Mastering Pinterest For Business With Alisa Meredith

Your Dream Business

English - January 28, 2019 01:28 - 1 hour - 111 MB - ★★★★★ - 34 ratings
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KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCASTWhilst Pinterest may not give you instant gratification, it’s a great platform for getting results over a long period of time.Pinterest is not only a great tool for sharing your own posts, but a great place to search for information too! Whether you like searching for fashion ideas, travelling goals or recipes – Pinterest is a great place to see all the information you need presented to you visually.When you create a new piece of content you should pin it straight away to your most relevant board, that way, Pinterest will know that it’s your content.If you repin something you have already pinned, try changing the description to increase your chances of it being seen. You can do this manually or using Tailwind interval pinning (a scheduling tool for Pinterest).Pin every single day and not in a flurry – using a scheduling tool will help with this. Tailwind will be able to suggest the best times for you to pin, based on when your followers are online.The ideal size for a Pinterest image is 600 x 900. Don’t give too much away in your infographic or image, otherwise people won’t click through. Ensure it’s a clear, high quality image.When it comes to Pinterest, the best kind of engagement you can have is someone saving your pin.Promoted Pins on Pinterest are a lot more simple than Facebook Ads and when people save your promoted pin, it can lead to further repins and traffic to your site.If you have never used Pinterest for business before, you may need to start a new account if you want your engagement rate from the start.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…There is very little negativity on Pinterest, so it’s a great place to find motivation and Inspiration. Above all else, that’s what people enjoy most about using the app.HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISSIntroducing Alisa – 06:15The Beauty of Pinterest – 11:10What is Pinterest and Why Should You Use It? - 14:10Using Keywords on Pinterest - 18:30How To Use Pinterest As a Business - 23:15The Importance of a Pinterest Image - 29:40Engagement and Pinterest: How Do You Do It? – 35:20Using Promoted Pins On Pinterest - 43:40
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODETailwind Alisa Meredith Alisa Meredith Pinterest Alisa Meredith Instagram
Transcript below

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. How has your week been? I hope your January's going well. Is it still January? Let me think. Sorry, I had to look at my calendar then to see if whether we were still in January. I know that sounds completely crazy, but obviously I record the podcast early as in I batch content. So it's actually only the 11th of January when I'm recording this. So I hope you're having a wonderful rest of your January and I hope you've got it off to a great start.

For me, January is all about taking action. Setting me ready for the rest of the year and making sure that those things that I want to achieve this year, I am working on every single day. And actually, even though this podcast isn't about this, I just want to touch on that a minute. Because I never used to do that. I used to have these things written down and be like, "Okay I want to achieve this this year." And I did that last year. So imagine going back to January 2018. I sat there and went, "Right, this year I'm going to do this and this and this." And do you know what? I didn't do them. And I didn't even work towards doing...

So now what I do is ... because what I'd do is I'd wait for the most ideal time or I'd be thinking, well let me get all that done and then I'll work on that. Or let me take a week off and then I'll work on that on the week off. And, of course, those times never come. You never get to take time off to chunk out a section of time to work on something that's on the business not in the business. You often sit there and think, I'll do this later on today or later on in the week. And of course, your time just zips by. Something happens, something comes in and those things don't get done.

So throughout last year I did a lot of work on myself, I did a lot of work on the business, I did a lot of coaching and going to experts and getting great things. And this year this is one thing I have noticed. And I did start it at the end of last year as well, but every single day I write down the three main things that I'm trying to move forward. And even if I just do one little thing of that process, at least I've moved forward every single day. Even if it's just one hour of my day or half hour of my day or ten minutes. As long as it's something and I somehow move forward that day, even though it can seem incredibly slow progress, at least I'm moving forward. At least every day I'm inching closer and closer to those things that I'm trying to achieve.

So for me, January is all about doing those things, getting started on those things and making sure I got my year off to a great start. And it has gone really well, and I know it's only the 11th even though you're listening to this later on in the month, but it has gone really, really well. So I really hope you've achieved the same.

Anyway, on to today's episode. And you know what? I've just re-listened to this because I think we recorded it before Christmas and, oh wow, it's so funny and it's such a good episode and as I've sat here listening to it, this sounds really sad, I was actually sat smiling to myself thinking, "Oh, this is really cool. I loved doing that." I had great memories from it, we had a great laugh. And also, it's really funny 'cause I listen back to myself and I'm literally, like, totally the student. Sucking in every bit of information, asking all the stupid questions. And James Wedmore says there's never a stupid question, so you always ask the questions. But I really feel that on this episode I'm learning as much as, perhaps, my listeners do on the other episodes. So I'm loving this.

Anyway, I've wittered on and I haven't even told you who I've interviewed. So this week I have interviewed the very lovely Alisa Meredith. Now she is the content marketing manager for Tailwind which is a Pinterest and Instagram scheduler and analytics platform. She is a sought after speaker and teacher on Pinterest and promoted pins. And in particular has spoke at places like Social Media Marketing World, Agents of Change and has appeared on places like the Art of Paid Traffic podcast and Social Pros podcast. Alisa will be the first to admit that she's spent a huge amount of time crafting her expertise in this area, and realises that this is an ongoing process and that the learning never ends. And as I've already mentioned, she was a pleasure to interview. Now, like I said, I really do go to town on her in this interview, in terms of picking her brains, because even though I'm a user of Pinterest and I love it and I pin things that are personal things or things that are to do with recipes or cooking or clothes or whatever it might be. So I'm a personal user, but I don't use it for the business and I really should be.

So she talks about the fact that Pinterest is a virtual pin-board where you can store ideas and images and articles. And it's more of a search engine. She also discusses the fact that businesses perhaps aren't using it because they feel that Pinterest really is for females who are getting married or want to decorate their home or whatever it is, and actually she completely de-bunks that in the sense that obviously there are people like that on Pinterest, but actually there is a way in which pretty much any business can use it. And she honestly blows my mind with some of the stats that she gives me. Some of the results that she and her clients have got on Pinterest. And she also makes me aware that Pinterest is unlike any other social media platform. In fact it's not even really a social media platform, it just happens to be lumped in there with everything else.

So this is such a brilliant episode and I don't want to tell you any more about it because I want her to ... well I don't want to ruin the surprise. So I want you to listen to it and hear the stuff she's got to say because I literally came off the end of this interview and my head felt like it had just blown up. Because it was such good stuff. So Pinterest is firmly on my board of things to do and I really hope it will be after this episode. Enjoy.

Introducing Alisa

So I am so excited to welcome to the podcast, Alisa Meredith. Welcome.

Hey, thanks for having me Teresa. This is going to be fun.

No worries. It is going to be fun. We've already been laughing before it started so hopefully this is going to be awesome. Always a good sign. I like podcasts that I laugh my way through, they tend to be the best ones. I'm not sure that the listeners might agree 'cause they're literally hearing me howl down their headphones. But, you know, I think it's good fun. So I am so excited to have you on today and we were just talking about before we came on, and I've mentioned in the intro, that you are here to talk all about Pinterest. And I am so pleased about it. And I'm pleased for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I love Pinterest and it's something that personally I use all the time and I really enjoy and it's one of those social medias that personally I can get lost in. But also I have been so aware that it keeps coming up from a business point of view and I feel like we're about to expose a hidden gem that loads of businesses don't know that actually it is way more powerful than they can even start to imagine. So I'm really excited to enlighten my audience and for them to hear all about Pinterest.

But before we start, let's just give people a quick idea of who you are and how you got to be doing what you're doing now.

Who am I? So I started off with social media, really. Well website design before that but that was ... I don't even want to think about that, I was so bad at that. And then content marketing. And then when this thing Pinterest appeared I thought, well what is that? And I started using it myself, like you said, as a user to kind of bookmark things I wanted to come back to later. I liked it for organising things I wanted to do later. But I wanted to know what it could do for business. So I dug right into it and I wrote a little book about it, just online, and I started getting questions. Well how do you do this? And can you walk me through that? And eventually it was, can I just hire you to do this? And I thought, well there's an idea.

Yeah.

So I started pinning for people's businesses. And it was amazing to me how much traffic Pinterest could drive. So for this first client of mine on Pinterest, and anyone who's heard me talk about Pinterest is tired of this story, but he gets more traffic from Pinterest than from every other source combined.

No.

Yes, yes.

So if you added up all of his, I don't know, let's say Facebook, Twitter-

Google.

... and Pinterest is bigger?

Pinterest is bigger than all social plus search engine traffic for him.

That is crazy.

Yeah, let me tell you the crazier part about it is that I still have access to his Google analytics even though I haven't pinned for him in maybe three years. And he hasn't pinned anything since then either, and that is still the case. He gets more traffic from Pinterest than everything else combined. And if that doesn't illustrate the power of Pinterest, I don't know what does.

That is amazing, isn't it?

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

So what was it initially that made you then go ... Like you said, you obviously liked Pinterest like me, but what made you kind of go, there is something really big going on here in terms of businesses for you to even start at the very beginning, you know? Even to pull that out to decide to write a book or anything like that on.

Curiosity really. And then I thought, surely there is a way to use it. But I couldn't really picture it in my head. But then you start to see how you act as a user. Okay, basically I'm saving ideas and the reason you're saving the ideas is to act on them later. So I kind of liked the idea of it being a slow return. So Instagram and Twitter, you really are counting on getting your reward right then, right? It's going to be kind of instant gratification. And I liked the idea of the investment on Pinterest today paying off for months and years to come. And you can't illustrate that any better than with that first client who hasn't in years and still that investment that he made is paying off today.

And do you know what? That is such good foresight isn't it? Because, like you said, we live in a world now where everything is about instant gratification. We put a post up, we want to see people liking it. We want comments on it, we want to see it immediately. And we want things immediately. I am the queen of Amazon Prime.

It feels good, you know?

The Beauty of Pinterest

It's like literally if I can't get it first thing tomorrow morning and I order it now, don't bother, do you know what I mean? We live in this world where we constantly want that, so like you said, it's kind of a lovely idea of it's a platform where you're nurturing it and you're doing stuff that not only is going to help to some degree fairly quickly but also long term. And what other platform could you possibly say that about? 'Cause I can't think of any off the top of my head.

It's closer really to Google than anything else, right? So when you build a website you're building it for the future. You know Google's not going to pick you up immediately usually. But the other thing is it's kind of a personality thing. So I have tried with Instagram to have a beautiful feed and to create flat lays. And boy, that's just not me. You know, it's just not me. I'm an introvert and as much as I like people, I do not want to feel like I'm on display all the time. It's just not appealing to me. Pinterest, on the other hand, is what I like to think of as the introverts network.

Oh okay.

So really it's about me, it's about making my life better, it's about projects I want to try. And then, to expand a little on that, it's also about me and a very small group of friends. So like we were talking about before, my house was very badly damaged in a hurricane. So I created a secret group board on Pinterest all about my new house and what it was going to look like and it has all the sections in it. And I invited my very close friends to help me collect ideas that will help me to build the house that I want. So I mean that's social-ish, but it's kind of on my terms, right? And I'm not doing it to impress anybody or to make a certain image of myself. It's really about what I want for my future.

And also do you think that because you're sharing someone, or you're collecting is probably the better way of putting-

That is a great word for it.

... other people's images, therefore it's not like ... whereas, and I will happily admit this on my Instagram, I show you the best parts of my life, obviously.

Oh sure, everyone does.

I'm not going to show you where I look dreadful or I'm having a terrible day or whatever. So, for me, when you're showing the best part it can feel a little bit egotistical, it can feel a little bit showy-offy, a little bit like, "Look at me." Or, again, if you're putting pictures of a house going, "Oh, look at my house. Isn't it beautiful?" But actually by you collecting other people's stuff it doesn't say that at all about you, does it? Because they're not your images. That's just you kind of showing, this is what I like, this is the type of place that I want. But everybody ... instead of people looking at it going, "Alright, stop showing off." Which they might do in the UK, I don't know that you do it so much over in the States.

I suppose [inaudible 00:13:57] actually .

What is Pinterest and Why Should You Use It?

But instead of people thinking that they think, "Oh, how lovely." Because it's someone else's images and you're just pulling it together going, "I love how this style looks or this style looks." So I tell you what, let's backtrack a tiny bit. If someone's listening and thinks, do you know what? I don't even have a Pinterest. What is Pinterest and why should I even start to imagine how I can use it for my business. Can you just explain? 'Cause it is very different from every other platform.

Oh yes it is. So what it really is is a virtual pin-board. So if you can imagine that you have 40 cork boards on your wall and you have a different topic for each one and you're actually tacking up articles that you want to look at or reference later or things you want to buy or try later and you have them organised by topic. That's what you're doing on Pinterest. So for me, it really replaced the browser bookmarks. If there's a few things I wanted to do or try or read later I would put them there but ... you can sort of organise them, but I would much rather look at a visual representation of that idea than try to remember what the link was called.

Yeah, yeah.

So a place to collect your ideas so you can easily reference them later. It's also a great place to search for ideas as well. I think most of my searches on Pinterest probably are recipes and home design. Because you can just find so many great things to do.

And I think that's a fair point actually in the sense of ... and this is maybe why businesses don't necessarily look at Pinterest because they think how would they use it, or how do I use it, you know? And obviously my Pinterest is open, people can go and have a look, and basically it's got things like clothes that I like or places I want to go, places I've been, kids bedrooms, oh, dinner parties. When I didn't have my own business I loved a dinner party. I can tell you I have not done a proper dinner party for years because I haven't got time for that anymore. But it's all those kind of nice things, also quite feminine things. So me, for instance, as a social media person or another business, how are they going to use Pinterest for them? Why would we go on and use it?

Okay, well I think it helps to start off as a user so you can kind of get a feel for how people use it and then kind of imagine how your product or service would become appealing in that setting. So the thing you want to keep in mind with your Pinterest images is to keep it inspirational, keep it useful. Whereas on Facebook you might be able to write a blog post and share an image that's like the five reasons you've failed on your diet this year. That could work on Facebook. On Pinterest you'd be better off to turn it to a positive. So the five reasons you're going to succeed with your diet this year.

Okay.

So it's the same content, right? Same content, but you flip it so that it's more inspiring really is the goal on Pinterest.

Okay, so it would be a case of then when you pin that image, you're using keywords. Is that right? So you do you hashtag like you would in every other social, or other social medias, or is it in the comment? Or how do you get people to find that pin?

Well I think that's actually a...