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Simple Pin Podcast: Simple ways to boost your business using Pinterest
Can Pinterest & Substack work together?
00:38:47
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign let's talk about Substack and Pinterest. So Substack has been around for a couple of years and Pinterest has been around. Well now around 16 years. And a lot of people are coming to me with these questions about how to connect Pinterest and Substack. But I wanted to back up a little bit more and ask the question, what is Substack? How can it serve the creator, the entrepreneur, and how should we use it for properly? So in order to do that, I met with Chef Carla. She is all in on Substack, all in on teaching it and monitoring it in every detail. You'll hear more about that in the episode. So I wanted to talk to her about all these things that I had in my head about what I think Substack is, but I actually don't know. So that I could frame up how to create a Substack Pinterest strategy and to be effective with that. So this episode covers all that you need to know when it comes to connecting Substack and Pinterest. If you want to join the conversation after this podcast, go to simplepin media.com and click on SPM Insiders. This is our community. It's really inexpensive where we troubleshoot all things Pinterest and how it connects out to things like Substack. So look for the link down below in the description in your podcast app or on YouTube. Alrighty, let's dive into the podcast. Karla, welcome to the Simple Pin podcast.
- [01:33]
B
Thank you for having me. I am so grateful to connect with you and your community and jump into Substack.
- [01:40]
A
I am so excited. So I want to start there with substack2 to me feels like there is some brand recognition, but there's also some misunderstanding of what it is. So just so we're all on the same playing field because there's probably some people who are like Substack. What I want you to tell people
- [02:01]
B
what is Substack in its Simplest form? From 2021 until about mid last year, it was a newsletter platform. And that's what most people identify Substack with. They're like, I don't want to be a writer, but what has shifted? And this is important because it's they actually changed their LinkedIn bio and this is really key as a content strategist for me to identify. It says Substack Media app Audio Video.
- [02:37]
A
Oh, interesting.
- [02:39]
B
So this is an indication to me and I was recently on they just launched the Substack recording studio. I asked the question directly, do you prioritize video their answer. And I. I literally have the recording. I'm happy to share this with your community. They said that we will not say that we prioritize it. We will say that we prefer it.
- [03:05]
A
Interesting. I know. I was wondering what language you were going to say they used, because they're always kind of a little bit crafty. So with that, for the people who have seen Substack and I'm putting these words in their mouth as like a sacred space for writers, how does that feel to them to see video kind of infiltrate and come in?
- [03:25]
B
They're not happy. Of course they're not happy. Because this was a writing platform. Now, I have been on this platform since 2021, and I've had different iterations on this platform where I literally have deleted an entire publication. Started over again in 2023. My podcast lives there now. This was controversial to some of my writing friends. When I moved my podcast over in 2024, I saw a tip, and this is why Substack carefully used the language of prefer instead of prioritize. Because I saw at the end of 2023 there was a substack and I can't remember her name. Posted substack prioritizes audio 2.5% over written content. Okay. And I. My content strategist antenna went up and I was like, okay, I am hosting on a different platform. It's going out to all the places. Okay, I'm going to move it. In 2024. My podcast grew 149%. In 2025, my podcast. And these are Spotify numbers because Subtech is not great at the data. My podcast grew 999% in 2025. Wow.
- [04:52]
A
And that was only hosted on Substack. Like, you moved everything over.
- [04:57]
B
I moved all of the episodes over. And I literally have been in the content universe like the land of the dinosaurs. So it actually lives on a podcast blog on my website. Because I was terrified of this. I'm like, well, if we lose all a hundred plus episodes, what's going to happen? Don't know. So I have a backup, but I move these episodes over and then I publish directly from Substack. And I attribute this success to a number of things. Number one, this, this prioritization towards audio, but also at the same time. And we'll get into this with Pinterest, as I was using keywords and SEO.
- [05:42]
A
Yes. Okay. So for those that might be curious, like me, is everything behind a paywall?
- [05:52]
B
Absolutely not. For the first two years of nourishing creativity and that is the name of both my publication and my podcast. I gave every thing away for free. I literally did. And I had a paywall that said, hey, if you want to support the podcast and the team, because you and I both know this as podcasters, it costs money to produce these episodes and to have people edit them and post them and X, Y and Z. So I had basically a blanket statement of like, hey, if you'd like to support the team of women that are creating this, you can give us five bucks per month. Plenty of people did that. I didn't really hone in on offers, and that's what I'm going to call them because they are. They're offers. They're paid offers that can be either monthly, yearly, or founder. There's different levels. I really didn't hone on this until I started working with my clients. So I've been building with friends and clients since 2021 as well. But the clients in 2024 really brought in my. And I. This is year 15 of entrepreneurship. So really my. My entrepreneurship brain, my strategist brain, in terms of, like, what are the offers that are going to resonate with people? And I feel like 2026 substack is even further into this because we are saturated with people that are on Substack, saturated with offers and enticing things to do and participate in X, Y and Z. But I'm like, what are the things that my community actually wants to pay for and also wants to participate? Which could be two very different things.
- [07:45]
A
Okay. Do you feel like, too, for an entrepreneur, for a creator, for a writer, they could use Substack on its own, standalone. They don't need a website.
- [07:57]
B
Okay, this is an interesting question. And I do work with some entrepreneurs and creatives that we will call substack their 1.0 website. Why? Because they want to do this as a testing ground. They want to see. Okay, before I invest in a designer, an X, Y and Z into colors, fonts, photo shoot, you name it, I want to use Substack as a testing ground. I am 100% for that. But am I in support of using Substack instead of a website? I mean, if you listen to the beginning of this conversation. I have my podcast blog. I have my podcast blog for a reason. It's the home of my content. It also happens to be the home of where my recipes live. Because I am a trained chef. I was a food stylist for 13 years. I have recipes, but I also have my offers. I have my sub stack workshop how to work with me, one on one, freebies, you name it, live there. And what I do with Substack now, Substack doesn't love this. I will say this Substack doesn't love this is that I utilize Substack as a place to bring people back to my website. And it has increased my website traffic significantly, I want to say. And I haven't looked at the numbers for this month, but it's at least 10 times what it used to be.
- [09:32]
A
Okay. So you can drop links in your articles that will link out.
- [09:37]
B
Yes. Okay. And Substack has gotten really crafty with this. They even created a recipe template recently because they're like, oh, all these food bloggers are dropping their own PDF or they're bringing them back to their website. We want them to stay on Substack. So they tried this and I'm going to call it a band aid situation because the food writers that I saw use it, they used it once and they moved away from it.
- [10:11]
A
Which is the curse of the entrepreneur. Right? Like we have great ideas, we start it once and then we stop and I. Okay, so I want to go to this thinking of substack 1.0. So it's this person who has this idea. They want to use Substack. They're going to obviously post more than once and they're seeding out all these ideas. Does that person have to be an amazing writer?
- [10:36]
B
Absolutely not. Substack can be. And I teach this to clients and students all of the time of it really depends on you, your bandwidth and what you want to make in the world. And I'm literally looking and I can't show this right now, but there's a collage next to me. I could literally, if that's what I wanted to do, do photo essays and collages. I could post that in minimal words if I wanted to create videos of me cooking. Example. I talked to a client earlier today about this that she wants to do cooking videos. Fantastic. She does not want to write for me. It happens to be my voice. And I have an audio podcast, so writing could be one of those things. But it definitely doesn't show the full picture of what Substack is. And the way that I like to describe this to people is it is the place that I get to tell my full story.
- [11:42]
A
So then is there a rhythm and a cadence that you have to be beholden to Once a week, twice a week? Or you can just do it whenever you want? Want.
- [11:52]
B
I think this is important to answer about entrepreneurs. And doing things and trying them like once and leaving it. The average Substack creator and I actually just was on a workshop with someone. I looked at the founder's substack. She had about 12 posts. And that literally is the shelf life. It's like, okay, well I've done this a couple of times. I put myself out there in X, Y and Z way. It's. It didn't work and. Or I've decided that I'm going to put my eggs in a different basket. And that could also be it. It could be like, you know what, I'm going to go all in on Instagram or Pinterest or my website or my newsletter that's on Flodesk. So that is also important to like circle and highlight that the average creator only makes 12 posts. And for me, and what I teach is what is the thing that is going to make you commit or what is the way that you are going to get this content out? Is that a once a month? And I talked to an entrepreneur about this this morning. She wants to do a once a month Founder Digest because she's already doing a weekly newsletter. It's already part of her ecosystem, but she wants that space to share her voice. Totally fine. For me, I drop my podcast one time per week and what's coming after I got that cadence is my newsletter coming one time per week. Now I used to do this consistently, but life lives. And this is the thing. It's like, how do you commit to yourself, especially if you're an entrepreneur or creative? Because the only one that is expecting that is you, right?
- [13:45]
A
And I think one of the hardest parts is that we feel, you know, what you said about Substack is very similar to what people say about Pinterest. They get six to eight weeks in and they say this doesn't feel like it's doing anything. And a lot of these platforms that have long term reach for us or they maybe have a cold outreach, they don't have dopamine hits. So it's not something different where I could post something on Instagram and it's like gets a like or a comment or I get this feedback instantly, but it's not actually converting in the way that I want. So something that Substack can convert later, Substack can grow your podcast or Pinterest can grow your website or make sales. That's not fun. So I appreciate that you said that commitment to it because I agree with you. You have to commit to why am I doing it and what tool am I Using and how am I. How am I going to show up in whatever cadence? It doesn't have to be every day. It can be once a month. And I appreciate that that creator said, I'm going to do this once a month. That's totally doable.
- [14:50]
B
Yeah. And I. We should talk about the dopamine hits here because there is a social component to a substack which is called Notes. Notes operates similar to Threads and maybe Twitter back in the day, but I have this from clients a lot and so I want to like underline, sort of highlight this too. The dopamine hit might not be there in substack Notes. So I like to tell people, if you've gotten one, like treat that like a thousand likes on Instagram because this is a newer platform and a lot of people are scrolling on by. They are not hitting the like and comment unless they are in the substack ecosystem. Now, for me, this is important in terms of numbers. My newsletter in particular and most of my clients can be up to between 90 and 99% email only, which means they are not interacting in the substack app and they're not interacting in the substack ecosystem, which is Notes. So this is a very similar flavor to say LinkedIn where about 99% of people are not creating.
- [16:12]
A
Okay, that is. I am glad you explained that difference because I think that I have. I've seen long form and I've seen comments being made online. And it seems like a lot of the engagement happens when people are writing more, longer articles. And I started an account over there just to kind of see what it was like for setting up, getting things over there. And immediately I think I was prompted to do Notes, which was interesting instead of. And I thought, is this what people are writing? But yet it's like, looks like it's like seven pages.
- [16:46]
B
So. Okay, so this is really. This is actually a brand new thing and this is actually in my. This is why I teach the substack workshop pretty much monthly. Because there. This is a moving target. Yeah, it literally is. Pinterest moves, but not like this.
- [17:04]
A
No, it doesn't. Compared to the rest of the Internet, it doesn't.
- [17:08]
B
This. Okay, so. So what happened was there was a prioritization and I want to say that this happened around two months ago on the profile itself. So think of this like your Pinterest profile or your Instagram profile or LinkedIn. What they are prioritizing is that people are not actually creating publications, that they are simply engaging on this platform. And what they are Doing are post posting notes or liking or commenting. They are not creators. And so what happened? And this is actually in the back end, which is deeply concerning to me and also makes me grateful that I still have a blog that if you go into the back end of the publication, it now says custom, which shows your publication. And it also has a button where you can click and only have your profile there, which is. Yeah, I know. So the difference between a profile is essentially someone can follow you just like any other social platform, and anyone who posts that they have left social to come to Substack. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Substack is again, a media app that they may not say social media, but it is. It's a social platform. Now. Publication is where people have to actually subscribe and get your newsletter and. Or in my case, my podcast directly into your inbox. But the prioritization has happened where this is profile led, which tells me that this platform is headed towards profile led, which means followers versus email subscribers.
- [19:05]
A
So fascinating how a lot of these platforms, that's kind of how. That's how they start and then they iterate into this other thing and they quickly become like most quote, unquote social platforms where they prioritize certain types of engagement, certain types of things like followers, and that it changes. So for you having seen it since 2021 to now, what are the good changes that you like and what are the ones that you're like? Eh, not such a fan.
- [19:40]
B
For me, the biggest thing was my podcast. I've been podcasting for eight years, and that type of growth I have never seen on my podcast. And for me especially creating this work, because nourishing creativity is a personal project. It is about the creative process with entrepreneurs and creatives, how they move through creative blocks. It really is something deeply personal. To me. It's a very niche podcast. And for me to get that type of visibility is just epic. It's epic to be able to have that type of visibility. This is things that I don't like are the confusion. And this is why I started to teach the Substack workshops and actually started to teach them so regularly because people are thoroughly confused, especially when they name things profile and publication. The two P's are very confusing. And this is also something that gets deeply confusing is when you're in the dashboard, there's actually two places to create. So that gets deeply confusing. And there's also a button. And this is where I actually X this out. And if people are watching this on YouTube, they can see me xing it out. There is a place to create on your profile, and I actually have an orange X for my clients to not create from there. Because when you create from that space on your profile, if you are creating example, a post, and they've actually used to name this article, which made a lot of sense, and now it's post. So there's a lot of, like, confusing names that are, like moving and swirling around. And maybe even if someone's listening to this, I don't know, six months, a year from now, this information could be completely obsolete. Totally. So if they are creating in their profile, as of right now recording, what it's going to do is publish to the profile, not to the publication. And then it's creating. And this is going to sound wild, but it does. It creates a double publication for my clients. So sometimes they're creating two and three profiles that I have to delete. Mm.
- [22:07]
A
So confusing.
- [22:09]
B
It is infinitely confusing. And thank you for saying that.
- [22:13]
A
Yeah.
- [22:13]
B
Because I. When I'm teaching the workshop and when I'm working with clients, I'm like, this is not you not understanding tech. This is an infinitely complicated platform that is a moving target that we are trying to wrangle.
- [22:32]
A
So then if we're going to talk about the Pinterest to substack connection and we'll go with our example of the person that's doing substack 1.0, they want to seed out everything. And actually maybe some of this could even apply to more seasoned creators. Where then do we send the Pinterest user? Like we. I'm assuming we could link and send them to a note or a profile or a publication. Like, where do we want to send
- [22:56]
B
them for me instantly? And this is. I would not send them to a note. Why? Okay, this gets. This gets really complicated, but I'm going to give you an example of a substack live. So a substack live, for all intents and purposes, has a link. And if I shared that link and I've seen clients do this in an Instagram story, it will lead me to nowhere. This is important to note. This is like. And I do say this a lot, and I'm like, underline, circle, highlight, please stop. Do not do this to your note. And furthermore, don't even do this. What I do if I'm doing a live, and I've realized that this is infinitely confusing on other platforms, especially if the people are not substack users, is I was directing them to my profile profile, because while I go live, my Live will be the top thing on. And this is. This is a new thing. This is a new thing. As of a couple of weeks ago, the Live will actually replace the top of your publication and show there. So what I've been sharing is my publication link so that people can actually see. See me go live. Because even the people that are in my own chat, we haven't even gotten there, can't even see the Live from the link that is from the Live on substack.
- [24:30]
A
No lives. That's the only takeaway. Yeah, don't do it.
- [24:34]
B
Confusing. This is like. And I do this day in and day out. And I. And sometimes, Kate, when I'm teaching a workshop, sometimes I'm like, oh, my goodness, that has moved. And like, it's very humbling because it's. It's again, like, this is moving and changing and evolving. And even though I'm building them day in and day out and working with clients and teaching this, it's still changing. And I'm like, oops, well, all right. Give me grace.
- [25:05]
A
Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, everything's moving at the speed of light. It's like, Claude, design comes out and a week later it's like, looks different. And then two weeks later, it looks different. So totally makes sense. Okay, so we're not linking to a Live. We are linking to a post.
- [25:24]
B
I. I would link to an actual post in your publication. And again, this might be different advice six months from now, but what I'm saying right now, and this is why I will say this, and I have strategy behind it, the post does link out. So example, my podcast post will link out. I could link that to, example, LinkedIn and people will be able to land on the podcast. But what I do notice, it will pop up instantly for them to subscribe. That might be a deterrent for people. Don't know. I have tried this with a podcast and actually a paid ad on Pinterest, and it does. It did work. Okay, it did work and it worked really well because I was in a summit. Full disclosure, I was in a summit and I was like, I want clicks on this link to show this summit that I've done the work. And yes, did. Did it work? 1,000%. So there is some backup here. And also, as we've heard, every single one of my posts links out to my blog. So if something happens to this ecosystem and something doesn't work, or X, Y and Z, guess what, there's still a link to my blog. Okay. And my blog's always going to be there.
- [26:54]
A
Genius. All right, so I want you to back up even more into your Pinterest. Let's talk Pinterest image. You know, I've shared before about putting copy on here, making it look great. Is there any value on that image to letting the user know it's a substack? Like, no. Okay.
- [27:16]
B
Not to me. And also, we have to bring it back to that. I am a food stylist for the last 13 years. I'm very attached to. It is not the Pinterest strategy here. It is really the aesthetic strategy here of how do I want this aesthetic to look? It may not necessarily be the most aligned Pinterest strategy. So I will like, full disclosure, this because of the way that I create. Okay, got it.
- [27:51]
A
Totally fine. And I think actually to your point and what you've just said, I think there's so much value in people hearing that, because everybody comes to their marketing holding different pieces of your branding, and that has to go into whatever you're creating, whether it be on Pinterest or somewhere else. So your Pinterest image is a representation of your brand, of you, of the things that you prioritize and value, and that is okay. And there's not this one right way to do a Pinterest image, but there is a one right way when it comes to you and your brand and what's converting. And you can make minor tweaks here and there, you can adjust, but whatever it is, the goal is, you want to take that Pinterest user to your post on Substack. You want them to read it. And now there's another opportunity to come to your website. So with that, you talked about using keywords on Substack. I'm assuming you're using keywords that on Pinterest to try to get in front of them and connect the dots.
- [28:54]
B
Yeah, I mean, this is the whole thing, and this is the thing that I really focus in on, which is honestly not the sexy part of writing a title for Substack and some of my clients. Again, to bring it back to the aesthetic and the way that aligns with your brand and X, Y and Z. For me, I am very focused in on what are my keywords, what are the SEO, what are my users, clients, podcast listeners, et cetera, looking for? Because what I am in service of, and even so much so, my profile description on Substack is in service to the people that are going to read that publication as opposed to now. I have a lot of acolytes. Like, I could list them all out but for me, I have listed first is a nod to the publication, a space to nourish your creative dreams. Like it. I actually, it says creative projects and dreams. So it's first about them, then it's about me. And then it's like, oh, okay, I'm a strategist. I'm this. I was on Chopped. People love to hear this and they're instantly going to follow me most of the time based on Chopped. But I mean, this is the thing is like, how do you create in a way that brings people from their journey? This is not about you. And this is, this is a hard thing to learn, especially creating for the brands. It's not about me because a lot of my, my content was white labeled for the brands. It really is about their user, their person that's going to create with that product. X, Y and Z. It's not about me and your content as much as it could be your heart, your soul, your art, your projects, whatever you're selling, it really is about their experience.
- [31:03]
A
Yeah, that is, that's a mic drop right there, Carla. Okay, so if somebody is become substack curious and maybe they, you know, they've listened to this podcast, so they're already into their Pinterest marketing. Let's say they have their website and they are looking for a new door to open and they are exhausted with Instagram. They don't want to do TikTok. They're filled feeling like there's this other avenue. What would you say would be the first couple of things that they need to do to begin to crack open the substack door?
- [31:42]
B
I had minimum create a profile on substack because with the profile and if you've made it this far in the podcast, you know that there's a prioritization on the, on the profile. And the way that you can do this is simply like LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, wherever you are, create a profile, have a picture. Now the banner has changed and that's recent change as of two days ago. So I'm not going to talk about that. That changed. So you used to be able to put a picture that aligned with your brand. You can't do that. They pull it from a publication and or they give you new dimensions to create a banner. I say one link. This is controversial and my clients do not like this. Where is the one place that you want people to land and that is the link that you use. So for me example, it's work with me. They land on the work with me. They can access the workshops, they can access how to work with me one on one. But guess what? All my social things are there. Why am I listing out 15 different things? The chances that they're gonna land on my website with the one link. I feel like I did this on Instagram a long time ago and I had 495% increase in website traffic.
- [33:03]
A
Yep. Because people don't wanna have to, like, click around. They don't wanna have to dig. I just want one link and then it gets me all the information I need to know.
- [33:13]
B
Yeah, yeah. So that's. I don't do a link tray. None of it. And once you create that profile, so you're going to have your picture, you're going to have whatever substack has decided as a banner or whatnot. We don't know. Then you're going to have your one link. Then you literally are going to start subscribing to publications and. Or following people, depending on what your bandwidth is. And you could create substack notes without having a publication, which means that you can share pictures, you can share videos. And there is a very strategic way to grow your community is to restock other people's content, which, you know, I mean, we've been doing restacking and sharing since Twitter and Tumblr.
- [34:04]
A
Yeah. Mm. Okay. If I. You've got me so curious. And, you know, I have Simplepin Media and then I have Kate All.com and Kate all is where I'm doing a lot more experience experimenting with this. I did get a profile after you and I had our initial conversation. I didn't do anything with it. But you've talked a little bit about your workshops and you've talked about feeling passionate or not feeling. You are passionate about helping people understand Substack. And what I love about a lot of what you shared feels very similar to me in my journey with Pinterest is we want to pay attention to what corporate is saying. We want to pay attention to the language that they're using because this gives us the cues as marketers to know how to work with them, not against them. It's like, sure, we might not love that notes or whatever are prioritized and we might not love these things. That video is preferred. But in order to understand how to be a good marketer, you have to pick up on these things. So where can people go to work with you? I'm assuming it's going to be the work with you link. But talk to me about your workshops because I think those sound intriguing even to me. As I'm thinking about diving into substack.
- [35:20]
B
So I have everything. And you're right, I have one link, it's carlacondreras.com gift and there was a substack one on one but it's obsolete. So I'm creating a new substack profile workshop that will live there. It's going to be completely free and then you'll have all my links. The workshop I have build your substack in a day. I've done this for almost two years and I've taught this in so many different ways. But I've realized that my community gets to get the updates monthly because this is a moving target. This really goes. And I Kate, I have no interest in having a membership as of this recording right now. So when they purchase the workshop you get the updates. Like that's just the way I like to roll. That's the way I like to run my business. You buy the workshop once you get the updates. I have people that have literally come back like a year later and they're like what is going on with this platform? Everything that I learned doesn't make sense. So that's why we do that. And then I have my founder level as of right now. So on my sub stack and I do this strategically, it's the only place that you can have a 30 minute call with me. So the founder level. And I don't feel like we got into paid of like monthly, yearly and founder of like. What does that mean? But the founder level is the more expensive in most cases layer and they can book a 30 minute call with me. They can get access to creative study hall where we co work with each other. And then there's the even higher level of hire me, work with me one on one. I have people that literally have publications built out. I did this yesterday with the founder and I reworked her entire publication, reworked her offers because let's be honest, they're not subscriber benefits, they're offers. And she texted me this morning and she's like, wow, what did you do? I would have never done that myself. And this is the work that I, you know, it's bringing that 15 years of entrepreneurship, that 13 years of working with those big brands. I'm not just sharing what works for me, I'm sharing what works for hundreds of people.
- [37:55]
A
Yeah, I appreciate that a lot. We'll drop the link down below in the description description. But in the meantime, do you want them to follow you on substack?
- [38:05]
B
Oh my goodness. Please subscribe, not follow subscribe to nourishing creativity. And all of those links are in carlon tourist.com gift and we'll go from there. Send me a DM if you've listened to this on substack, on Instagram, on LinkedIn. I want to know your thoughts, your take, and I appreciate you so deeply for taking the time to be with us.
- [38:31]
A
Yeah, it's so great. Thanks so much, Carla. I really appreciate it.
- [38:34]
B
Thank you, Kate.