← Simple Pin Podcast: Simple ways to boost your business using Pinterest
Simple Pin Podcast: Simple ways to boost your business using Pinterest
Using Pinterest as a collaborative branding discovery tool
00:32:43
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- [00:01]
A
This year I'm doing interviews with creative people who are using Pinterest in interesting and creative ways. And one of those people is lyric Fryer from WorkPlay Branding. When I came across her brand and saw what she was doing with Pinterest to collaborate with her clients, it was fascinating to me. I loved the way her boards were laid out, how everything was designed and and to see that she was using Pinterest in a way that was more collaborative instead of marketing. First I knew I had to ask her about her process and how it was working with their clients. Spoiler alert. It's working really well. This conversation will lead you through the process of what her company does, how they come alongside any type of business owner, and then how they fold in Pinterest to the process so they can really nail their branding, their messaging and understanding of what their client is looking for. In addition, we have this conversation around founder story and the trust recession and how having somebody as a media team to come alongside you and tell your story is really what's going to set you apart in these next iterations of the Internet, of AI, of Pinterest, of all that comes to be. So I hope this story really inspires you to think think outside the box of how you're using Pinterest, especially if you are working with clients where there is a visual component added to it. If you really need to get into your client's head and understand what they're thinking, where they're going and how they want to take a project, this will sell you on using Pinterest as a collaborative tool. If you're interested in working with workplay Branding, I'm going to leave a link below in the description for how you could follow Lyric, but also how you can get connected with their company. As we were talking, I realized for those of you who are in the e commerce space and you are struggling with imagery or messaging around how to get your product out in front of more people, this could be a really good solution. Alrighty, let's dive into the interview with Lyric. Lyric, welcome to the Simple Pen podcast.
- [02:16]
B
I am so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. You bet.
- [02:20]
A
I love your company. When I came across it, I was so intrigued and I'd love to hear more behind the story of what gap you saw in the market that really prompted you to start it.
- [02:31]
B
Yeah, absolutely. It's so funny, whenever someone asks me this question, I think back and it's been like this evolution. We didn't come into workplace branding and say like, oh, My gosh, there's this gap, we need to fill it. It was almost this organic listening to what people were wanting from us from a branding perspective and then starting to chip away at that and refine it to what it is today, which I know that we'll get into. But at the time it was like 2017, 2018, and so Instagram was definitely, you know, popping right? Like people were on Instagram at this time, but businesses were so still kind of there. Some of them were on it, some of them weren't. And brands were starting to understand how Instagram could be beneficial to their company and how it could actually communicate a message. And I realized that the visual piece of Instagram, Facebook, any kind of social media, or really any online part of your business, that message is so much communicated by your visual. And so I noticed this with our clients. We had at the time, all they wanted were more photos. More photos. We had a full scope branding process where we went into your message, logos, colors, all sorts of things. And every single quarter people kept asking, we need more visuals, we need more visuals. And so we realized that the visual was the thing that was actually communicating the message, the building, the brand very quickly. And so we, we really slimmed down and scaled up the visual side of workplace. And that's what you see today, which.
- [04:20]
A
I love the recurring model of it because so often I know even with my experience with branding, it felt like this one time thing, like you were going to do this really big shoot and you were going to get some photos. And at the time too, even in 2017, there wasn't yet even this conversation around like flow, flat lays or quote unquote, like stock photos that you could use. And so as you've really developed into this recurring model, what have you noticed about, I guess how often people want to update their photos or do people tend to fall off after a while when they're like, okay, I have enough. I guess, you know, in this world it feels like there never is enough. So I guess tell me a little bit about the habits of people wanting more or not wanting more as this recurring model goes along.
- [05:09]
B
Yeah, so it's been really interesting. We've had to really educate people up until 2025 on why you would need recurring visuals and what's happening in the market when you hit your audience with a new visual every single quarter rather than just kind of trying to stretch the same brand shoe over and over. And so up until now, we've had to educate people on that. Now I've seen a huge Shift and we just did a big Black Friday launch and it was really interesting for me to see the response to that and what people were wanting from the process. What, what people came to us with like can this do this? Can, can I create visuals for this? And I think people are now starting to realize they need visuals for everything. Founder story and what you are doing on a day to day is now prevalent more than ever. The audience wants to see everything. They want to see the big beautiful brand shoot campaign with the amazing cinematic videogr but then they also want to see your interactions when you go to an event, when you're connecting with people. Now you need an in house media team to fuel all of that. So I've noticed in the last few months, the last quarter of 2025, that it's no longer trying to make people understand why you would need more. It's actually showing them where you're going to use your media team and what specific to be the most beneficial for them. But I think everyone for the most part is on board with the fact that I need more visuals and I need them quickly, I need them efficiently, I need them in a system where I don't have to organize a creator every single time I need them.
- [06:50]
A
Okay, you are the second person to mention that word founder story. So I want to expand on that a little bit more because I think it goes along to with this whole idea of trust recession where people don't know if they can trust imagery, they don't know if they can trust videos. So tell me a little bit more about how you're seeing this emerge and what someone who is a creator or an e commerce seller that might be listening right now going okay, I had a problem with video before, I feel really overwhelmed by it. Like it tell me how those two are converging to help that person who is struggling with I don't even know how to tell a story in general. How do I tell my founder story?
- [07:33]
B
Well, what's so great about right now is that people just want to see what you're doing. By just documenting what you're doing, you are telling a story whether you know it or not. It's just the fact that we have to actually capture that. So getting your in house media team to follow you around, whether it's to a coffee shop, when you meet a friend or you go to a networking event or when you travel somewhere, having someone to document all the work, all of those parts over time will tell that story very integrate. Integrately. Is that even a word?
- [08:09]
A
And I Got integrated? Yes, I was tracking with you.
- [08:12]
B
Yeah. Okay, good. And so you don't even have to try that hard. I think maybe two years ago, I think when video was kind of coming into play here, people wanted to script things out and they wanted to really create these, like, beautiful things and you don't even have to do that anymore. But now you actually need the system to pump out as much content that's needed so it's less about, like, how do we get the studio to make it beautiful and more about how can I get someone to just follow me around? That's the simplest, easiest way. And you'll tell your story as you go and it'll be so authentic because you really can't hide in the camera and people know that. And so I really foresee that being a huge Trend going into 2026.
- [09:00]
A
Very interesting. I'm fascinated by it and I think your company in this from 2017 till now has seen so many different iterations as to how branding plays a role. And so as we look forward into 2025 and you get new clients into your ecosystem, correct me if I, I'm wrong about this, but I can pay a monthly fee and. Well, actually, I'm going to let you walk me through it. So tell me how it works and then that's how we're going to tee up into how Pinterest folds into this.
- [09:29]
B
Totally. Yeah. I mean, you totally got it. You pay a monthly fee with wordplay. It's membership based. You're in it for a minimum a year and you get a certain amount of hours of creative time with our creators who are all over the world, Australia, Canada, us, Europe. So we can get to you even if you're not in a hub city. And there's way too many hub cities for me to even list out here. So I think we've got most of you guys covered, whoever's listening, and pay a monthly fee. You tell us where to show up, we show up, we get that content. Before we do all of that, we help plan everything for you in terms of location scouting, timing it all out. You've got seven hours each content day with us to really bang out this content, batch it all up and then get it out there into the world, which again, we, we also help with with that low monthly fee. So we will schedule that out on your socials if you need us to. Some people like that, some people don't. But essentially what you get is all of these beautiful visual assets that are going to tell your brand message, your story and Use wherever you're needing them in your marketing.
- [10:41]
A
Okay, so this is not just the influencer model. This can be for any type of business owner. If you are an E commerce seller and you create a really amazing product and you have a hard time gathering these images of you like mid creation of the product or unboxing and content creators. Am I correct in that, like this is really for a wide range of business owners?
- [11:05]
B
Absolutely. Whenever someone asks me what's your niche? I'm like anyone who has a business and I know that's not necessarily what is you're supposed to stay, but it's true. We have built a system that acts like a tool that can plug in to anyone's business as long as you have an offer and as long as you have some sort of initiative for marketing of that offer, you're going to plug into workplace branding just fine.
- [11:33]
A
So cool. I hope people's wheels are turning because one of the things we hear from people a lot is that they struggle with imagery with Pinterest because Pinterest is so image forward that they're struggling not just with how to capture, especially product sellers, their images in life or their products in lifestyle images, but also how do I position testimonials, how do I position these things of case studies? And they really stop cold when they get to that point and they're like, well, I have a picture of my product, I have a product listing. And to your point of what you said earlier with the founder story or the, you know, that trust recession, people want to see the behind the scenes and if you can't capture that, then there's that gap that's missing there. So I love that y' all are filling this gap. Okay, so I want to talk about how Pinterest infuses into the process because when I first came across you, I was at Ellen Yin's event and you were speaking and I went to your website and then I went to Pinterest, which is my normal workflow for most people. Like, are they using Pinterest and how. And as I was looking through, I thought this is such a cool way that a branding agency, I'll say branding agency, we'll just use that loosely, is using this to connect with clients. So talk to me about how you kind of first made that aha moment between, oh well, let's use Pinterest for this.
- [13:00]
B
Yeah, you know, it's so funny and we've talked about this, kind of fell in our lap and I would say because our process is so, so visual heavy. We have to be objective in a very subjective process and just subjective industry, to be honest. If you like something, you like that thing, right? And if you describe it as a certain thing, that might not be the same way I describe it. And so as a team, we really have to communicate through visuals. When we're communicating to our clients, which is where Pinterest comes in. Everything that we communicate creatively is not just a conversation, but as we're having the conversation, we're also going through Pinterest and we're getting on the same reality plane of what that visual actually looks like. Because, again, what you think might be calm and serene might be completely different than what I had. And so we, as a creative partner, have to be on the same page with you and about that and vice versa. So that is ultimately how we use Pinterest A, to communicate and then also to organize. So we want to also organize all of this into one, almost like bucket, I guess you could say board. Pinterest board. And this allows us to see the vision at a glance, which is amazing, because you could really like this one image or really like this other one and really like this one. But then when you put them all together, you're like, wait, there's no through line here. It's not telling a story. And so we could actually shift before we actually make the content. So Pinterest is amazing tool for that. And we do that with every single client before every single shoot. It's absolutely mandatory. And then once we have that, we keep it completely public because we also want our. Our community to look at what other people are doing, get inspired. Inspired by what other people have done. So much of the creative process is being inspired, and a lot of times what we've seen in our own data is that almost 90% of the time, people are inspired by what other another person has done before them. And then they take that as inspiration and they put their own lens on it. And so getting able to see a bird's eye glance at what every single person who is implementing the Word claim method is doing and ideating is really, really cool.
- [15:30]
A
Yeah, it was fascinating for me. I love that you leave them public, because I know that a lot of designers make them private. And what I loved about the public boards was I could see even from the thumbnails, how different all of these different people were approaching their branding. So I have kind of some troubleshooting questions for you, like, oh, what do you do when this happens, specifically with people sharing to the Pinterest board? How do you help a client navigate either the one who pins everything and you can't find anything cohesive and the one who is afraid to pin anything. How do you really guide them when they feel stuck or maybe like too much to where you're like, I don't even know if we can find a common thread.
- [16:14]
B
Well, first, what we always, always do before we even get to Pinterest is really understand what the storyline of the message that we're trying to create. So we have to come in with a very specific idea of what we're going to be creating. So when we, let's just say we come across a cfo, a fractional cfo, their whole campaign is around freeing up business owners from tight cash flows, let's just say. And they come to us and they say, well, I want people to feel freedom, right? I want them to feel freedom from being able to manage their cash flow. Now we have to really understand what does freedom even mean to you? And so let's just say that this person is like, okay, we've got wide open spaces and we've got, you know, big sky. And maybe it's like a ranch. And then, and then maybe it's, it's a little bit more, more bohemian because it's on a ranch. And then maybe it's somewhere in the middle of Wyoming. So now we're, we have a very clear vision of what we're going to look for. And so when we have that, when we come onto Pinterest with that clear vision, we now kind of eliminate any kind of decision fatigue or confusion between us and that client. And so it, we honestly don't see that a whole lot because we do the prep work beforehand and we're all on the same page of what this like, story is kind of looking like. And then Pinterest just allows us to say, oh, yep, that's more my vibe when it comes to bohemian ranch, Wyoming style. And, and not so much this, but I also love about Pinterest is when you click on a pin, it then shows you everything very similar to that pin below. So we almost call it like getting lost in the rabbit hole.
- [18:06]
A
Yes.
- [18:07]
B
We, when we know that we're getting lost down different Pinterest rabbit holes, we know that of on this, the right path. And so if we were to do that and we were to just go into Pinterest blind, you're going to see a lot of stuff and it's going to be extremely time consuming to sort through that. You won't have a pathway. So you're going to see yourself darting all over the place.
- [18:30]
A
Totally. I love the Pinterest rabbit hole because you're right, it does keep making you go deeper and deeper, and I love that you use it as a good indicator. So with that, have you. Do you all add pins as well as the client to kind of like, get them started before they start pinning what they're thinking?
- [18:49]
B
We add pins, and maybe you can help me with this. But we add pins through our own marketing. So we'll add pins on, like, what our clients have done, and then we'll have it point back to a whole showcase on our blog around that whole shoot that we did. That's really helpful. And we're still really testing what this looks like in our own Pinterest strategy. But that's been really, really fun for us because not only now that we have inspiration from other client boards, but then we also have what, like the after. So what did we create? What did that client create? We definitely could be more organized about it, but I do think that Don is better than perfect. So we're just, you know, we're just along. And I. I just find that Pinterest is such a good platform for us because we do so many things visually. And again, people are looking for inspiration. They want to see what other workplace members have done.
- [19:50]
A
Yeah, no, I love that use case. That's so smart because I know for me, I friends know this. In real life, I am actually the worst when it comes to photo shoots because I will go on my own, I will pick out outfits, and then an hour before, I'll finally send pictures to my friends, they're like, nope, it's giving, like, homeschool mom vibes, not CEO. Like, you can't do that. And I'm like, I thought it was so cute. And I think the benefit of seeing other people, especially for a person like me, is that I can get inspiration. I can get almost like, these starting points that go, oh, yes, that's where I'm going. And Pinterest has even said in some of their own language this year that we want to be all about the. I'll know it when I see it. And that is so much a part of the visuals with Pinterest, in, I think, with branding, because we do have these ideas in our head of what looks good or maybe what we represent. And until we see it in front of us, we actually don't know how it's going to come to life. So I love this. Okay. One of the things that I was curious about when I was going through questions was have you ever had a client realize in this process that kind of their entire business might need to pivot and shift from where they were going before? And they maybe came into it thinking, I'm just doing branding and a bunch of images and now they're like, oh, I need to actually change my whole messaging.
- [21:20]
B
Yeah. You know, it's so funny because I think this is something that's, that's been reshaped over the course of the, the years that we've had workplay. So it's interesting to see the market shift in this way. What I am noticing now more than ever, because I think this, this might have been an issue maybe a year ago, but now more than ever people are finding it's less, it's less important to be cohesive in the branding and more important to have this pattern interruption in their messaging, in their visuals. And so that's the biggest shift that I think people kind of realize when doing this is that they, they realize that they have to create a new visual that's shocking. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it's on brand for their particular brand. It's more about where is this visual being used and how do we create like so much attention. Because now with the algorithms, everything is interest based. So if you create a visual that would do way better for a certain audience segment on Instagram, Instagram's gonna show that visual more likely to that segment and then it's not being shown to anyone else. And so it's really important to understand that. And I think this all kind of ties back to the trends that we're seeing in that in Word Clay, people will create a campaign that looks completely different from one to the other. And so, so that, that's kind of signaling to the, the algorithms there as well. So it's all kind of in line and it's all connected. And so I think people who are not as familiar with that kind of have to get on board with that because I think the previous assumption was like, everything's gotta look the same, everything's gotta be very cohesive. And I think that was, that was part of what we had to educate people on, but not so much anymore because people, people are getting, are getting an understanding that, okay, I have to have shock value, I have to have something new. I have to reinvent my message now more than ever. And because I have to do that, I also have to reinvent the visuals that are showcasing that message.
- [23:30]
A
That's so interesting because I think it also Goes back to those who've been in business for a long time and they've done things a certain way. And it's very hard sometimes to pivot. And I would say pivot. Separating your marketing message, like you were talking about, from your actual, like, business model and what you do. And those two don't always have to be separated out. But I also think there's something to be said that what's working on Instagram, what's working on Pinterest, are sometimes two very different types of images. Like, we're getting very siloed in our marketing as well, where you might have somebody who only engages with you on YouTube, on TikTok, on Pinterest, all of those, or just Instagram, which is really interesting. I guess I would say, like, how do you help clients who are. And if Pinterest folds into this, great. If it doesn't. But they are really stuck with. Almost like I. I'm looking at a blank Pinterest board, or maybe, you know, you guys have added some things and it's almost like I'm having this, like, business identity crisis. And I go, the old narrative has said everything needs to be cohesive, everything needs to be all these things. Is there a way or has there been a way that you kind of use some of the imagery to kind of jog that loose for them or giving them more time in the process?
- [24:52]
B
Yeah. So we always look at it from the sense of, what are you launching? Everything ties back to the marketing that they're creating in their business. The marketing always comes first. What's the initiative? What is it for? And then that's going to guide the visual. Now, there's a few, like, frameworks that we work within. One of them is cultural. So what is happening in the culture that you can play into this campaign that's going to make it relevant to what everyone else is thinking, doing and seeing. So that's one, and then the other one is seasonal. So if you have a product, if you have any sort of lifestyle brand, you know that Q4.4 is all about the holidays. And you have to signal. Right. And so there's really. There's times during the year. And again, our model is quarterly, so it typically goes based off of the season that you need to update the visuals based off of that season. And so that can also really guide you. When you sign up to be visible four times a year in a really big way, you are signing up for that. You're signing up to reinvent yourself and be visible every single time you Reinvent yourself. And so I think we have done a good job. When you come into the process, you know that and you're committed to that, we make sure that you're committed to that because we know that that works. And they've seen workplace members at this point, there's so many, there's hundreds of workplace members. They've seen at least one workplace member do this consistently. And so they kind of already know what to expect. But I will say that just looking at what, what's happening, happening seasonally and what's happening culturally can get you out of that rut immediately. And then also we look at, well, is there a certain theme that you want to go based off of? Every single brand is so different and people get inspiration from so many different areas. So sometimes people will come to us and they're like, I want to do a big disco theme. Right. But they don't know what that looks like. But then we have some sort of theme to go off of. So there's culture, there's seasons, and then there's themes.
- [26:58]
A
I, I, my wheels are turning so much right now. And I think that's what I really hope for people who are listening is that as they're going into 2026 and things are changing and things are new. One, you don't have to be caught in the old patterns of what branding was before. Two, there is a simpler method. You can hire companies like yours to come in and help walk alongside you. You don't have to do this alone. And that if you do really need to expand your messaging, expand this whole view of your founder story, that then diving into working with someone like you is such a point A to point B, quick solution instead of you trying to strong arm it. Right. I think getting creative in 2026 is hard, right? Because it feels like there have been things done. What's fresh and new, AI versus non AI like, there's just so many things converging at the same time that I love that you have this as an option and you've gone through so many different iterations. I love it.
- [28:00]
B
And I would say I always think about it from a founder perspective and an entrepreneur perspective. What is the thing, what is the domino that is going to make the rest of the dominoes fall? What is the one thing that I can do that will just accelerate everything else? And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of, like, what is the branding thing that's going to move the needle the most in your business? And I would Argue that visuals are that thing because you create them once right over the course of a day and then all of a sudden you have all of these assets that allow you to tell the story, the message it allows you to post on these platforms. The use cases of visuals in your marketing is insane. There's no other asset that you can create for your business that will have this type of impact throughout all of the different platforms. So if you're someone who is like, I, like I'm so busy, I need to do things efficiently, right? Visuals are the one thing in branding that are going to really pull everything along. Not your logo, not your colors, not, not your words. Because again, the visual can signal color, the visual can signal words. And you need a visual to post on any of these platforms. You need a photo or a video. So it's the one thing that is going to make all of the other domino's in your business when it comes to branding.
- [29:25]
A
Love it. Okay, this is my last question for you. And you may or may not know this, but I'm so curious as you have leveraged your Pinterest boards to work with clients, have you noticed traffic coming to your website?
- [29:39]
B
Have you?
- [29:41]
A
I know it's probably not something that you've thought about tracking just because you were using it in such a different way, which actually that's kind of cool, right? Like when we approach platforms so often we have this idea of like this is how it has to be used. I can't go outside of it and I think that's really why I wanted to do this interview with you, was because you are using it outside of a traditional way of marketing. But it is so helpful to the internal structure of your business. I'm imagining like what would you do if you didn't have Pinterest to be able to pin at the same time with clients? Like it's such a useful tool. So I'm curious, have you noticed any traffic or I guess clients coming from Pinterest?
- [30:24]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean anywhere that we can get traffic to come back to our website. And our website is totally optimized to sell and it's really just, there's no fluff. It's like this is what we do. It's good. Here's all of the visuals that we've done. Like it's very straight to the point. So we know if we can just get someone to our website, it's good, like we can convert them. And so Pinterest is a huge asset for us, right? It's, it's a It's a. It's essentially a search engine that's just bringing all of this traffic back to your funnel or wherever you're pointing it to. And for us, that's our website or our blog. And so yes, of course, like, the answer is yes, we've seen a huge uptick. But to be honest, we, we first and foremost, Pinterest is such an integrated part of our system that even if it wasn't bringing us traffic, we would still need it. But the traffic is such a. It's such an added bonus.
- [31:22]
A
Yeah, totally. And I will agree. I really. I was clicking around your website right before this interview and just following things and it's so clear. It makes so much sense. It's just. Okay, here's what you're getting. There's not a lot to distract me. So I took some notes from that. I was like, okay, I need to. I need to do some things on my site too. Lyric, thank you for sharing all of this with me. And I love your creative use of Pinterest. Where can people go to connect with you and connect with WorkPlay branding?
- [31:50]
B
Thank you so much for having me. You can connect with Workplay at Workplay Branding on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook Everywhere, or Workplay Branding.com and you can connect with me personally at Lyric. L Y R I K dot fryer F R Y E R Perfect.
- [32:10]
A
We'll put all those in the show notes too. And I'm going to link to your Pinterest boards because I think anybody will love exploring. If you're interested in branding, if you're interested in a company like yours, maybe even in the home design space, using it like you are, I think there's just a lot of good use cases that people can pull from your examples. So way to go. I love it.
- [32:30]
B
Thank you so much.