199: Why Pinterest is NOT Social Media (And Why That's Great for Your Business)
Feeling exhausted from the endless social media hamster wheel? This week's episode might just be the breath of fresh air you need.
I sat down with Pinterest strategist Laura Rike to uncover why Pinterest is fundamentally different from social media platforms – and how this difference could be the key to growing your digital product business.
Laura shares a refreshing perspective on Pinterest marketing that doesn't involve posting 50 times a day or constantly creating new content.
Instead, she breaks down a practical, sustainable approach that works whether you're selling digital products, courses, or physical items.
You'll learn why Pinterest users are already in a buying mindset (unlike social media scrollers), and how to tap into that intent to drive consistent sales.
Some highlights from our conversation:
The crucial difference between Pinterest and social media platforms
A simple framework for sustainable Pinterest marketing
How to optimize your profile to attract ready-to-buy customers
Smart strategies for linking your pins (hint: it's not just about product pages)
Why you don't need fancy product photos to succeed
Plus, Laura shares a free resource to help you set up your Pinterest boards the right way from the start.
Ready to turn Pinterest into your 24/7 sales machine? Listen to the full episode here.
P.S. If you're wondering why some of your colleagues are getting steady traffic and sales from Pinterest while you're still struggling with Instagram algorithms, this episode is a must-listen!
Key moments:
[00:03:00] Understanding Pinterest user intent vs. social media behavior
[00:07:00] How to effectively use Pinterest's search functionality for keyword research
[00:08:00] Creating a sustainable Pinterest strategy across awareness, consideration, and purchase stages
[00:15:00] E-commerce strategies for both physical and digital products
[00:17:00] Maximizing content reach through strategic pin linking and distribution
Mentioned in this episode:
Where to find Laura: https://simplypintastic.com/ and
https://laurarike.comLaura's free gift: https://simplypintastic.com/funnel/pinterest-board-titles/pinterest-board-titles/
How to Use Pinterest Strategically to Grow Your Digital Product Business
In today's digital landscape, finding the right platform to market your products can feel overwhelming. While most business owners flock to Instagram and Facebook, there's a powerful platform that often gets overlooked: Pinterest. According to Pinterest strategist Laura Rike, founder of Simply Pintastic, this visual search engine offers unique advantages that social media platforms simply can't match.
Why Pinterest Isn't Just Another Social Media Platform
The fundamental difference between Pinterest and traditional social media lies in user intent. When people browse Instagram or Facebook, they're often looking to connect with friends or get entertained. But Pinterest users? They come to the platform with specific problems to solve and purchases in mind. This means they're already halfway through the buying decision process when they land on your content.
"People on Pinterest are already problem aware," explains Rike. "They're going to the platform with the intent of finding a solution or purchasing a product, rather than going to social media where you have to post and capture their attention." This distinction makes Pinterest an incredibly powerful tool for digital product creators and online entrepreneurs.
Creating a Sustainable Pinterest Strategy
One common misconception about Pinterest is that you need to pin dozens of times per day to see results. Rike dismisses this myth, emphasizing that consistency matters more than volume. "Start out with one pin a day. Start out with five pins. Whatever is going to be sustainable for you," she advises.
The key to success lies in understanding and implementing the three stages of marketing:
Awareness: Focus on content like blog posts, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes that help people get to know your brand
Consideration: Offer value through lead magnets, newsletters, and free PDFs
Purchase: Direct links to your products, services, and sales pages
Optimizing Your Pinterest Profile for Success
Before diving into creating pins, it's crucial to build a strong foundation. This starts with your profile optimization. Rather than using clever or branded phrases, focus on searchable keywords that your ideal customers actually use. Remember, most people discovering your content won't know your brand name yet – they're searching for solutions to their problems.
Rike emphasizes the importance of understanding that Pinterest has two audiences: the computer (algorithm) and the user. Your profile and board names need to speak to both. While your pins can use creative language that appeals to humans, your profile structure needs to help Pinterest's algorithm categorize and distribute your content effectively.
Strategic Content Distribution for Digital Products
For digital product creators, Rike recommends a multi-channel approach to content distribution. Instead of simply linking every pin to your product page, create multiple touchpoints:
Link some pins to blog posts that discuss your product
Direct others to FAQ pages or product collections
Use some pins to promote lead magnets that feed into your sales funnel
Create pins that link directly to your sales page
The key is to use different designs and images while maintaining consistent messaging. This approach allows you to capture potential customers at various stages of their buying journey.
The Power of Visual Strategy Beyond Product Photos
While it might seem logical to focus solely on product photos, Rike suggests a broader approach. "Don't focus on just putting your gorgeous product photos on Pinterest," she advises. Instead, think about the broader context and problems your product solves. For instance, if you sell digital planners, create pins about productivity tips, time management strategies, and organization methods – all leading back to your product.
Getting Started with Pinterest Marketing
The beauty of Pinterest marketing lies in its accessibility. You don't need a massive following or years of experience to start seeing results. Begin by:
Optimizing your profile with relevant keywords
Creating boards that align with both user intent and Pinterest's categories
Developing a sustainable pinning schedule
Mixing content types across awareness, consideration, and purchase stages
Analyzing your results and adjusting your strategy accordingly
Remember, Pinterest is a long-term strategy that can provide consistent traffic and sales for your digital products. Unlike social media posts that disappear in feeds within hours, pins can continue driving traffic months or even years after they're published.
By approaching Pinterest with a strategic mindset and focusing on providing value to users actively searching for solutions, you can build a powerful marketing channel that drives consistent growth for your digital product business. Start small, stay consistent, and keep optimizing based on what works for your specific audience and products.
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Transcript:
Laura Rike creators mba
[00:00:00] Welcome to the Creators MBA podcast, your go to resource for mastering the art and science of digital product entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destini Copp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desks, constantly live launching.
Or worrying about the social media algorithms. I hope you enjoy our episode today.
And my special guest today is Laura Rike. Laura is a Pinterest strategist and she is the leader of Simply Pintastic, which is a Pinterest marketing agency helping businesses and content creators grow their online presence through Pinterest visual search engine. Her agency [00:01:00] offers a wide range of services, including organic management.
Ad management and content creation all designed to increase your visibility, generate leads, and drive sales. And Laura, I am super excited to chat with you today, and we're going to be talking about one of my most favorite subjects here. And everybody who's listened to me and been involved in my world over the years know that I love, love, love Pinterest because it has been such a great, growth engine in my own personal business.
And so super excited to chat with you, but before we get into all the questions I have for you, can you tell the audience just a little bit more about you and how you help people? Yeah, absolutely. So thanks for having me. I'm actually originally a virtual assistant about 16, 17 years ago. And I have three kids.
One of my children at the time came in and [00:02:00] said, Mom, you work too much. So I decided to figure out what I loved the most as a VA and, I had a background in graphic design. My major was advertising design and really putting my love for serving people and helping people grow online. And then my design, we came to Pinterest and a lot of my clients at the time were getting really great results.
It was when Pinterest was invite only. And so I focused on that and I've been doing it for 15 some years now. I love it. So walk us through for the people who are listening here, and it may be somebody who is, you know, a digital product creator, or maybe they have like a handmade business where they want to promote and sell the creations that they're making.
Can you walk us through why Pinterest? Yeah, simply put. People on Pinterest [00:03:00] are already problem aware, meaning they're interested in what they're searching for. So whether that is your digital product, whether that is a physical handmade product, whether that is a service that you are going to help them with, They're already going to the platform with the intent of finding a solution or purchasing a product, rather than going to social media where you have to post and capture their attention and get them engaged with you, they're already going to the platform with that intention of figuring out what they need.
And so being past that stall of, do I need this? Can I spend the money for this? Is this something that's going to benefit me or help me? Is really helpful because now we just have to speak their love language. We just have to tell them how amazing this product is, how amazing this [00:04:00] thing that we created is for them.
And then lead them to where they can purchase it or learn more about it. So you compared it to social media. So let's just get really granular here. Instagram, because a lot of people listening, this may be using Instagram in their business. So walk us through how A user's intent would be different on Instagram versus Pinterest.
A hundred percent. Yeah, so Pinterest is not social. You have social esque type abilities. You can go and you can like a pin. You can re pin a pin. But on Instagram, you host pictures and videos, and they are scrolling through the feed. The computer side of Instagram is going to say, Okay, they've liked these types of posts, so we should show more of these types of posts.
But there's really no distinct rhyme or reason [00:05:00] what you see. Because the algorithm is delivering it to you. So you may scroll for an hour and get lost in all these fun posts, but it might not be what you needed that day. Now, if you go to Pinterest, you're still going to have a feed, but it's going to be based off of your searches.
It's going to be based off of what you've intended to get from the platform, not the platform just serving you, aimlessly thinking you will like this. So you go to Pinterest, You type in a search, maybe you want crochet patterns, and you type that in, all of the content in the feed is now going to be served around that one purpose.
And so you don't have to scroll for an hour to hope upon that one thing that you're really interested in right now today. So let's talk a little bit [00:06:00] about the customer journey.
So if we are wanting to attract our ideal customer into our business, how would we do that on Pinterest? Yeah, the easiest way to start is really going to the platform. You go onto Pinterest, you either on a mobile or a desktop device, you can go up to the little search bar at the top right, and you start typing in what you think are the phrases related to what you offer.
So again, we could go down the crochet pattern, I am a sewer, I do quilting, right? So I could go down that way. I find a lot of patterns that way. Some are free, some are for sale by other individuals who have done really nice quilts with these patterns. And so if I go in and I type quilting pattern, then I'm going to be finding in that search bar other keywords before I hit enter that [00:07:00] Pinterest is saying, okay, this is what you're looking for and these are the top searches.
We call that ABC search on Pinterest because it will give you maybe Quilt pattern, quilt lists, quilt ideas, and each start of that is a different letter of the alphabet. But that's really telling us, like, okay, this is what people are interested in, and this is what I could use to put on my designs and my content as a phrase so that I know mine is shown when people are searching for this thing.
Okay, so we're, you know, finding those keywords, we're putting it in our pin. So we pinned it. So what are we pinning to? Walk us through this journey. Are we pinning to product that we're selling? Are we pinning to a blog post or a podcast episode? Walk us through that process.
Yeah, for sure. So this is, my love language, right. Is talking about the [00:08:00] overarching strategy of what you want to be doing. So a lot of people think you have to pin multiple times a day, like upwards of 50 pins per day. That's not true if you're just getting started.
Start out with one pin a day. Start out with five pins. Whatever is going to be sustainable for you. And the reason I bring that up first is because what I teach in my coaching program is what are the three stages of marketing? We have awareness, consideration, and then we have purchase. So awareness is going to be YouTube videos, blog posts, and podcast episodes like this one, and other things that are going to help them like, know, and trust us.
The consideration is going to be more the lines of, give me something and I'll give you something in return. So you could have a email list newsletter that you're trying to grow. You could give them a PDF, right? Sometimes for quilters, if you give your email, they give you the [00:09:00] pattern. Those are consideration type concepts because they're considering who you are, working with you, learning more about you.
And then the purchase. Self said, right, they purchase from you. And so those could be sales pages, those could be other affiliate links that you have, tons of other content around there. Now, knowing what I teach is put all of that into this content planner that I created so you have all your links readily available, knowing how many pins you can pin or schedule per day and do it.
A month and a half, a week and a half, however, your schedule allows you to do this. You decide what is your main goal. Do you want more content for awareness? Do you want to bring more visibility to your brand? Do you right now know that your email leads convert to sales on the back end within a couple weeks?[00:10:00]
So you want to grow your newsletter or your email list. Or maybe you're like, Dude, I need purchases right now. I need sales right now. So I want to focus on the sales side of things. Then we look at that and say if we can do, let's say, five pins a day, right, and I want to focus on sales, I'm going to do a big chunk of those five pins linking to different sales links that I have, the actual product page, the collection, maybe you're on Shopify and you can do a collection of different products, whatever it is, it could be an FAQ page that talks more about your products or your services
so maybe I do three pins a day for that and then one pin for awareness and one pin for a lead magnet. Now I have my structure of what I want to do. And you can change this week by week, month by month, quarter by quarter. It doesn't have to be [00:11:00] stuck in stone, but really diving into what are your goals with the platform?
What is the user's intent with the platform? And then what content do I have that I can serve them on? Any URL that you have online, you can use on Pinterest, any single one of them. And so it's really just where are you converting and what do you need more of? So I love that, Lauren. You gave me a lot of things to think about and I've, I've been doing Pinterest for years and I've never had anybody kind of present it to me that way.
of having, you know, if you have like five pins that you're going to be doing a day, maybe one's going to a sales page, one's going to a collection page, maybe one's going to like a blog post where you might have your free gift there. And there's a lot of things that you can do there, but tons of opportunities to make sales.
You know, in what you presented there, some things that were kind of coming up in my mind. I'm like, okay, you [00:12:00] can send them pin to a blog post on that blog post, have your free gift on the back end of that free gift, have your trip wire, maybe an order bump and some upsells. And there you go. So you've taken them on that full customer journey.
I love that. If somebody was like, I really want to get started in Pinterest, What are some simple ways that you would suggest that they, started, jumping on the platform? Yeah, the first thing that really is commonly overlooked is your profile. Even if you can't pin today, go and start doing your research on what are those key phrases and make sure you put them in your profile.
That is really the biggest thing because Bringing in the awareness that you are on the platform with these keywords is going to help you because it's really that foundation just like house, right? You have to have that strong foundation so the house doesn't falter. You're gonna have to have the same thing on [00:13:00] Pinterest.
So even if you go out and just start with keywords in your name, keywords in your bio, and then making sure that your boards are set up so that Pinterest understands who you want to serve to. And that kind of gets a little bit deeper into the strategy side of things, but just to kind of explain that real quick, I always talk to people about Pinterest is two people.
Pinterest is the computer and Pinterest is the user. And so the computer needs to know how to serve your pins to the user correctly. You may be thinking lead magnet. Pinterest may be thinking in the computer side, email marketing. So making sure that your boards speak to Pinterest's computer algorithm so that your pins can speak to the user's intent.
And so that is the [00:14:00] biggest piece that people miss. They'll put fancy names in their profile and they'll be like, Laura Reich, amazing Pinterest person, but nobody's going to go look up amazing Pinterest person. Or maybe you're with an MLM or your own products, right?
Nobody knows your product names yet when they are searching. It's like, Think about you're reaching the entire world. They don't all know who you are. And so making sure you have the keywords and the categories. that will help you find the people to learn who you are in every place of that. And Pinterest also allows you to figure out what those categories are for the computer side of things.
If you go to pinterest. com forward slash ideas, they give you the list of them. So it's really easy to start going down that direction and figuring that out. But that is the biggest thing. Biggest thing that people miss is the computer [00:15:00] side before we speak the love language of the user side. Okay. That was a lot of great information.
And you make, you're making me want to go look at, look at my profile, make sure I have everything correct. So I'm going to switch gears just a little bit. I want to talk about more e commerce strategies because some of the people listening, they might either have a digital product that's on a Shopify store, or maybe they have some handmade creations that they want to sell.
What would you suggest to them? The biggest thing that I can suggest is do not focus on just putting your gorgeous product photos on Pinterest. Pinterest at its core is a visual search platform. So if you just put your image on there, as gorgeous as it may be, Pinterest is going to search that visually.
We want to make sure that we focus on [00:16:00] terms and sentences and words and so you don't always have to do a product image to sell a product. If you made this gorgeous knit hat you could talk to a trend about clothing attire in the winter. You don't have to show the knit hat product saying knit hat.
If you say clothing attire for winter and then lead back to your knit hat, that's still a perfect alignment with what you're trying to accomplish. So please get a little bit creative with your pins and don't think that it has to just be product photos. You could do a text only based image and use that to lead back to the products as well.
What about somebody who might have a digital product to sell? What are your suggestions on should they send that pin to a blog post where they [00:17:00] talk about it or can they send it directly like to a link on the Shopify store? What are your recommendations there? Yeah, so everywhere that you can put it, link to it.
So the nice thing about Pinterest is you can Title different ways in an image. So I could have a purple image, a blue image, and a green image. They all say digital product a, just leave it at that to keep it simple. And maybe the blue image leads to the blog post, which. That link needs to make sure we have a way to purchase from that blog post, and then maybe the green image leads directly to the sales page on Shopify, and then maybe the purple image leads to an FAQ, which has, or a collection on your Shopify, right, that has multiple similar products.
That link is [00:18:00] different for every single one. If you can link to multiple places for that one digital product, you're going to be better off. So if you can blog post, podcast, you were talking earlier too about the funnel plan, right? So they sign up for the lead magnet and then the tripwire is a product.
Maybe it's on the tripwire for a sale. So you also link to the lead magnet. If you can link multiple times for that one digital product, You're going to get more from it. So don't just think you have to go pin to sales page or pin to blog post. Wherever you talk about that product, you can use a very similar title, different design, different link.
I love all the tips that you have given us here today. Before we hang up, can you let folks know, Laura, where they can find [00:19:00] you? I know you have a free gift for them too. And then I want to ask you a little bit about this cohort program that you have coming up in January. So you can find me online at simplypintastic.
com. You can find me at laurarike. com or anywhere online. Laura Rike. In this specific episode, we do have, a free PDF for you to be able to help you really nail down those Pinterest boards that I was talking about earlier to make sure that they are talking to not only the user, but the computer side of things and help you kind of avoid the common pitfalls of naming them incorrectly so that Pinterest doesn't know who they're supposed to be showing your content to.
So that will be in here, and that will really help supercharge lead generation and sales on that side of things. So definitely be sure to check that out. And I will make sure that all of those [00:20:00] links, Laura, are in the show notes. And tell us a little bit about this cohort program. I know you have something coming up in January for beginners.
Yeah, absolutely. So I do a group coaching cohort. I bring in 10 people. We are opening the doors again in January. We only open it three times a year. And what we do is we actually go through everything foundationally to help you out. So we will focus on What does your profile need to look like?
We will focus on what are the keywords that you need to use and know to be able to get the leads and sales you want. What do the pin designs need to look like? You get access to a mini course with videos on every step of the process. We also go deep into the code and analytics. I'm a real big analytic girl and so I really like to show people how things are [00:21:00] actually indexed on Pinterest, so that you know surefire, without a doubt, you can rank in that area.
And they're on four live coaching calls. We meet together in Zoom, four weeks long. Tons of resources, really everything that's needed to give you a strategy plan by the end of those four weeks to not only understand Pinterest, have everything set up and ready to go so that when we're done at the end of the four weeks, you can start pinning and confidently know that you are doing what is needed on that platform.
So Laura, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing all your wonderful Pinterest knowledge with us. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you loved the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye [00:22:00] for now.