Hello and welcome to episode 47 of Design Curious Podcast.
I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
Today on the podcast we are talking about Pinterest, a very
valuable and useful tool as well as search engine.
All the ins and outs of that with Vanessa Cooper.
So before I tell you a little more about Vanessa, let me
remind you that I have some free downloads for you you might want
to grab in the show note links. It's called the three Things I
wish I'd Known before I started my career in interior design as
well as the road map to interior design.
So you're going to grab both of those because that will also
give you some great information, but put you on the e-mail list
so you can receive in your inbox every week the podcast, as well
as great information that I like to share with the listeners and
any special updates or offerings that I might have going on at
that time. So go ahead and grab those.
Now let me tell you a little bit about Vanessa.
Vanessa Cooper is a Pinterest marketing expert and content
creator, providing Pinterest marketing services, copywriting
services and graphic design services to small and large
business owners. She is a wife, mother and crazy
plant lady described as a fruit loop in a bowl of Cheerios,
locally recognized as one of the best social media marketing
agencies. She uses her Pinterest marketing
skills, creative thinking, and powerful words to capture the
attention of your target audience and grow your business.
If you want your business to thrive on Pinterest with stellar
Pinterest marketing management or an entertaining yet
informative blog filled with capturing content that keeps
your audience wanting more, then Vanessa is the right person to
help your business thrive. So without further ado, let's
talk with Vanessa. You're now listening to Design
Curious, a place where you, Creative One, are here to learn
about what it really is like to be an interior designer.
And I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
If you're worried about how to succeed in a creative career, if
you're ready to learn your next steps to become an interior
designer, and if you want the satisfaction of doing something
you love every day, you are in the right place.
Grab a coffee, a notebook, and let's dig into today's episode.
Hi, Vanessa, welcome to Design Curious Podcast.
Hey, thank you. I'm glad to be here.
Yeah. So this is great having you on.
I know your specialty is Pinterest and the tool that it
can be for the interior design industry and creatives in
general. But before we get into that,
tell me how you got into doing this for business?
So during the pandemic I was working a job in a restoration
company and I had a home school, my son, and it was a really huge
struggle and I really wanted to work from home.
So I I started asking around like does anybody need help with
anything? And I had a lady who told me I
need help with my Pinterest and I had taken some blogging
courses years before because I wanted to start a blog.
That never happened and it did eventually.
I told her, hey, I learned a little bit of Pinterest during
that course. I can help.
So I did. I started taking took over her
Pinterest account and realized that I was actually good at it.
And I was growing her account with a little bit of knowledge I
had. And so I saw a demand for it.
I saw that a lot of people were clueless about how to grow on
Pinterest. And just slowly, it's kind of
blew up, honestly. I started getting more clients
and helping more businesses grow.
So it's been a journey, you know, I was able to quit my job
and stay at home and work full time doing this, and it's been a
blessing. Yeah, Pinterest.
Pinterest is a big part of my life.
OK, OK. Did you personally do a lot of
Pinterest before you got into it as a business?
Yeah, so you know, I'm a mom and.
I've used Pinterest for everything, whether it's
planning out recipes, whether it's getting like the home
decoration inspiration. I use that on Pinterest planning
out birthday parties. I just planned my husband's 50th
birthday party recently using Pinterest, so I've been using it
for years. I absolutely love the platform
and honestly had never thought about it for business till, you
know, I really just kind of got into it.
So it's a great platform. I love it.
So your business caters to creatives, is that right?
Like you kind of work mostly with creative types to help them
with their business? So I know this is like a
business. No, no.
But I never actually niche down. So I have a wide range of
clients. I have worked with bloggers, I
have worked with spiritual coaches, I have worked with big
brand businesses, ecommerce businesses.
That are also in retail and in stores and are you know selling
online. So I work with a wide variety of
small and large businesses and I've worked with artists as
well. I mean it's it's really range
and it's worked out for me, but I've learned it's it's a wide
range and it's different but it's fun.
I like working with all the different types of clients.
Yeah, Okay. So then why would an interior
designer want to do Pinterest and, or like, how are you to,
like, really bolster their Pinterest presence over other
social media platforms? So Pinterest, it gets added into
the social media platform space, but it's really different to me,
it's not social media so much at all as it is a search engine.
And so the way I describe it to people is that I say that if
Google and Instagram had a baby, that baby would be Pinterest
because it's a visual search engine.
And so the big difference is when you post on social media.
The engagement, the traffic, the likes, the comments happens
immediately. You know, either that day or the
next day. And then after a few days it
kind of dies down and then it's your new post that's getting all
the attention and that old post just ends up at the bottom of
your feed and it's not doing anything for you anymore.
Pinterest is different in the sense that when you first pin on
there. Not much is happening with that
pin right off the bat and but over time it starts to build
more lights, more engagement, and starts to bring you traffic
that even a year or two later that one pin that you pinned 2
years ago is still bringing you traffic.
So it's a great platform for repurposing your social media
content, but totally two different spaces really since
it's more of a search engine. Yeah, I have found that to be
true in in the Pinterest. Pins that we put up from our
portfolio, like there's one in particular that keeps getting
traction and it's just a shower niche in the small like guest
bathroom shower and it just keeps getting people ask
questions about it like every couple of weeks and just keeps
getting re pinned and stuff. It's like I was surprised about
why that that one pin would. Really gain traction.
But it does show that like over the year, I mean we posted that
like four years ago. So I was like over the years
it's really still held strong. And so I can see why that is
useful to use Pinterest in that way.
Yeah, absolutely. It's great.
And I love that things age well there because, you know, we
spent a lot of time in our content.
We don't want our content time to go to waste, you know, like
things later. And no one's engaging while on
Pinterest. It can last.
For years, so it's just great. So what's the best game plan for
them to have? Like should they be posting
their blog to Pinterest or their portfolio photos, or all of the
above? Or what it kind of process do
you take your clients through? If you're talking interior
design and honestly any business, the very first thing
you want to think about and hone in on and make sure you've got
this down is making sure you know who your target audience
is. Because it's a search engine, a
big part of it, and you know, I'll talk more about this, is
making sure you have the right keywords and things like that
and your Pinterest pins. So knowing who your target
audience is and how they're using the platform is going to
be really, really important as your first step to even start
Pinterest marketing. What are they searching for?
What do they like? You know, what kind of boards
might they have? You know, Pinterest has all
these different boards, people organized.
Are they looking for home decorating tips?
Are they looking for, you know, new furniture?
Innovation ideas or DIY projects, what are they into?
That's the first thing that you want to look at and then you
want to provide valuable content for them.
That's important. Whether that's a video of like a
before and after project that you did or just a video with
some tips on interior design that you can offer them and then
pinning those out to your website are going to be how you
do that. But that's really the first step
is knowing who they are and what they want so that you know.
Once we even start providing them when it comes to content,
hopefully that answers that question.
Yeah, yeah, really good. So like even the cover or the
pin, Like if you have text on it, like you're speaking to the
client and what they want, Like if they're DIY, then you're like
3 tips to how to do this yourself, Like design yourself
or whatever, you know? So yeah, that really makes
sense. Get your messaging succinct with
what? You know who your target client
is? Yeah.
So what are some other things that people can do with
Pinterest to help their business?
Besides knowing who your target audience is, and then you know
curating your content to provide that value for them, you want to
make sure that you have a space to send them to.
So I always highly recommend a blog for growing any business
honestly, specifically with interior design.
You're going to have, let's say, a pin that's maybe a video pin
that maybe shows like a little clip of before and after.
You can have static pins where it's just like maybe a photo
with, like you said, like the text overlay that says, you
know, three home decorating tips.
And you're going to want these pens to go to a blog or a
platform that's got a little bit more information.
Obviously your website's a great place to send them to where they
can, you know, learn more about you.
But having a blog if you don't already have one, I really
always push this for so many clients, big and small, some of
my big ecommerce businesses that don't have blogs, I'm like, you
should have a blog because what it does is it provides that.
More information, you know, not just like a video like you would
on a social media post. They have the information and
that's it. But it sends them to your
website. And then having that
information, providing that value and that content is how
you build trust in this online world.
And so it kind of helps you come off as the expert in that niche,
you know, and it helps them build that trust with you and
and learn more from you. Not not just for that, but
Pinterest loves fresh content. So if you just have a website
for your interior design business and you have all the
services you offer, but no new pages like new blog pages are
are showing up in that website and it's just the same landing
page over and over again. Pinterest does not like that.
To really grow on Pinterest, you want to have fresh links.
And so having that blog gives you new blog posts every so
often where you can pin to those fresh blog posts and that makes
Pinterest happy. That's really how you're going
to grow because you're giving them new information.
They don't want you to span the same information over and over
again in that platform. So hopefully that answered your
question. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it does. Real good.
So yeah. And you touched on how important
blogging is. And I know, like there's
conversations, you know, over the last few years, I think that
people come back around to blogging as being relevant
because when social media started happening and it's all
about images and then, you know, people like kids blogging dead,
you know, should we still be doing it?
But that does. I mean, you brought a good point
that it keeps your website fresh and you're providing additional
content that once people go to that pin.
That they can then get more information from you.
Yeah, absolutely. And it isn't just to grow on
Pinterest, but if you have that blog on your website giving that
information, you're going to be attracting people on Google as
well, you know which because Google also loves blogs and
content and information. So it's kind of like a good two
and one on how to get growth for your business.
You know having a blog. And you know some people might
be intimidated by a blog or might not have time for a blog
right now that they just have their social media.
Another way that they can grow their business using Pinterest
is to actually pin to their social media posts.
So let's say you publish a new Instagram post.
You can take that Instagram link to that post and pin to it.
Or if you posted a Facebook post, you can pin to that post.
Those are still fresh links, those new posts.
So while you're working on getting a blog or you don't have
one yet, but you still want to grow your business, you can pin
out to your social media profile posts and those are still
considered fresh links. So it's another way to kind of
get your audience seeing new content on Pinterest.
That way you can grow. So if a young designer or new
designer starting out in their business and they might not have
like a huge portfolio, then a blog might be a good way to to
also promote some content I would think, like maybe some
stock photos or something. What would you recommend there?
Well yes they can do. Specifically for Pinterest
marketing. A good way to like a good blog
post idea would be. Maybe 3 tips on how to brighten
up your room. Something like that, you know?
And just in that since they don't have a portfolio before
and after. But just in that, giving those 3
little tips of ideas of simple things that somebody who's not
an interior design expert wouldn't even think about is a
good way to really get them to think wow, you know, she knows
what she's doing, you know, this is great having blogs like that
where it's giving them. Some information, some of your
expertise, but just a little bit, you know, to teach them
something but not necessarily do all the work for them.
It's a great way to kind of get people in there where you don't
need to have a big portfolio, just know you have a little bit
of knowledge, more knowledge than what they have to, where
you're giving them something new and fresh, you know, to help
them out. And it really sets you up as an
expert in your niche when you know you might not have that
many clients and you're just starting off.
Yeah, it gives you credibility. How would Pinterest be helpful?
If, like a designer is looking to work with clients locally,
how can developing your Pinterest presence help with
that so? This is where Pinterest SEO or
Search Engine optimization really comes into play for any
business, whether you have a local audience or not.
What I said right off the bat, making sure you know who your
target audience is, it's going to be important here because you
have to think about what they will be searching for in order
to find you on Pinterest. So if you have a local audience,
you have to really make sure that you're incorporating local
words, local keywords. And what I mean by that is,
let's say you're an interior designer in Montana.
You're going to want to do blog posts.
Or at least pins that specifically say 3 tips to
decorating your bathroom in Montana and adding that keyword
to it. Or three ways to brighten up
your Montana home, but specifically adding those
keywords or specifically to the city that you're in.
Adding keywords related to either your local city or your
state is going to be really, really important.
So if you can't, you know, because I know you can do like
interior design, you can do it, you know, virtually a little
bit. But if you just your audience is
local, coming up with content that's local as well as going to
help. So you have to think about what
you're blogging about, things that people.
Who might be interested in getting interior design done in
your area is interested in. So whether it's, you know, I
don't know anything related to your local area that you can
incorporate with interior design to target your local audience.
It's going to be important. And on Pinterest, when you come
up with those keywords, like those specific keywords that you
need to add to target your local audience, adding them in the
title and the description and the text overlay of your pins,
it's going to be important in order to target them, but
definitely. Definitely.
It's gonna be a bigger deal to mention your location in order
to really find your target audience locally on Pinterest.
Okay. Yeah.
And is that something you should also include in your Pinterest
bio, like your location and where you're working at?
Yes, and that's actually a great question because something else
that you should do when you set up your Pinterest profile is
incorporate keywords in your bio.
So if you can add the keywords to your name, your actual
profile name when you search on Pinterest.
Profiles are searchable, so when you search up a word, profiles
will actually come up as a result and so.
Yeah, which is really neat because you can incorporate
keywords in your profile names specifically to your area, and
then you can incorporate those same keywords in your profile
description specifically to your area.
Then that way people can help find you.
And when you set up your profile and you create boards for your
profile, each board has a description as well and a title
for them. So you always want to make sure
you incorporate keywords in those titles and in those
descriptions. And if you're locally based, one
of the things that I always like recommend.
Having a board for general things in your area.
So like I don't know, Montana travel tips or something like
that, or places where you can talk about the area and that way
you start attracting people in your area.
You know people who are looking for good local restaurants, they
want to check out people who want to look at local parks to
visit, you know, because they live there and they're
interested in those. People in Montana searching for
things in your state are going to find your profile and then
whenever they think, hey, I want an interior designer, you.
Might come to mind. So doing that, it's also a great
way to really attract that local audience.
That's really good advice. I haven't really heard all of
that before. So can you give an example of
what, like, if you're including keywords in your name on your
profile on Pinterest? Like, does it look weird if
you're like saying midcentury modern or boho chic designer
Rebecca Award, You know, like, whatever it is, you know, right?
Well, when it comes to your name, because it's it's your
name. You don't want it to be two
keyword stuff, and there's only so much length that you get for
your name. Sure.
And so me for example, I have Vanessa Cooper and then I do a
little wine kind of separate it and then I do, I do marketing
and content creation. Pinterest doesn't allow me to
add Pinterest. So I just do marketing and
content creation cuz marketing itself, you know is search.
So that's what I would do. I would pick like maybe the two
best that sound okay with your name or your business name so
that it doesn't sound too funny. And then I would use the
description, your profile description to stuff it more
with keywords because almost nobody is going to find you by
your profile and actually read your profile description.
The profile description is going to be more for Pinterest's
algorithm to find you and know. So that's really where you want
to put all those extra keywords at.
So like maybe. It doesn't have to look as
pretty as you're wanting it to, like people are going to land
there or be searching for the most beautiful bio.
Yes, no, yes. The bio is not that important.
It's really just for Pinterest, so you don't have to think about
it too much. And when you do type up your
bio, do not add your website to it.
That's just basic characters. Your website is going to be
linked on the side by Pinterest for you already and it's
actually clickable, any links that you add in your bio.
We're not clickable anyways, so save that space for keywords
instead. OK, really good.
And so then say you do have a portfolio that you're
developing. Should you rein like pin every
single photo from your? Website to to like a folder in
Pinterest like have a portfolio folder or something like that.
I mean you can definitely pin out your portfolio.
Just always keep in mind that whatever you do pin, whatever
image you pin, I would always edit it and some kind of
template. I think it helps to have a
little bit of text overlay. But anytime you do pin on
Pinterest anyways, try different things.
You know, try pinning just a plain image of like a
beautifully you know, designed home that you did and then.
And try pinning one same image but with some text overlay,
maybe in a little template and see what your audience is
reacting to more, what they're liking more, which one of those
got more impressions, which ones got more clicks, more
engagement? And then that way you kind of
know what to pin and what not to pin.
But if you have images, I'm always like pin it because you
know the more content you get the better.
And so definitely just just pin it and see.
Let it bring your website traffic.
Now don't. Pinned to the same page too much
because Pinterest, you know, has the spam filter and they don't
want you just pinning too much to the same page.
So use those images, but pin them to different links,
different blog posts or social media posts or just, you know,
different Url's. OK, good advice there.
Like I said a second ago I mentioned doing like video pins
or adding the different images, some with text overlay, some
without to kind of test. How your audience is engaging
with it. That same advice I give to
anyone starting out if they can't decide what type of pin to
pin on Pinterest, because there's a bunch of different pin
types. There's idea pins, which are
kind of like your Instagram reels for Pinterest Dash
stories. You know, like through them,
like an Instagram story, but you can watch a video like a real
There's Carousel Pins, which is just like carousel posts on
Pinterest. There's.
Static, just plain image pins. And then there's video pins.
So somebody might ask, like, what pin should I use?
You know, for my business to grow.
When you're starting off, do a little bit of everything and and
do the same thing. Test it out.
Check out the Pinterest analytics, which you'll see in
your profile when you have a Pinterest business account.
See what? What's your top pin?
Is it an idea pin? Is it a static pin?
Is it a video pin? And then you give it a couple
months because it takes some time for Pinterest to really
find it. And then see what's performing
the best and then do more of those.
So more people are reacting to your idea of pins.
Do more of those. More people are, you know,
finding your website and you're getting traffic from those
static pins. Do more of those.
And that really helps boost your growth because you're giving
your audience what they want to see, you know, and what they're
engaging with. Yeah.
That's really good.
And to that point, I was wondering like there's a
business profile, then there's the personal profile on
Pinterest, right? Is there?
They're also a creator. Profiles.
Are that just in Instagram? That's a good question.
No, it's just the a personal profile and a business profile.
As far as I know, there is no creator profile.
The Pinterest, they call almost everyone a creator that's got
the Pinterest for business account because that's
essentially what you're doing is you're creating whether it's
videos or images or something for the platform since it's so
visual. But yeah, and the big difference
is really the the analytics and the growth.
In a personal profile, you're not going to have that, You're
just going to have a regular profile to pin those recipes and
those home decor ideas and stuff like that.
While in the the Pinterest business profile, it's going to
be all the analytics, you're going to be able to see your
growth and you're going to be able to see what is working and
what isn't working for your profile.
And then for creating those pins and text overlays, would you
recommend Canva as a tool for creating those Pinterest?
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
So I love Canva. Canva is my go to.
Honestly, I don't think I used too many other other design ones
before. I just went to Canva cuz it was
so user friendly, so easy to use.
So I highly recommend Canva. There's a free account for it
and then there's. A business one.
So if you're wondering which one you need, you're perfectly fine
just using the free they've got stock photos, they've got audio,
they've got video that you can use, you can animate the
elements and the text overlay and all that and the images.
That makes creating videos so easy.
And then the Pro just has like extra design features which you
know, I I love the Pro, but it's not 100% necessary to grow on
Pinterest and create amazing pins, and also has it set up to
where you don't even have to think about it.
Like you can search your Pinterest pin and it'll bring up
a Pinterest pin the right size that you need it to be.
You search Pinterest idea pin, it'll already have it ready the
right size that you need it to be.
Because every different pin has different sizes that they need
to be on Pinterest, so you want to make sure you're designing
them correctly. And it also provides free
templates that you can use in canvas, so you don't even have
to be a design expert when it comes to like graphic design in
order to create beautiful, stunning.
Pins out of work on Pinterest. Okay, great.
Yeah, that's good to know. As far as the algorithm, is
there a posting schedule that you would recommend Should you
be pinning every day or a couple times a week or?
So I can't talk too much on a pinning schedule just because
that's literally all my knowledge and information that I
get hired for. But I can give you some advice.
Okay. I can tell you that you wanna
pin at least once a day. And then I can tell you that you
want to be careful not pinning to the same pin more than once a
day because again, Pinterest has that spam filter and so you
don't want to over pin to the same page on your website
because then Pinterest gets a little iffy about it.
Like okay you already pinned to this, you do want to create
multiple pins per link. And then you do want to kind of,
you know, schedule them out in a particular way.
You just want to make sure that you're not pinning multiple
times a day to the same length and that you're at least pinning
once a day. It'll really help your growth to
pin at least once a day. OK, great.
So that's a service that you can provide people if they're
wanting to outsource their Pinterest, they can come to you?
Yes, absolutely. They can come to me and I I am
like I will take over it all where you don't even have to
think about it. You just have to sit back and
wait for the traffic to flow in and do all the graphic design,
all the keyword research, pin title and descriptions, all the,
you know, copywriting that's required with it and all the
scheduling so that you don't have to worry about it at all or
learn it yourself or try to. To figure it out cuz it changes.
And I think all these social media platforms change often.
Their algorithm changes. The techniques you need to use
change. So if you want that Peace of
Mind and not deal with it, I'm here at your disposal to help
manage your Pinterest account. Wonderful, Okay.
Well, we'll put your contact information in the show notes so
everybody can find you and anything else you wanna share
with our audience before we say goodbye.
Yeah, I guess I'll say one last thing on Pinterest that I think
everyone should know. When you do get started on
Pinterest marketing because it, hey, it's the opposite of social
media platforms and it takes time to get that engagement.
You have to be patient. It takes months for those pins
to start driving traffic, but don't give up because it's so
worth every second that you spend on the platform.
Just make sure that you're patient, use it to repurpose
your social media content, and then just give it time because
it will be worth the investment and then you'll you'll get some
good traffic on it. OK, that's really good to
remember. Yeah, that patience is hard
because you like you want to post something, you know, like.
Okay, what's the analytics on it now?
It's. Gonna work, but we're not do it
too. I do it too.
And I know that I need to wait months and I still do so.
Yeah, Okay. Well, thank you so much,
Vanessa, for coming on the show today.
Of course. You're welcome.
Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.
I love talking Pinterest, So anytime you want me back, I'll
be here at your disposal. Perfect.
I'm sure we will. So we'll talk to you soon.
All righty. Thank you.
Bye, bye, bye. So obviously Pinterest is really
powerful search engine as well as tool for promoting your
business and you're definitely going to want to check out
Vanessa's offering and take advantage of her services to
promote your business. And like I said another way that
I really like to use Pinterest in my business is to use it as a
board to curate ideas and. Styles for my client, and we use
Pinterest a lot, in a lot of different ways through the
design process, and so you can't get around it.
You definitely need to embrace it, but you also really need an
expert to help show you how to use it, because it's really a
whole beast unto itself. So go check out Vanessa's
information in the show notes and you can find all the links
there. And don't forget that if you're
looking to get into the career of interior design, then you
will want to join my design mentor.
Myself and other students like you are in there learning about
the career, learning about what it is to be a designer, honing
their skills. I give a lot of feedback.
I even do a portfolio review or resume review a lot of great
things. And then there's also that
business starter kit in there if you're looking to start your own
business and. Want to make sure you don't miss
any of the steps along the way? This is a great package for you,
so check that out. I'd love to see you in there.
And next week we'll have another great interview.
So until then, stay creative. Thanks for listening.
If you love this episode, please leave a rating and a review.
This helps me reach other curious creatives like you.
If you have a topic request or would like to contact me, simply
head over to my website, rwarddesign.com.
Or e-mail me at podcast@rwardesign.com.