← Pin Talk - Pinterest Tips and Updates for Creators
Loading summary
Transcript211 lines
- [00:02]
A
Hey, welcome to pintalk, the go to podcast for all things Pinterest for bloggers and content creators. I'm Tony Hill, and with me is my co host, Carly Campbell. So before we dive in here, let's talk about, like, who this podcast is for and why we started it and why we're qualified. And then after that, we'll, like, get to this super fun question I'm excited about, and that's how we both make money from Pinterest. So before we answer that question, I'm just curious, like, to know why you started this podcast. Like, why you thought about it. I know I pitched the podcast idea to you. Like, I was kind of surprised you said yes. Like, why? Why'd you say yes? And I'll share a little bit about why I wanted to start a podcast.
- [00:39]
B
Ooh, why did I say yes? I have really enjoyed getting to know you and your perspectives on Pinterest. I think that you have a lot of really great insights on Pinterest. Pinterest has been one of my favorite topics of conversation for the past eight years, and there are not a lot of people out there for me to have really great Pinterest conversations with. So it's fun for me to have the opportunity to talk with somebody who understands Pinterest and sees it the same way that I see it. Also, I think that we are entering a new era on Pinterest, and I've been navigating new eras on Pinterest for the past eight years, and I was feeling kind of tired of doing that by myself. So it's really great to have somebody to share ideas with.
- [01:35]
A
Yeah, for sure. We've had tons of conversations about Pinterest. It seems like we both have things to say, and there are people out there with lots of questions about Pinterest. A lot of new creators these days getting into Pinterest for the first time, and existing ones that are still navigating, you know, looking for some best practices, but also some tips and ideas of ways they can approach their Pinterest process. And so, yeah, I thought it'd be fun to just have, honestly, just more conversations with you about Pinterest. I always learn something new. I feel like every time we talk about Pinterest, and I thought it would be cool if others could just be a fly on the wall a little bit as we have these conversations, because, yeah, I feel like at least every other time that we talk on the phone or something about Pinterest, I'm like, man, it was too bad we weren't recording this, like, this would be a great podcast episode. So that's part of the reason why I wanted to do it, is just hang out with you more, talk more about Pinterest and to help others along the way. And we've already have kind of our own different communities of Pinterest. You want to share a little bit about your community?
- [02:35]
B
Yeah. So I have a Pinterest Mastermind group that started as a pin template subscription in 2020, in early 2020. And what was happening was I was making pins and pinning them and having a lot of success. I've been selling a pinterest course since 2017, and I was finding that I would make new pins and put them out there, and within a few days, people had copied my pins. And I just thought to myself, what if instead of getting upset about that, I just help people do it faster and we could all succeed faster together?
- [03:18]
A
Interesting approach.
- [03:20]
B
Yeah. So I started this pin template subscription without getting too far into memberships as a business model. There is a foundational problem with providing something that can be used over and over and over again to a subscriber as your sole product, and therefore the need arose for something else. And what came out of that was just my Pinterest community where we can talk about all things Pinterest. And that's actually my favorite part of the subscription now, because it is a great place to connect with other Pinterest focused creators who really know what they're doing. And the conversation is always really enlightening and we gain a lot of knowledge when we talk together.
- [04:03]
A
Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm a part of some communities around Pinterest that are free and some that are paid to get in. And I do noticed that there's just a higher level of conversation that happens in those paid communities. Having that barrier of having to pay to be in there just filters out certain types of people and it attracts certain types of people.
- [04:24]
B
Yes.
- [04:24]
A
And so I just find there's a lot more value in these paid communities. And it's. I mean, yes, I have one. So obviously there's a bit of biasness there of me promoting paid communities, but I've been involved in paid communities before I'd ever even had my own. And again, part of that is that I just found that, uh, there was just a. A lot more things kind of said behind the scenes in those communities versus what you would see publicly.
- [04:46]
B
Yeah, absolutely. There's things that I would never share in my public group, not because I'm trying to gatekeep the information, but because I need to protect my own business, which is still at its heart, a Pinterest traffic based website. And so it doesn't make sense, which I learned the hard way. It doesn't make sense to just put all of your information out there for free. People will just replicate your website if you do that.
- [05:14]
A
Yeah, these days sometimes it's getting harder and harder to hide that and prevent that. But that's another conversation for another day. So I'm sure I've asked you this question before, but I do not remember the answer. How did you first get involved with Pinterest? Like, you're a big size influencer in the Pinterest creator space, I would say. And so you've been around for a while and I bet there are some people who might not totally know your origin story. And I'm like one of those people. Or maybe I've forgotten totally. But how did you get introduced to the platform? And then what was that aha moment for you of being able to like realize, oh, I can create my own pins on here and I can make money with that and like kind of walk us through that. That can also lead us into, give us some more teasers on like how you're making money and then how I could talk about how I make money from the platform.
- [06:09]
B
So years and years ago, and I couldn't even put like an exact time on it, I saw a pin on Pinterest that said how I make money by pinning on Pinterest or something like that. So I learned about initially the initial seed was planted from a pin on Pinterest. And then I never did anything with that and I lived my life. And then sometime later I came back to this idea of making money on Pinterest and I read about it and I discovered that what the person who had created that pin was talking about was blogging or having a website. So Pinterest aside, I decided to create a website and I bought a course on how to become a blogger. And I was working through the course and the course was very in depth as far as like how you make a blog a business. But it wasn't very in depth as far as like, this is what you do on Pinterest, this is what you do on Facebook. It wasn't the step by step of those. So there was a group of girls, we were working through the course at the same time, and we decided to divide and conquer the social medias. I took Pinterest, another one took Twitter, another one took Instagram, went to Facebook, and we, we're supposed to go learn those and then make a training for the other girls and come back in four or five months and trade.
- [07:25]
A
Yeah. Because there was nothing out there for any sort of Pinterest course.
- [07:30]
B
No, not the way there is now. I mean, you could probably have found one to buy, but we had already all invested in this other course and we were all kind of bootstrapping our businesses.
- [07:42]
A
That makes sense. Okay.
- [07:43]
B
So we were just going to learn to do it. And so I started pinning, trying to drive traffic to my website. It's a website that doesn't even exist anymore. That one I originally started pinning to Pinterest Graveyard. Well, no, I shut it down after I had gone so far in the course. I learned. I had learned so much in such a short amount of time that I realized there was nothing redeemable about the website that I had created for the first five months. It's a learning curve. So one day I was doing my Pinterest research and I was pinning and like, this is not Pinterest advice. Don't do this. But I discovered that if I went and found the copies of my pins that had been pinned by the biggest accounts and I repinned them to my accounts, it was like instant traffic. Like you could just watch your page views shoot up in real time in old school. And I thought to myself, like, this is it. This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna pin things and get traffic and make money. And it wasn't very long before my website was in a good ad network and I was making great affiliate sales inside my blog posts because the traffic was just unbelievable and it was so easy to come by. And so then when I started, I had made this PDF training because that was what we were supposed to do. When I started giving it to other people that was working for them. One of the women that I originally gave it to in 2017, she kept coming back over and over and over again and saying, you really need to make this for sale so that I can be an affiliate for this, please. Because I really would like to sell this and you need to make that. So after she had asked five times, I put it for sale and she sold the first 200 copies of it. And I wasn't involved in the selling of it at all.
- [09:31]
A
That is wild. You didn't even sell your own, like, I guess it's kind of a course, but in a PDF format.
- [09:38]
B
It was an ebook back then. Yeah.
- [09:39]
A
Ebook. Yeah. And you didn't even sell it yourself?
- [09:42]
B
No.
- [09:43]
A
That is wild.
- [09:44]
B
Yeah. So so that was how I started. How did you get started with Pinterest?
- [09:49]
A
My first interaction with it was because of my wife. So we were getting married and, like, doing. Coming up with, like, wedding ideas. You know, this was back in 2007, so I was reluctant, but whatever. I mean, I like to embrace new technology, but it just seemed kind of like a girly thing.
- [10:08]
B
Okay.
- [10:09]
A
But I was being a good husband or soon to be husband and enjoying. And then what was interesting is we had, like a shared board of things. But I logged in one day and I saw that she had other boards of, like, I don't know, fall outfits and, like, jewelry and clothes and stuff that she liked. And, like, a light bulb went off and I was like, oh, my gosh, I know exactly what to get her for Christmas now or for her birthday. And so I just kind of stocked her boards and I would buy her things from her boards and came across as like, a really intuitive husband that knew exactly what she wanted.
- [10:44]
B
But.
- [10:45]
A
But it was Pinterest behind the scenes. But it was all Pinterest. Yeah.
- [10:48]
B
Oh, that's awesome.
- [10:49]
A
And then she stopped using it at some point, and so that whole source of gift ideas was gone. So that's kind of. Yeah. But I have a new one now.
- [11:00]
B
Oh, good.
- [11:01]
A
Like, last week, I just learned that every single year of marriage, like, every anniversary, has a particular gift that you give them. I mean, I knew that for, like, year 1, 5, 10, 20, but I didn't realize every single year. And there's like, several ideas. Like there's a kind of gem or stone and, like a color for that year and like, of course, a specific gift. I just had my 17th wedding anniversary, and it was furniture. Unfortunately, we have a new house that we. We built, moved into, and so with that, we bought a lot of furniture. So.
- [11:35]
B
So you don't need anything?
- [11:36]
A
We don't really need any more furniture. So I did not get her furniture for our anniversary for this year. But, yeah, every single year, there's a whole list you can go through. So now it's like a new source of this. Does he do that too? Yeah. Does he stick with it every year.
- [11:50]
B
There is a few years where he fell off, but, like, some of those early years are like paper and linen. So, yeah, it's harder. But yeah, after you get to 17, furniture. Although we don't need any furniture. I still have two years to go before 17, so maybe we'll come up with furniture.
- [12:08]
A
There you go. Some time to save.
- [12:10]
B
Yes.
- [12:11]
A
Yeah. So then I stopped using the platform and Then, well, I got my start back in 2005 running one website I started and then because I learned how to do SEO for Google back in the day when it was super easy and then rolled out a bunch more sites, had a whole network of websites that I was ranking really well on Google bring in lots of traffic. And a lot of those have been hit by Google updates over the years as they've gone by. And I'm sure a lot of people can identify with getting their site hit by a Google update. It's been pretty rough last year or two. And there is one site in particular of mine in my portfolio that is visual, you could say. And it at one point just realized like, oh, we're actually getting some decent traffic from Pinterest. Not sure why. So I did some researching and dug into it and like, yeah, figured out, okay, I get it. Like, it's a visual niche and I can see how a lot of people on the platform would really like to see more of this kind of content.
- [13:08]
B
So you weren't saving any of your own pins to Pinterest, it was just user saving your pins.
- [13:14]
A
Pinterest. That's right. Yeah. We didn't even have like there was no account set up for it. And then eventually for like for several years I think. And so we were just getting all this free traffic. So finally set up an account and then assigned some people on my team to do more with Pinterest there and like just follow some of the trends of what pens were doing well, like what kind of design and styles of content is doing well. So that worked for a little while and then it kind of died down and then I just kept focusing more on Google. I never really gave Pinterest that much of my time and energy. But then there was a Google update that hit and the last couple years and I decided to. I was still getting a lot of traffic for Pinterest, but I wanted to see if I could do anything else about it. And so did some researching and was like, well, how about we just pin more? Like rather than, I don't know, we're probably doing a handful a day and like, let's just pin everything. Like we were just doing some pins a day and so once we started pinning more and it was like within a month or two, just traffic started to skyrocket. But again, this is a visual niche, so.
- [14:19]
B
Right. And you hadn't claimed the account before that.
- [14:23]
A
Yeah.
- [14:23]
B
So then you claimed your account.
- [14:25]
A
I finally claimed it. Yep. And then we started pinning more and then. Yeah, just kept rolling with that and started testing different ideas. One of the things that I guess makes me a little different than a lot of other Pinterest creators is the amount of boards that I create. And I didn't know this until I was on a guest on a podcast last year, so 2023, and I talked about my board strategy and, like, how I just create a board for every single blog post, pretty much, because I've got a team of VAs, and so a lot of them, they're from the Philippines and they don't understand the niche very well. And I. I didn't want to have to explain to them exactly, like, all right, you gotta put this kind of content in this board and this kind of content in that board. Just like, you know what, just create a new board for every new blog post and just throw it in there. And it's worked out fairly well for us. So it doesn't work well for every niche.
- [15:16]
B
Right.
- [15:16]
A
But the one I'm talking about in particular does really well. It works well for that.
- [15:21]
B
So I don't think I've ever asked you, but I'm curious, when did you start, like, how many years ago did you start creating a board for every blog post?
- [15:30]
A
Gosh, that was probably 2020. Maybe a little earlier. Okay, 2019.
- [15:39]
B
It is really interesting because that is around the same time that I would say that I. And in general, the other kind of cluster of Pinterest creators that I was in touch with at the time started to use less boards.
- [15:57]
A
That's crazy.
- [15:58]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Because like, in 2017, 2018, having hundreds of boards was the way forward. We just had so many boards. And then after Pinterest changed things, it became impossible for people who aren't in highly visual niches to make enough pins to pin to all these hundreds of boards. So, yeah, we shrunk our numbers of boards down. It's just really interesting to me that the big board numbers strategy still really specifically working for you.
- [16:32]
A
Yeah.
- [16:33]
B
Like that much time ago.
- [16:34]
A
Yeah.
- [16:35]
B
Yeah.
- [16:35]
A
Interesting. Yeah. I don't know. That's crazy. So, yeah, I kind of stumbled into that, and there have been, since I've come out with that strategy, there's been quite a few people who have implemented that and have done well with it.
- [16:47]
B
Yeah.
- [16:48]
A
But I wasn't able to, at that time, to articulate why it worked so well for me and why it might not work well for others. And I think we can have, like, a whole separate conversation about. About boards. And in that particular scenario.
- [17:00]
B
Yeah.
- [17:01]
A
But, yeah, so it just kept plugging away with Pinterest and started getting more and more traffic. So I probably peaked right before the Google Helpful content update of 2023, like September, October. So about a year ago from now, from today, when we're recording this. And part of that is because there was another big shift. I had like a big aha moment with Pinterest and getting more traffic, and that was putting the save button or the pin it button on all of your images within your blog post. Now, of course, that's like 101. But again, like, I never went and bought courses. I was never involved in any Pinterest community. Like, I was just figuring this out on my own. I don't know why, but that's just the approach I took. But I didn't like the fact that you could only see it when you hovered over the image, because a lot of my traffic is mobile and on mobile it doesn't show. And you have to like, tap on the image in order to see that save button. And who's going to tap on the image that often? So, like, I kind of create a custom script that will always show that button. And once I did that started getting way more traffic. So I was leveraging all this traffic from Google. They were coming into my. My sites from Google. They would check out the images, they would like them, they'd click that pin it button, go to Pinterest, and then that would start spreading throughout the Pinterest platform. And then I would bring in traffic. So it was like this really cyclical process that I could bring in traffic from other sources and it would elevate my Pinterest traffic.
- [18:25]
B
Right? Yeah, it was great.
- [18:26]
A
Yeah.
- [18:27]
B
Because the users would save it no matter where they came from.
- [18:29]
A
Exactly. So, you know, Google has kind of crushed all my sites, so.
- [18:36]
B
Sorry.
- [18:37]
A
Yeah, they're not totally. Not all totally dead, but big crush. So also then I saw a drop, a natural drop in Pinterest traffic because of that.
- [18:46]
B
Right.
- [18:47]
A
People coming to the site, pinning those images and stuff. So I've been trying to make up for that. And so it's been fun. I've been trying all sorts of things.
- [18:56]
B
It's been fun.
- [18:57]
A
Yeah.
- [18:57]
B
Well, I mean, pictures is fun, but, like, I never got Google to like my site, any of them, really. Once I thought I had one that it was gonna like, and that only lasted for six months. Like, Google never likes anything I've done. And so I've never had that experience of having Google traffic feed into Pinterest traffic. I've always had to be intentional about the pinterest traffic right from the very start, because my niche is less visual, so people are less inspired to save the images on their own. And so I know we're going to have another conversation about niche specifically, but this is one of those things where if the user is going to save the images.
- [19:36]
A
Yeah.
- [19:36]
B
Without prompting. We could certainly prompt them. But Pinterest is going to be better for them.
- [19:41]
A
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, there's a lot of, like, informational topics and blog posts out there that a lot of these bloggers are creating content for for Google. And where it's less visual, you could say. But they could have been getting quite a bit of traffic from Pinterest all along if they just would have at least put in like one Pinterest friendly graphic, say, like at the top or the bottom, or use like a hidden, hidden pin. You know, I'm using a plugin, like Tasty Pins or something, and just having that available because otherwise a lot of these blogs will have very generic, like, stock images.
- [20:16]
B
Yeah.
- [20:17]
A
You know, and they could be kind of related to the main topic. Sometimes not. Sometimes that image is for something specific. And so there's just no easy way for someone to. From Pinterest to bookmark that information that they're reading. And so there's just a big missed opportunity for a lot of people all these years. But I think they're finally catching on. They're realizing now that a lot of people are shifting their attention to Pinterest as a way to get traffic.
- [20:38]
B
Yes.
- [20:39]
A
Now they're learning some of these things.
- [20:40]
B
The Google updates, we are seeing that. Okay, so that has brought up a good question. So is Pinterest traffic free? That's like a. An important question. And when I saw it here, I thought, like, is anything free? Like, do you consider it free traffic?
- [20:58]
A
Yeah, I do, if you're already creating this content anyways. So, you know, there are people that I have conversations, but at least a couple times a week, they're like, hey, Tony, my site got crushed by Google. I'm looking at getting traffic from Pinterest. And, like, I want to be able to repurpose all of my existing content as much as I can. Will it work? Like, and they'll kind of give me, you know, links to their content or their niche. And so in many cases, yes, like, it can work. And so they can repurpose what they're already using, and it's just a matter of their time to create the pins.
- [21:31]
B
Right.
- [21:31]
A
And so in that regard, it's free. You don't have to necessarily pay to play. You don't have to buy a bunch of ads. You don't have to. Like, with Facebook right now, the big thing is you create ads to get followers, people to like your page.
- [21:45]
B
Right.
- [21:46]
A
Once you get enough people to like your page and you pay for every one of those likes, then you can start. They'll be, you know, following you. And so you can start creating Facebook posts, and they will see them in the feed, and that's free. But first, you got to pay for all those followers. People will email me and be like, hey, like, how do I buy Pinterest followers? You know, because maybe it's a very similar strategy as Facebook, Inc. I'm sorry. Like, you can't.
- [22:11]
B
No. And if. I mean, it's probably a conversation for another day, but you wouldn't want to. Because if you have a whole bunch of followers that don't engage with your things, that is just going to slaughter your account.
- [22:24]
A
Oh, yeah, that's a good point. And it's seen from that perspective. Yeah, yeah.
- [22:28]
B
Well, we see a lot of old established accounts with a million followers that get 50,000 impressions a month. And you think, what's gone wrong? There's. And a lot of times I think it's a shift. Their followers are either their old dead accounts that aren't interested in what they're pinning anymore, or they've shifted niches. And so followers, they can be a good thing, but they can also be dead weight.
- [22:50]
A
Yeah. So do you think that will always hold those accounts back, those large accounts that you're talking about?
- [22:55]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [22:57]
A
And there's nothing they can do about that?
- [22:58]
B
No.
- [22:59]
A
Right.
- [22:59]
B
Well, yeah, they can start a new account.
- [23:01]
A
I was just gonna say, like.
- [23:01]
B
Yeah, it's a scary thing to think.
- [23:04]
A
About, but see, it seems like that would be a big limitation for Pinterest to create, and I wonder if they're going to address that. And maybe they have, or maybe they will in the future, because they've got to realize that over time. Yeah. Like, people can still follow you, but it seems like it's less of an important factor that you've noticed over the years, the number of followers you have. And it's more about, you know, the relevance of the pin, and if it's an interest that's associated with. With you, that's also associated with that pen and the timeliness of it. And Pinterest seems to be focusing a lot of their algorithm towards prediction, like trying to predict, like, what will you be interested in next based upon what you were interested in most recently.
- [23:48]
B
Yeah.
- [23:49]
A
And so it's been interesting to. To learn like, how they're trying to do that and trying to find just, like, really relevant, timely pins to that individual user. And so it'd be kind of a bummer if there are pens out there that would be timely and relevant to that user, but they're not showing up because they're on an account that has a ton of followers, but most people don't follow it anymore. And I don't know, maybe there's a correlation with, like, they don't have a lot of people interacting with their pens anymore because they've totally moved on to a, you know, like you said, a different niche or different set of topics with their accounts. Or maybe they've. They stopped pinning, or maybe they're just pinning stuff that people don't like anymore. So do you think if they're still pinning stuff that's, like, relevant and great, people like it, they still have a chance?
- [24:33]
B
Oh, yeah, for sure. But. But I think, like, if you think one of the, like, core tenants of Pinterest over the past years and years has been, we create new pins for our old content, and if we are not creative enough with the new angle for that old content, if you have 100,000 followers and 90,000 of them have seen this piece of content and this idea is not new anymore, they are not going to interact with it, even if it's something they would still be interested in. And therefore, that was, like, the first step. We got way off the topic of how we make money on Pinterest.
- [25:10]
A
We'll get there. We'll get there.
- [25:11]
B
Okay. That was, like, the first step of why we couldn't keep repinning the same pins we were always pinning, because the people who were following us were seeing the same pins all the time. And that is bad for engagement on the platform. And that was the first step why we couldn't keep doing it the way we were doing it. And now we know, okay, we present a slightly different image, we present a slightly different idea angle, but eventually it needs to be new ideas if we want the people who have engaged with our stuff before to continue engaging with it. It can't keep leading to the same blog post. It can't keep leading to the same ideas. And so I think that accounts with a million followers, they have to be the most innovative when it comes to their content strategy.
- [25:57]
A
Interesting. That makes sense. Now you say it that way. Okay, so how do we make money from Pinterest?
- [26:04]
B
Yes. Okay. How do you make money from Pinterest.
- [26:07]
A
I make money through ads at the end of the day. So what happens is someone comes to my sites, one of my sites here, and they will read a blog post and there are ads on that blog post. I'm sure if you're listening to this, you have probably encountered that that's just what makes the web free and run is through ads. I love them or hate them, it's what makes the web work at this point in time because like nothing is totally free. Kind of like what you were saying is Pinterest traffic really free? Right. You know, all this content on the web that is free to access, like it's gotta be paid for somehow. And so ads is like the low hanging fruit. The easiest way to make money with a website, if you can bring in enough traffic and enough being, like if you can bring in 30,000 sessions or 3,000 people a month, you're in a good place where you can start qualifying for some of these ad networks and put up ads there. Or you can always join the Google AdSense program. And I think you hardly need any traffic to join that.
- [27:11]
B
Mediavine has a program now called Journey. They're taking 10,000 sessions. The barrier for entry is slower than it has ever been. Really?
- [27:21]
A
That's cool. That's primary way I do it. I've tested some other ideas over the years and at the end of the day like that's just not where I like to focus my time on. I just love to like reverse engineer things and test new things and primarily like more complicated things than trying to figure out how to do more beyond just selling or just putting up ads. So the nice part is like, I don't have to sell these ads myself. I can work with these ad networks, they can sell it for me and I just collect a check at the end of the month. It's awesome.
- [27:54]
B
Yes.
- [27:56]
A
So I just need to get traffic to my sites, right. Either from Google, from Facebook, from Bing, from Pinterest. And so every time that like I create a pin on Pinterest, not every time, but I would say most times, at least one person's gonna click on that pin. There's an option to if you click on the pin or if there's a button to like read it or visit website, they click on that takes them to my website where they can go through that blog post and their ads being shown. And every time an ad is shown, I am paid just a little bit of money. And so that adds up over time with enough people coming to the site so that's how I make money from Pinterest. How do you make money from Pinterest?
- [28:36]
B
So I make money from Pinterest the same way. Money is one of my very favorite ways to make money because it doesn't require a lot of effort outside of just traffic generation. And I know for people listening to this who are rolling their eyes at the idea that traffic generation is easy, because I know that's a big struggle for some people, but that's the easiest way to make money. I've also over the years had a lot of success with affiliate links inside my blog posts. So I don't even do affiliate links in my blog posts anymore. When we publish a new blog post, I'm not very involved in the publishing of the content. And the people that I have working on my site, they're not told to go track down Amazon links or whatever. But the Amazon links that I have in my blog posts that I wrote years and years ago, they still generate hundreds of dollars a month, even though we haven't done any work for that in years. Really.
- [29:36]
A
So is it motivating for you to like ever go back into the posts where you haven't added those affiliate links to go in and do it?
- [29:43]
B
No. If I had great affiliate content that sold something different other than Amazon, I might be motivated to do it. Amazon has just kind of shifted their attitude toward creators over and over again over the years. You know, years ago they paid 10% and then they paid 7% and now they pay 3%. Or if I sold more expensive products on Amazon, like a lot of the things I sell on Amazon are worth $15 and there's a 10 cent commission. So years ago I had a blog post that made $5,000 a month in affiliate income on Pinterest. It was Pinterest traffic and it made $5,000 a month in affiliate income. And that was fantastic. And it was a really, like a really harsh lesson the day that Pinterest retired that pin. I love affiliate income. I think it's well worth doing. I would do it with like affiliates that are more worthwhile than 10 or $15 products on Amazon anymore. Yeah, I also have a couple blog posts that I sell digital product in. So these are just printable PDFs in my case. But there's lots of kinds of digital products that you could sell. One of them last year, last year in July, one blog post went viral on Pinterest. It had a hundred thousand page views that month from Pinterest. And I sell a nine dollar printable PDF in it. And that PDF made a thousand dollars that month on top of the, I think the $4,500 that that blog post made in ad income. So adding the PDF to the blog post was just a really easy way to increase your revenue per view pretty significantly. And so I know lots of people that make more money selling products in their blog posts than they make on ads. I'm not one of them. I don't have a lot of content that lends itself really well to selling products, but I know lots of people who make good money that way. And in my experience, it is a real possibility.
- [31:53]
A
So for that product, was it just being sold on that one blog post?
- [31:57]
B
I put it in a couple other blog posts, but the sales didn't come from those other blog posts because those other blog posts didn't get traffic. Yeah, that month.
- [32:04]
A
Yeah.
- [32:05]
B
So, yeah.
- [32:06]
A
Wow. And so it was just. It was, I'm assuming, highly relevant to the blog post topic.
- [32:11]
B
Yes. I edited the post because once you have a post that's getting traffic, then you could do whatever you want with that post. It's in the old days when we were like slaves to Google. If you had a post that was number one on Google, you wouldn't go in and edit all the content completely if it started getting traffic.
- [32:32]
A
Right.
- [32:33]
B
But you can when it's Pinterest.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah, I know. It's such a mind trip. Like, I have to try to set aside all of my old SEO ways for Google and just wrap my brain around how much more freedom you have as a creator working with Pinterest.
- [32:51]
B
Absolutely. And I mean, once you have a person on your website, you can stop and think to yourself, what is the best way that I could monetize this person's time on my site? And so whether that is just ads, or whether it is affiliate products in your blog post or whether it is products that you're gonna sell to them, or maybe it's collect them onto your email list so that you can help them in the future.
- [33:14]
A
Yep.
- [33:15]
B
I know lots of people who have massive email lists that have been just created with Pinterest traffic. That's not me.
- [33:22]
A
Yeah, I don't. Why not?
- [33:23]
B
I don't. I don't want to email the moms. When I started getting mom traffic to my site, I felt too new at momming to have anything extra to share every week. You know, if I was going to do a weekly newsletter, the pressure felt too high. It wasn't like I liked to talk about being a mom. It was. And you can Monetize an audience with relatability. So you can do that, but you have to want to. It's really, really hard to make a real connection. And I believe that real connection is the easiest way forward in business. It's really hard to make a real connection if you have no desire to do it. I did not want to email the moms, and I still don't. So I don't have a mom list.
- [34:12]
A
Okay, that's fair. Means staying true to you, like, long term, you're going to stick to those things that you just are really passionate about and really enjoy doing.
- [34:22]
B
Yeah.
- [34:22]
A
And sometimes if you don't stick to. If you stick to those things that you aren't passionate about and don't enjoy doing it, it's just a slog. And that just wears on you over time.
- [34:30]
B
Yeah.
- [34:30]
A
And I think over time, people will see through it.
- [34:33]
B
I agree.
- [34:33]
A
They'll get a sense of that.
- [34:34]
B
I agree. And when we talk about making money on Pinterest, I mean, I realize that none of us, or very, very few of us in the world, like, have the opportunity to say, like, I chose this job because it's fun, but making money on Pinterest is, like, a lot of fun. And I was really excited to do that, and I didn't want to do the thing that was going to make it not fun anymore.
- [34:56]
A
So right now, is it still fun to create blog posts and pins? We've been doing this for a while. I'm sure things have changed a little bit over time.
- [35:05]
B
That's such a good question. I have not been having fun making blog posts and pins for my main account. But recently I have started a brand new account as an experiment, and it's been really stressful. I think it's more stressful to start a new Pinterest account with 50,000 people watching you to see if you're starting it. Well, it's more stressful, but it has been a lot of fun. I mean, I probably won't say that in six months. If it doesn't have any Pinterest traffic, I'll be like, that was awful. But right now, yeah, it's fun. Is it fun for you? Are you a big bud?
- [35:44]
A
Um, so I don't really have anything to do with my Pinterest process, so in a way, that's fun. I have people who take care of my Pinterest accounts.
- [35:57]
B
Right.
- [35:57]
A
So. Right. Yeah. They create all the content, the blog posts, the pins. I guide them, I give them direction. Like, as I'm learning new things and want to Test different ideas and strategies. I will talk to my lead VA and come up with a game plan on implementing that, then following up to see what the results were like and all that kind of stuff. So that's what I focus on, because that's my wheelhouse. That's what I really enjoy doing. And so I'm just fortunate to be in a position where I can hire assistants to take care of all of those things. And it's one of the ways that I can pin so much every single day is because I've got a team behind me to do it. But there's a lot of people who are listening that, you know, it's just them. They've got to create their own pins, their own blog posts, and hopefully they enjoy the process. If not, at least they enjoy the fruits of it. You know, that they are making money from it and what that money means for them.
- [36:55]
B
So, yeah, I mean, it's definitely more fun the more money that you. You are able to make from it. There's a relationship there, sure.
- [37:04]
A
Yeah.
- [37:05]
B
But it's. I think it's really interesting that, like, you know, if you're a person who really enjoys pinning and enjoys that process, then you can make money on Pinterest pinning for other people. So you don't have to do it just for yourself, because you've got a whole team of people pinning for you. And that's how they make money on Pinterest.
- [37:22]
A
Yeah.
- [37:22]
B
Just different.
- [37:23]
A
Right? Yeah. There's like a whole community out there of, like, Pinterest VAs that I just learned about, like, in the last six months.
- [37:32]
B
Well, that's funny, because you already had Pinterest VAs.
- [37:34]
A
Well, right. Like, I hired them myself and trained them.
- [37:38]
B
Okay.
- [37:39]
A
Versus, like, a whole community of these vas who have figured out how to create excellent pins and they just provide it as a service to bloggers. They enjoy the content creation process on their blog or their niche site, but they don't enjoy creating pins and dealing with all that. So they just outsource that to a virtual assistant. Like a freelancer.
- [38:00]
B
Yeah.
- [38:01]
A
Where my approach with my hiring strategy is I hire for general technical competence. Like, can you use a computer? Can you. Can you, you know, click and drag and can you, you know, go to a website, those kind of things. And then I hire for character. Other than that, I feel like I can train you on most anything. There are some things with, like, even with Pinterest, it's interesting. You have to have. I would say. I say you have to have. I don't Think it's true. I was going to say you have to have a kind of a knack for design or an eye for design to do really well, but that's. I don't think that's totally true because I forgot what the quote is, but it's like something about good artists create, great artists steal, or something along those lines. I totally could be butchering that one. But the idea is it's a new quote. Yeah, it's my own quote. And I'm not saying I'm stealing art. What I mean by that and what I think, how I interpret that quote is the strategy that I use to do well with Google or how I did well with Google. And that is I'm looking to see what's working well. And I'm modeling that. And I think that's just an overall good business practice, whether it's, you know, boutique clothing store in town, if you're wanting to start one. Well, I would go around and I would shop in all the boutique clothing stores in town and I would look at their Yelp reviews and their Google reviews and see which ones, like, have the highest reviews and go in and experience their store and see, you know, how it's set up, how the staff are interacting with you. And. And then I would take notes from that, like, what seems to be working well for them and then apply that to my own business. And so I took that same approach with Google and SEO of like, what's ranking number one for different keywords and studying those pages and trying to figure out what's different about them, what can I learn from, what can I implement? And then of course, I always want to, like, add in, like, what's my unique angle or take on it. And so the same idea can be applied to Pinterest and like, looking at, well, what pins are doing really well for different topics and then like, how can I model that but still add in my unique take on it or unique flair to it? So, because if you just like straight up copy someone else's pin, that's not going to take you very far. So I'm not condemning that.
- [40:20]
B
No, especially not if we go back to the idea. I believe in saturation of an idea on Pinterest. It goes hand in hand with the. If you have a million followers and none of them engage with your stuff because they've all seen it, then you're not going to get anywhere. So I believe in the saturation of an idea. And so I definitely think that there is merit to what you're saying. You look at what else is successful and then you do more of what's successful. My biggest successes on Pinterest have been when I introduce an idea that wasn't broadly there before. I'm talking about the ones that are 100,000 pages a month or, you know, to a single blog post. And that does not happen overnight. Sometimes it takes years for the idea to get out there and it's already been copied 100 times by the time it gets out there.
- [41:15]
A
Interesting.
- [41:15]
B
But those are still the ones that do really, really well. That doesn't mean that they weren't inspired from something that I had already seen there. You know, to say, like, this topic is already doing really well on Pinterest. I can see that it's everywhere on Pinterest. This other idea would also interest the person who is interested in this idea and therefore it will do well.
- [41:39]
A
Interesting.
- [41:40]
B
But it won't have the competition that this has. And so, I mean, I do think that taking inspiration from what's already on Pinterest is like the first step. But then if you can make it unique, you'll go a lot further.
- [41:56]
A
You know, I wonder, maybe that's part of the reason why I was getting a lot of traction with my largest account with Pinterest, because I was not doing my keyword research within Pinterest. I was doing my keyword research for Google.
- [42:10]
B
Right.
- [42:11]
A
And so I was getting these keyword ideas and putting them into pin titles that people, maybe they were new keywords to the platform and people weren't necessarily searching for these. But now they've been exposed to these ideas and now I can see there was no before. Like I, I don't know if these keywords existed on Pinterest beforehand or not. I never checked to see, but I can see how I was covering a lot of long tail ideas that maybe not a lot of people were searching on Pinterest for. And so maybe that was part of my early success is introducing some, some new ideas just from my research from Google.
- [42:46]
B
I wouldn't be surprised.
- [42:47]
A
And one of the things that I want to do more of, like this conversation has sparked this reminder of an idea I had and I've implemented a few times where I will coin my own terms.
- [42:57]
B
Yeah.
- [42:58]
A
And it like piques people's curiosity. Like what? Like what is this? What does that mean? Because I put it together next to something they already know, but I kind of create my own little name for it and people get curious about it and so they'll click it. So that worked really well for Getting Google Discover traffic, because it's like all about the headlines with Google Discover and just to get people's curiosity and attention with something new or different, something novel, you know. And so I guess that's my encouragement to myself and for people who are listening, like, can you find ways to, like, come up with some, like, your own term, like coin your own term or some unique phrase or word you can come up with on an established topic that people aren't searching this yet? Like, because everyone's going to Pinterest trends for ideas. So you're competing with a lot of people that way. I mean, I think it can be a great source of inspiration to start there. But, like, can you expand on that idea or maybe come up with your own way of repackaging it?
- [43:59]
B
Yeah, repackaging it. That's a good way to put it.
- [44:01]
A
Yeah. So what's an interesting way you've seen someone make money from Pinterest that we haven't talked about yet?
- [44:08]
B
Well, let's see. We talked about ads and affiliate links and digital products and being a Pinterest va. Yeah. Nothing else is coming to mind. I will say I see a lot of people talking about pinning affiliate links directly on Pinterest. And I hear kind of like people say, oh, I heard, you know, this person is making this amount of money with affiliate links on Pinterest or directly on Pinterest. Not in the blog post, but putting the link right. Pinterest.
- [44:38]
A
Yeah.
- [44:39]
B
Do you know anybody personally, have you ever had a conversation with anybody personally who has consistently managed to make thousands of dollars every month with an affiliate link on Pinterest?
- [44:50]
A
I do not.
- [44:51]
B
I do not either. And I have been doing this for eight years.
- [44:55]
A
I see YouTube videos.
- [44:56]
B
Yeah.
- [44:57]
A
Everywhere about that.
- [44:58]
B
People who say you can do it, but have. I know I would like to see their screenshots.
- [45:02]
A
Yeah, that's true.
- [45:04]
B
I did see multiple conversations this week. So this is September of 2024, talking about people who've had their Pinterest accounts banned when they put affiliate links directly on Pinterest. Yeah, we know that it is allowed. You are allowed to do it on Pinterest. I think it's a real gray area as far as, like, if you can properly put out your disclosure and make sure that that disclosure always goes with the pin. Because we know that when. When you repin things, little bits of information seem to get lost. I mean, that's neither here nor there as to whether or not you can actually do it. So I think you can. I do not personally know anybody making a full time consistent income. You'll, you'll talk to people who will get, they'll get a pin that will do well. They'll take off, they'll make some money. They'll say like, oh, I made $500 this month on Pinterest with this affiliate link. I don't know anybody who is making a consistent full time income with pinning affiliate links on Pinterest. Their own product links. Yes. So that's a different thing altogether, you know, to their Shopify store or their Etsy store.
- [46:08]
A
Yeah, exactly. I was going to point that out. A lot of people will make money pointing their pins directly to their store.
- [46:14]
B
Yeah. And I get asked a lot like, how do you drive traffic to an E Comm store that's not on your own domain? I think that the same strategies apply and just put the link to like in the end. I think it's similar, but I've never done it myself.
- [46:33]
A
Yeah, me neither. So there was one Pinterest account I came across recently and it was the most unique way I've seen someone monetize from Pinterest. They were linking to their Etsy store and basically what they were doing is taking their blog post, putting it into a PDF and selling it for like $0.99 or $1.99. They had 20,000 reviews on their shop and that's all they were doing.
- [47:00]
B
Wow. Okay, so it was crazy. But what was in those blog posts that somebody would pay to read? What were they about?
- [47:08]
A
It was recipes. They're recipes. Just straight up recipes. And it's like, can you believe that people will pay $1.99 for a recipe? I can totally believe it because we were talking about how, we were talking about ads and ads. I recognize that some websites are very annoying with ads. It's just hard to like get through the recipe and everything. And sometimes it will freeze up your browser because if you have it pulled up while you're trying to make the recipe.
- [47:33]
B
Yeah.
- [47:33]
A
And it will freeze your browser, sometimes your computer because of all the video ads playing. Like it's happened to my wife because she follows lots of recipes online and that's frustrating. So I totally get it how some people are just willing to pay a couple bucks completely ad free PDF experience of the recipe. Okay, but that's my theory.
- [47:55]
B
How many people do you think? So you said there's 20,000 reviews. How many people that buy review. Because $20,000, when you say that initially that sounds like such a big number. But if that is your revenue for the year that is not a full time job. So I'm curious, like, how many sales do you think this person is making?
- [48:15]
A
Yeah, so I think the account is like a year old. And they don't, they don't get a review every single time they make a sale.
- [48:22]
B
They wouldn't. Right.
- [48:23]
A
So 20,000 reviews, you gotta. I'm gonna assume there's at least another 20,000 people who didn't give a review.
- [48:31]
B
Or more.
- [48:33]
A
Or more, yeah.
- [48:34]
B
Or more.
- [48:34]
A
Yeah.
- [48:34]
B
I never review anything that's not worth my time.
- [48:37]
A
I know, right? Yeah, I don't review much either, so it could be a lot more interesting. That brings me to how much money do people make from getting traffic from Pinterest? What have you seen?
- [48:49]
B
Do you want me to guess? I know plenty of people who make five to $10,000 a month. And I wouldn't say that's like, oh, it's really hard to get there. I'd say that $5,000 a month is a very reasonable income goal. And after enough time has gone by, you should be able to be there consistently without a lot of ongoing effort. I think that there's, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands more people who are making $1,500 a month from Pinterest traffic without even trying. And I think, I mean, you've shared that you're getting like sometimes you get like a million pages a month from Pinterest. So that's more than a full time income.
- [49:36]
A
Yeah, more than a full time income. It's providing an income for quite a few people. Right.
- [49:41]
B
You have a whole team that.
- [49:42]
A
Yeah, yeah. So it's quite a bit. And I know that there are others out there like me who are doing really well and there are others who, you know, they're making a couple hundred bucks a month. They're just getting started. Or maybe they're stuck.
- [49:55]
B
Right.
- [49:56]
A
Or maybe they picked the wrong niche, which we're going to be talking about that like, is there a wrong niche? Is there a great niche for Pinterest? That kind of stuff. And so I think that's an important thing to understand about the platform. So, you know, I had mentioned earlier, there's a lot of people coming in that are formal Google SEO bloggers and coming into Pinterest and trying to make their existing blog work for the platform. And a lot of times it's going to be an uphill battle. There's some headwind there for them to do it. I give them ideas on ways that they can spin the content to make it work, but it's not 100% foolproof that you can make any site work from interest. But we'll talk about that. We don't necessarily totally agree on that particular point. Oh, so that'll be a fun conversation.
- [50:40]
B
Yes, I will. I look forward to it.
- [50:42]
A
Yeah. So I think we've covered like most of the ways here that people are making money from Pinterest. At the end of the day, you're getting those pins created on Pinterest. People are clicking on them and they're going to your website or your shop and they're buying products, services, or maybe they're just seeing ads and you're getting paid that way. Anywhere from a couple hundred dollars a month to you can make 5,000, 10,000, 20,050, 100,000amonth. There's a wide range to it. Now, last question here. Is Pinterest still a viable platform today, like at the time of this recording in 2023 September? Still viable platform for bloggers and niche site creators to make a part time, full time income?
- [51:26]
B
Well, I think so. Otherwise we're wasting our time here. What do you think?
- [51:30]
A
Yeah, right. Touche. For sure. Yeah, I totally think so. Yeah. And you know, the future of the platform, it's hard to predict right now. Things are changing online so quickly right now with AI and how these platforms are adapting to that, how creators are adapting to that. We'll talk about that in a future episode. But I still believe in smart people being able to create content, products, services that other people want. And so I think it will be as long as there are users on Pinterest. Pinterest needs content.
- [52:11]
B
So, yes, I agree. And going back to kind of the very first question that you asked when we started chatting today about how I got started on Pinterest and all those things that happen and why I thought this podcast was a great idea. Every single year that has gone by since 2017. We started the year with the conversation. What we not like the royal we not you and me, because we've only just gotten to know each other, but we started the year with a conversation. Is this the year that Pinterest ends for creators? Oh, look at the changes that Pinterest has made. How are we ever going to get through these things? And now it's. And I'm tired of that conversation. I not going to take part in it anymore. I'm going to do Pinterest until it's not an option anymore. What we have seen over and over and over again is that for the changes that happen on the platform, as long as we're willing to adapt. There has always been a future. And I think that it's really freeing to stop asking, oh, is this the year that Pinterest implodes for us? I've wasted a lot of time asking that question. And people coming into the conversation four years ago, you know, if they didn't start Pinterest because that was the conversation that was happening, they missed out on four great years. I mean, 2020 on Pinterest was like money just falling around you guys, because everybody was at home online, right?
- [53:37]
A
Yeah.
- [53:38]
B
We don't compare any other year to 2020. But I'm just saying it's a shame if you didn't start in 2019 because you were listening to the conversation. Pinterest is ending or whatever, so.
- [53:50]
A
Good point.
- [53:51]
B
I don't like to move forward as though it's ending because potential for sure.
- [53:56]
A
Cool. Well, on that note, that's a good way to wrap up this first episode here. Where can people find you?
- [54:03]
B
Oh, boy. I didn't do anything to make myself findable at the end of this first one, so that's cool.
- [54:11]
A
That means we will have links with this within the show notes, however that works. Again, this is our first time running a podcast. Check out those links. They can find me at tonyhill Co if they want to sign up for my newsletter. Carly has a newsletter and just join those if you want more. And then of course, we've got a website for the podcast and we'll have more information about that. So with that said, thanks for joining me on this new adventure, Carly.
- [54:37]
B
That's very exciting.
- [54:38]
A
Yeah. And we'll catch you all on the next episode.