinterest, a great goal where you want to be, is at a click-through rate of 1% and an outbound click goal of 50% of that 1%. So, you want 1% of all people who see your pins to click them, and then you want half of the people who click them to go to your website.

Amelia [00:52:00] So, if your ads are performing way better than that, you're amazing. If they're not performing at that level, then you want to think about— something is happening and you want to probably improve your graphics or your keywords or change something.

Amelia [00:52:12] And then let's see, the next three things are all about different aspects of ads. So, your ad set up— your pin setup for ads. They told me that your ad groups should have two to four pins, and those pins should be all video or all static because static and video pins are served differently. Like I think some of them are more mobile, some of them are more desktop or computer-based. So, you want to have an ad group with 2 to 4 pins in it. And that means like, for instance, there are like half dozen pins for the Leaving Social Media Toolkit now, and I've got three of them in my ad group, and then all of those are either static pins or video pins. I think all mine are static pins, but you can pick. You can't currently do ads for idea pins, the other type of pin that Brooke has been talking about.

Amelia [00:53:00] And then last two things, your ad audience, this was the one that blew my mind [laughs], the potential audience size for your ads should be five to 10 million. And I got to tell you, it took me forever to get enough good keywords and interests to get to that number.

Amelia [00:53:21] So, on Pinterest, the way you define your audience is you enter a bunch of keywords and you select a lot of their interests from their predetermined categories. I got to say their categories are not super, like, business owner-friendly.

Brooke [00:53:31] [Whispers] Not at all.

Amelia [00:53:31] Like they're really— like there's not one for like social media—

Brooke [00:53:34] Yeah.

Amelia [00:53:34] Or like podcasting. Was annoying.

Brooke [00:53:35] Yeah.

Amelia [00:53:35] But I— we got really creative on interests and I made a super long list and Brooke helps and— Brooke really made a super long [Brooke laughs] list of keywords. I added like ten things, let's— I will be honest [Brooke and Amelia laugh together]. And got that audience size to between five and 10 million. And that, I think, has really impacted how well my ads are serving because the audience is much, much, much bigger.

Amelia [00:53:55] And then finally, the question that you really want to know the answer to, which is why I saved it for last, which is how much money should you be spending on your ads [Brooke and Amelia laugh together]?

Amelia [00:54:03] So, this is what Pinterest told me. Again, you know, they're invested in me spending money.

Brooke [00:54:08] Yeah.

Amelia [00:54:08] I'm just going to say this [laughs]. They suggest a $10 a day budget for your ads and running ads for a minimum of 30 days before assessing if they're effective or not.

Amelia [00:54:21] So $10 a day, 30-ish days a month, that's $300 a month for your ads.

Amelia [00:54:28] Right now, in my account, I have that split between two ads or two ad groups, so I'm doing half of my budget on Leaving Social Media Toolkit, half of it on Podcast Launch Checklist. And the numbers have grown dramatically and I don't have it open in front of me otherwise I would just share them. But that is the Pinterest ad info straight from the person looking at my ads at Pinterest, and it's been really helpful.

Amelia [00:54:51] I will also say since I have done this, they send me an email every week suggesting I up my ad budget.

Brooke [00:54:58] Of course [giggles].

Amelia [00:54:59] So, like, you know, ignore those if you don't want to.

Brooke [00:55:03] Yeah [laughs].

Amelia [00:55:03] And also, like LOL, sometimes the email is like, "Increase your ad spend by a dollar a day and you will get two more clicks this month [laughs]."

Brooke [00:55:12] Wowww [laughs].

Amelia [00:55:13] And I'm like, "Mmm, no, thank you."

Brooke [00:55:15] Let me get my wallet out [giggles and Amelia joins in]. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, that was such a— such a valuable call to have. And—and I was so excited when you told me that you were taking that call because you're right, like, I know what's on their website, having a call with someone in the circle, and it made me want to like—

Amelia [00:55:36] Yeah.

Brooke [00:55:36] Pretend I'm a— I’m just like a—

Amelia [00:55:37] Run your own Pinterest ads.

Brooke [00:55:38] Yeah. Or just like reach out to other platforms and be like, "You— can I have a call with you and you just tell me how to be the most successful?" Because I think that's— especially with Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. There's like a lot of mysticism. What do I do?

Amelia [00:55:56] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:55:56] How do I— how do I speak your language? Like, what's the right thing to do? And that's why I always say, like, learn how to use the tools and experiment, because you might find the secret hack that no one else knows [Amelia laughs heartily] that works for you or that works for no one else, but it works for you. Platforms give you a lot of information, but they're not giving you everything, so you have to kind of figure somethings out for yourself [Amelia and Brooke laugh together].

Amelia [00:56:18] You definitely do. But I was— yeah, I was really grateful to have this call with them and to get just some more information. And I think the thing that really drove home for me that makes me feel confident suggesting Pinterest on this podcast, continuing to work with you, and work with running ads with them, is that it also made me feel like they were invested in small business—

Brooke [00:56:38] Yeah.

Amelia [00:56:38] That, you know, my business, my $10 a day, which, you know, is a lot for me. It's— but like nothing for them [giggles]. They're invested in that enough to give me an ad manager who meets with me once a month and looks at my ads and talks through them. And that just made me feel like, okay, they're obviously trying to get more and more small businesses on this platform, which means they're going to make it successful for us.

Brooke [00:57:00] Yeah.

Amelia [00:57:01] Now, will we see the same arc over time where it's just like they bring us all in and then things get more and more expensive and more and more broken, and then we all abandon it and move on [giggles]. Who knows?

Brooke [00:57:11] Who knows.

Amelia [00:57:11] So is VC-funded internet [laughs].

Brooke [00:57:15] Yeah [laughs].

Amelia [00:57:15] But all of that said, Brooke, I want to end with our age-old questions. You can answer yes or no [Brooke laughs] and expand if you want to. The question I get all the time, which is, is Pinterest social media?

Brooke [00:57:30] Drumroll [giggles].

Amelia [00:57:31] Yeah, like [makes drumroll sound]—

Brooke [00:57:32] No. It's not. It's not social media. It's a search engine. Like I said, it's pretty Google. You're not— when's the last time you went on— on Pinterest to go look at your cousin's new baby pictures? They're probably not on there [giggles].

Amelia [00:57:47] Like, wouldn't it be really weird if you were on Pinterest and your cousin's new baby picture showed up [laughs heartily]?

Brooke [00:57:53] Yeah! Unless they were a baby model [giggles]— but you're going on there, you're searching what you're looking for, and results are coming up. They just happen to be pretty.

Amelia [00:58:01] Mmhm.

Brooke [00:58:01] I think there are some people who aren't necessarily using it as social media, but I see a lot of people now pinning their Instagram posts, which actually—

Amelia [00:58:10] Yeah.

Brooke [00:58:10] I just learned that you used to be able to link your Instagram on Pinterest, but you can't now because they're—

Amelia [00:58:18] You can't anymore.

Brooke [00:58:18] Yeah, they're discouraging the— the cross-platform kind of stuff.

Amelia [00:58:23] Yeah. You can't link Etsy anymore either as far as I know.

Brooke [00:58:26] Oh no.

Amelia [00:58:26] So they are— they are changing. I mean, Pinterest is, like, staking their territory, I would say a little bit more and this is why I am not on here saying that like [Brooke laughs] Pinterest is, you know, a feminist business or, like, a fully values aligned thing, but in the sorts of decisions we make day-to-day as business owners, it's working for me—

Brooke [00:58:45] Yeah.

Amelia [00:58:45] And I completely agree with you, Brooke. Pinterest is not social media.

Brooke [00:58:49] No.

Amelia [00:58:49] It is a search engine. And if you use it that way for your business, you can really drive a lot of traffic to your website and as a result, grow your audience, which is one of the, like, three core marketing areas we've talked about on this podcast, right? Growing your audience, nurturing your community, selling your offerings.

Amelia [00:59:09] So, you can really do definitely growing your audience and sometimes also selling your offerings for products on Pinterest.

Brooke [00:59:17] Yeah.

Amelia [00:59:17] So, now that I have gone well past the time [laughs] I told you we were going to send together—

Brooke [00:59:22] I know [laughs].

Amelia [00:59:22] Thank you for answering all of my questions. Brooke, where can people find you online if they want to learn from you or work with you?

Brooke [00:59:29] Like I mentioned earlier, I did just create a really helpful resource for this exact purpose as Pinterest Starter Kit— [giggles] both getting fumbled on that. But you can find that on my website. Yeah. You can grab it at embodysocials.com/getpinning or you could just check out my website at Embody Socials. I am still on Instagram for now.

Amelia [00:59:53] [Giggles] That's great.

Brooke [00:59:53] We'll see. I like— I just hopped back on but I'm, like, not committing to anything. So, that's at @embodysocials. And then you can find me on Pinterest— Embody Socials. You know, in terms of— of how you can work with me if that's where you're at. I am taking new clients right now, which is exciting, for Pinterest and Instagram, if that makes sense. If you're an Instagram business. And then apart from that, I just added a handful of consulting options to my website. So, just like one-on-one strategy calls, some social media branding, and digital strategy.

Brooke [01:00:24] If you're not quite at the point where you're like, "Yeah, I need some month-to-month management," and you just want a little— a little nudge in the right— in the right direction. You can find me there and, and find all the goods on my website.

Amelia [01:00:36] Yes, definitely go to the show notes. Download the Pinterest Starter Kit. Check out Brooke's website.

Amelia [01:00:43] After you do that, go get the Leaving Social Media Tool Kit [giggles]—

Brooke [01:00:49] Yep.

Amelia [01:00:49] And check out all of the free resources surrounding Off the Grid and otherwise thank you so much lovely listener for tuning in today.

Amelia [01:00:58] Next week I'm going to be back with an episode about systems for your business and how you can grow your business using some really amazing backend systems. And I'm going to talk to my friend and colleague Patty of The Fiery Well about that.

Amelia [01:01:14] [Outro music begins to play] So, stay tuned. It's going to keep getting great here on— or even better here on Off the Grid and thank you so much for being here today. It was a real joy [music gets louder and jams out].

Brooke [01:01:23] Thank you so much for having me.

Amelia [01:01:34] Thanks for listening to Off the Grid.

Amelia [01:01:35] Find links and resources in the show notes and don't forget to grab your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig that's softersounds.studio slash b-y-e i-g.

Amelia [01:01:44] This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our music is by Purple Planet and our logo is by n'Atelier Studio.

Amelia [01:01:56] If you'd like to make a podcast of your own, we'd love to help. Find more about our services at softersounds.studio. Until next time, we'll see you off the grid [music fades out].