Kate All (0:00)

Hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Simple Pin Podcast. I am your host, Kate All. This is part three in our three part series about troubleshooting your Pinterest marketing. And today I'm going to talk about content. Pinterest is a search to discovery platform. It thrives on creators sharing their ideas, their products and their experiences in order to support the Pinners. Pinners are looking for ideas, products or experiences to enhance their lives, dream into the future and discover something new. But the hard part about that is the burden of creating content can feel really overwhelming and tough. As a creator, we're looking to leverage all of these different marketing platforms that are asking us to create content that is engaging, new, different and so, so much more. And if we cater to one platform, will it work for the other platform? What if something works on Google but it doesn't work on Pinterest? Or maybe you know that a crazy trend is going around on Pinterest but you're not really sure your main website readers will like it. The spin and tornado swirling around content creators can feel suffocating and crush creativity even before it gets started. So like I said, this is part three in our three part series about troubleshooting your Pinterest marketing. I do not want to fill your brain with a ton more ideas, but I want you to just listen and take a hold of just one thing and at the end walk away with something that feels doable and approachable. I also want to share with you a recent article that Pinterest put out on creator burnout. Not only was the timing perfect, but but it's important that a platform driving a force for good and positivity address this issue by bringing it out into the light instead of just heaping more responsibility on the creator. Before we dive in, I want to highlight a product we have that may help create a deeper connection with your audience. It's called the Pinner Persona Project. It's a video teaching that I did that will help you use tools to figure out how to create content and pin images that that target the exact person you hope to reach on Pinterest. Not only is this good for organic Pinterest marketing, but when you're ready to dive into Pinterest ads, this will support your efforts as well. So simply click on the link down below in the description or go to simplepinshop.com and search Pinner Persona. Again, the link is down below. In addition, there's a lot of links I'm going to be sharing in this podcast and those will also Be down in the description both in your podcast app or on YouTube. Alrighty, let's dive in. Let's say you're feeling a little dried up in the content idea place, which I get. I identify as a content creator as well. I am also an agency owner, but creating content in order to drive people to my website to get them engaged is almost a full time job. Sometimes I will tell my team I have to take the whole day and come up with content. I've used AI tools, I've used all these other things and what I find actually is sometimes the AI tool will slow me down a little bit because it will give a very sterile response to me. And what I want to do is I want to think about my audience. I want to think about what's going to resonate with them. I don't want to just record this podcast or record a YouTube video because somebody is talking about this topic with Pinterest marketing. I want to record it because it surrounds the questions that I'm being asked or the trends that are happening within what I talk about. So before we dive into some of these tips, I'm going to share below. I think it's important to let the data guide you to go with that flow of what is my audience interested in? I want you to take 10 minutes, just look at your analytics. I don't care if you look on your phone, I don't care if you look on desktop. Pinterest analytics is quite robust. In fact, pretty soon we're going to have a pretty in depth product about this towards the end of the summer to help you go deeper. But for this, I just want you to take 10 minutes and look at your saves, look at your impressions and look at your pin clicks. Is there a theme, is there a topic that literally always seems to work? Now it's really important to note that not everything you create on Pinterest will do well. In fact, it's often a small number of pins that tend to drive the majority of the traffic. So don't expect a hundred percent win every single time. But when you follow the themes that you're seeing inside your analytics, those pins tend to get more engagement. So it's a little bit of what you know your audience likes and a little bit of trends that you're finding on Pinterest and finding this balance. I also want to say that sometimes in communities that we're a part of, people will share what's working for them or what's trending or what type of content. It's very Tempting sometimes to say I'm going to jump on that trend or I'm going to jump on that trend. And what I really want to encourage you to do is go back to your data for those 10 minutes and just kind of anchor on that and then then build out from there. So I'm breaking this into three parts today. One is I want to talk about the forms of content and the types of content. Again, this is just to jog some ideas for you. You don't have to do all of these. Then number two, I do want to touch on that article that Pinterest released about supporting content creators through burnout. And then number three, I want to share with you some ways that you can get connected into pictures. Pinterest creator support. There is a newsletter, there is a website, there is a community. And I bet you didn't know about it because they're not easy to find. But I want to make them easy for you to find today. So let's start with number one, forms of content that are good for Pinterest. Blog posts Short form video Product listing If you didn't know, Pinterest has a great Instagram connector tool where what you put on Instagram will automatically be pinned to Pinterest. Now use this with caution. In fact, one of the recommendations is to have this Instagram auto pin. It auto pins your Instagram content to Pinterest. Have it go to a secret board because what is good for Instagram isn't always good for Pinterest. So this is kind of a really great hack. If you don't have a website or you are creating majority of your content for Instagram so you can do that connection inside your settings. Just make sure you set it to go to a secret board and then you can go look at the content. If it's your short form videos, you can then edit the descriptions and edit the pin title and make sure everything is optimized for the search value on Pinterest. Now types of content I love this. I recently was able to teach with Pinterest in their beginner webinar and they shared this inspirational slide that actually had some cool ways to think about how to position your content. One was instructional. Show them how to do something. This could either be through multiple images or it could be through short form video. The next was quick tips. What are some quick wins that you have for the audience on Pinterest? The third was was comparison before and after. The example that they gave was with a makeup tutorial. I've seen those ones where the Right side is one way, left side of your face is another way. It's super cool. I love those comparisons. Health and fitness space that could. This could be a great one. There could be a lots of great ideas around the food space. When you are doing something, you often have a before and an after. So showing the comparison is a super helpful way to get people to get interested in your content. Storytelling. I think this is great in short form video. It's a little bit hard to do in a second static image, but in a short form video you could easily tell the beginning part of a story. It could be a little bit of a teaser. That could lead to a long form video on YouTube or a long form video on your website or even a blog post. The last is showcase. Talk about your work. This is really important for those who are in the services space. This could be a photographer, this could be a designer of a home. This could be a lot of different pieces. But don't shy away from showcasing your wins with your clients. You could even kind of fuse it with the before and after. Especially if you are a floral, you're a florist for weddings and you want to show the before of the space and then the after and then even underneath you would put something, a quick comment from your client and the win that they had. So not only are we talking about the form of the content, but the type of content. Take this section, think about it and write down at least four to five ideas that you think you could get started with that just are different. Maybe you've never done a storytelling post or maybe you've never done instructional. I saw this great cocktail video on Pinterest years ago. It was so cool. It made me really want to make that cocktail. And I frankly, I didn't like the ingredients, but it was so cool and engaging that I thought, yeah, this would be perfect. So think through a few things. The second thing I want to talk about today is supporting yourself through content burnout. Sometimes there's some troubleshooting that needs to happen here. I have listened to Joe Polizi on this podcast. In fact, I'm going to write myself a note to Lingq. Sometimes I forget to do that when I'm recording the podcast. So I'll put it down below in the description. But I had him here on the podcast two years ago when we did our story series and he has really impacted my work when it comes to content creation. And one of the biggest messages that he carries is content creation is what draws people to your business. Whether you are an H vac business or you are a florist for weddings. This content marketing that you're doing draws them in and creates a connection and it's important to be consistent. In fact, I share in that podcast with him. Then in 2016, I believe it was, I heard him for the first time at Social Media Marketing World, and he said it takes 18 months of creating content in order to get people to start giving you money. Meaning you can't start out of the gate and create content and expect that the next day you're going to sell a membership, you're going to sell all these things, things you have to show your value, show what you talk about in those 18 months in order for people to get buy in. He shared some story about a chicken guy. I'll link to it and you can listen to it. But this content creator around chickens, I think it was backyard chickens. He ended up getting all these people that were following him and asking him questions because he was so curious about it. And he shared his findings, he shared what he was doing, and people were like, yeah, I'm on board with you. So content is necessary, but the content churn can be exhausting. So I want to share these two things that came from that recent article that Pinterest did on their Create blog about the five core reasons creators hit burnout and how to work through it with some practical shifts in your mindset and workflow. I'm only going to share two here, but I'm going to link to the article so you can go read it. But one is just the pressure to produce. The pressure to stay visible can cause burnout really fast. And I have felt this especially over on the Instagram side, which is why a year ago, I actually decided to completely give it up and only invest in Instagram when I felt like it was fun because I couldn't keep up with all the changes. People say Pinterest changes all the time. It cannot even hold a candle to Instagram. And so actually Pinterest for me, felt more of a safe place to create content, and YouTube felt like more of a safe place to create content because the pressure wasn't as great. The pressure that I was feeling was back on this piece of how do I create content that's really going to engage with my audience, right? Is really going to help them and support them. And I take that very personally. I want to make sure that whatever I'm creating in this space is helpful to you. And I have. This is podcast episode 428. I know that not every podcast out of those 400 is going to knock it out of the park. But the theme remains the same. And when I feel so much pressure to produce that theme to support, the audience gets bumped to the side. And then all of a sudden I'm only serving the Instagram hamster wheel and then I feel pressure. So I love their suggestions to avoid this pressure. One is batching content and when inspiration hits, do it and then schedule in advance. I a hundred percent agree with this. There are times when I open up my podcast calendar, which this is the great originator for us of all content. It starts here with the podcast and then it flows into these other areas. There are times when I am really inspired and I will go for it and I will record and I will get things built ahead of time. Everybody works better that way. But I'm also a high follow through. I am not A quick start if you've ever taken the Colby A index fascinating test and how you work. I feel so much pressure to get things done in advance and that is when I am most creative. I know there's some people who, they want to produce a podcast the night before. That is when they're most creative. That is not me. That is a pressure and it will lead to burnout. The other thing is building in breaks and communicating them openly with your audience. I think it's okay for you to tell your audience, I'm going to take a break. I did this last summer. I was pretty sick and I needed to take a significant break from recording and so I did that. And a couple times this year I've paused the podcast too because I wanted to give myself just a time to come up for air. And it felt very honoring to me and my team to do that. The last is prioritizing quality over quantity and creating a very realistic and sustainable posting rhythm. It would never be sustainable for me to think about recording this podcast three days or even five days a week. Oh my gosh. I. You would get garbage content from me. You would get just a number. So that's not realistic. So I'm going to prioritize quality over quantity because that's really, really important to me. The second core reason they say that you might experience burnout as a creator is creative fatigue. When you're always quote unquote on creative blocks are inevitable. So here's some tips to refill your tank. Seek inspiration beyond social media through books, arts and music. Now, I like books. I like a good fiction romcom. Not too trashy, just right on the line. I love those, but I can only read them a couple times a year. But when I do read them, I not only pay attention to the story, but I'm kind of paying attention to how the author writes. And this is especially if I've read multiple stories from an author. Emily Henry is one that I've read. Chanel Clayton is another one. And I start to pick up on their themes and it actually makes me think through them as a creator, as an author. Art is not my jam, but I'll go to museums every once in a while. Music is definitely something for me that is motivating. Right? But I would say for me it's hobbies offline, just for enjoyment. I've recently gotten into gardening. I actually wouldn't say gardening. I would say upkeeping my yard. Right. And travel. I love travel hacking. I love the points game. It's so fun for me. I love to see how much I can get for as little as possible. So those things give me ideas. I watch other creators, so my relief for creative fatigue is actually through watching creators that are not in my space. I get a lot of creative inspiration from creators on YouTube, travel creators I follow some that are from the UK, some that are from the US. I follow some cooking channels. When I follow those people on YouTube, I get great ideas for how I can be a better content creator, how I can be a better YouTuber and podcaster and agency owner. And so if you have not started getting out of your space, either where it's hobby or just out of social media. I also gave up Instagram for a couple of months. That was fantastic. Like I had no idea how much I was picking up my phone. So I don't think I was actually burned out with content. I think I was burned out with all these things that circle content, if that makes sense. So creator burnout is a real deal, but it's also something we can prepare for and recover from. Whether it's kind of reworking your content, refining your workflow, setting firmer boundaries, small shifts in content creation can make a big difference and help you feel energized again. I'll also share with you. I'm. I'm coming up with all these ideas I want to share with you, but there is an old TED Talk. I shared it recently in a newsletter because I think it's really important to revisit. But it was about sabbatical and how this design firm would give their entire team a sabbatical for a year every seven years. And they knew that during that year they weren't going to be making any money. They supported their employees for a year. I mean, this is just incredible. But when they would come back, their team would be energized. I think it would be so awesome to do that for my team. I had some thoughts around how I could pull that off on a small scale, but I think it's really important to give yourself sabbatical. Give yourself a moment where you are not in front of the computer, where you are not creating content. You are just taking a step back. I hope this was helpful for you today. I'm going to leave a lot of links below in the description, but there's three places that you can get support as a creator from Pinterest. Number one, sign up for their creator newsletter. I think it's always important to make sure you are getting the newsletters that are being additive to your life, not distractive to your life. If that also is a simple PIN newsletter and you're on it and it's not working for you, unsubscribe for a while does not offend me. I get it. I have to do that sometimes too. But this creator newsletter from Pinterest, if you haven't subscribed to it, might be really good. Number two is Pinterest has what's called a create site for general education. This is very cool. You should go check it out. And then three. The Pinterest Creator Community so the Pinterest Creator Community is a great place for you to ask questions. It is such a valuable resource for you not feeling alone that if you have a question you can go post it there in your forum, in their forum and you can go ask anything. And there's such great support in those communities that I highly, highly recommend it. All right, that's it. I gave you a lot of resources to look into. I gave you a lot of links. But most importantly, I just want you to know that I support you as a creator. I support support where you were at and I think if this part of your Pinterest marketing is a huge struggle for you, then I get it. And I hope that just one thing from this episode really helps you move forward with confidence and create great content. Alrighty. Thanks so much for listening, Sam.