← Simple Pin Podcast: Simple ways to boost your business using Pinterest
Simple Pin Podcast: Simple ways to boost your business using Pinterest
What does it really mean when we say “branding”?
00:39:47
Loading summary
Transcript50 lines
- [00:00]
Kate All
Hey there, and welcome back to another episode of the Simple Pin podcast. Today I have Katie Trant from Foodie Brand Lab, and we are going to be talking about the concept of branding. What is branding? It's a term that we throw around quite often. In fact, I say it several times to have your branding on your Pinterest images. But I wanted to talk to Katie, who has extensive experience working with big brands and even her own brand, and now helping other people establish their brand. I wanted to ask her, what does it mean when we use the term branding? We talk about how you can create your compass to figure out your branding, what exercises you can do. I walked away really encouraged by this. In fact, after we hung up the call, I told her, this is going to be a really great exercise for me to do because I have been in this business for 11 years now. I have been recording this podcast for eight and a half years. I've been doing a lot of things that I just kind of go about my day doing, or it's just part of the Simple Pin brand. But I want to step back, reevaluate, and say, are these the things we still care about? Is this what we want our brand to be? And the Simple Pin brand has always been something that is based on high customer service, high productivity, really great service where we serve you. We never want to be somebody who acts like we know everything all the time, because we don't. We want to be learners. We want to be people who ask great questions. We look at Pinterest with a curious eye. And we know at the same time that things are always changing, that we want to work with our clients in the best possible way to get them the best possible service. But even though I know all of that, I want to go back to the drawing table and kind of check my boxes to say, is this still important to Simple Pin Media? I hope you'll be encouraged by this episode and that it will ignite the same thing for you, that you'll walk away. Whether you're two months in business, two years in business, or 12 years in business like Katie, you'll be able to ask yourself these questions to say, do I really know the brand that I have and do I want to continue having these pillars as my, quote, unquote, branding? Before we dive into the episode, I have an ask for you. Like I said, I've been doing Simple Pin Media now for almost 11 years. In fact, I bought the domain almost exactly 11 years ago. To this day, I've been doing the podcast here for Eight and a half years. I want to make sure that this podcast is always relevant to you. And frankly, over the years, eight years of recording podcast episodes, there are a lot of things that I've recorded 1, 2, 3, 4 times or topics I've covered. But I know that you might be a new listener. So I would love to hear from you down below in the description in the show notes. What you will find is a link to our contact page. I would love for you to send me suggestions, send me things that you like that we do. You can even send me things that you don't like. I know that I am not the podcast recording host that always talks about the latest and greatest or Pinterest. I'm not a hacky person and I know that there's podcasts out there now that talk about that, and I celebrate that. But if you want me to dive a little bit more into it, I might do it for you. If you reach out to me and ask me to do it, I'll always be transparent with you as something that I can do or might not be able to do. Anyway, go ahead and send me your requests, your thoughts, your feedback, or you can simply tell me how long you've been a listener. It would mean the world to me and it would help me with some of the exercises that Katie and I talk about in today's episode. Alrighty, let's dive into my episode today with Katie Tranquil.
- [03:55]
Katie Trant
You're listening to the Simple Pen podcast, Pinterest. For business advice that goes down smooth and easy. Here's your host, Kate All.
- [04:09]
Kate All
Katie, welcome to the Simple Pen Podcast.
- [04:12]
Katie Trant
Thank you so much for having me.
- [04:14]
Kate All
Yeah, I'm so excited to chat with you. I was listening to you on the Food Blogger Pro podcast and I was getting ready in the morning. I was like, okay, we've got some good questions here. And I was actually kind of framing up where we were going to go with this. And what stood out to me was this whole world of branding, Right? And I so easily use that term on pretty much anything, like, make sure your Pinterest images are branded. So there's this branding awareness. And when I was hearing your story and kind of, you know, the history of how you got started, I thought, and you said that you're like, brand is so much more than what we make it. And it's kind of this existential thing that we sometimes don't even have control over, and it's kind of this perception. So I'd like to start with when I say the word branding, what do you think of now versus maybe what you thought of before you got into the industry that you're in?
- [05:09]
Katie Trant
Oh, I don't know that I thought about branding before I got into the industry, to be perfectly honest. But branding, the technical definition or the definition of branding, that word is branding, is the act of applying an identity to something. So I don't think in the context of Pinterest and making graphic pins and so on, I don't think saying apply your branding is incorrect, because what you're saying to people is, take your visual identity, take the things that are associated with your brand visually, and apply those to the pin so that people recognize them. Right. That is the act of branding. What I think that people get mixed up on is that they hear branding or brand, and they think it's just that one thing. They think it's only their visual identity or only their logo or only their personal brand. And if you listen to the chat I had with Bjork, you know, that brand is a complex ecosystem. It's comprised of many things. So I think it behooves us as creators to understand what not necessarily all of those things are, because it's like, you know, how much time do you have? But a lot of those things and how they apply to our businesses and our brands.
- [06:31]
Kate All
Well, and when I hear you talk about that, and even when I was listening to your podcast, the thing that kind of resonated with me was we often think of brand as really big. Like, we think of Coke and we think of all these, you know, logo Starbucks bucks. We know them. And oftentimes for the small business owner, I don't know if that concept translates because we're starting a business with either a hobby or an idea or a passion in mind, and we're not necessarily thinking about branding. So if somebody either is a new small business owner or they're thinking about getting started, or maybe they are, they've just been bumping along, Right. Like, what are some things that they should even consider as a part of bringing that whole concept of brand branding into, I guess, how they're working and should they. Right. Like, what's your thoughts on that?
- [07:27]
Katie Trant
I think that they should. I think that, you know, especially the way that, you know, my background is as a food blogger, and I know that with Pinterest services, you serve many different niches. So, you know, I can speak to my experience as a food blogger and how bumpy it's been in the last year with all the algorithmic activity we've had. I'm sure this is true in other niches as well. I just don't know them as intimately, but.
- [07:55]
Kate All
Yeah, and speak to that since you know it so well.
- [07:58]
Katie Trant
Yeah. But, you know, we have the helpful content update, which really was very disruptive. I mean, it devastated a lot of sites, just lost, you know, half or more of their traffic overnight. And then we've had, I think the way that people search for content has fundamentally changed in the last year. We had ChatGPT come along and, you know, people using that a lot more than typically just Googling something. We've had AI generated content and AI generated, you know, recipes and images and everything. So the whole world of blogging as we knew it as like working as a content creator has really, like, it's like someone shaking the snow globe and we're kind of watching how it settles and we're like, what is going to happen? So I think that because of that, if you know who you are as a brand, you know, if you have that compass, you're going to be much better equipped to navigate this really uncertain territory because you know, fundamentally who you are, what you're about, what your purpose is. And I think that if you have a strong brand, your users can tell, you know, you're not just throwing spaghetti at the wall. And so that's why I think, you know, whether you're Coke or Starbucks or whether you're, you know, a mom working out of her kitchen in Seattle, I think brand is equally important. I mean, there's a, there's a reason that big companies have six and seven figure budgets for branding. It's because it's super important.
- [09:41]
Kate All
Yeah. And to be recognizable. So I love that compass analogy. Let's kind of go back there. So what is comprised of this compass? What do we want to make sure are the key elements that are there?
- [09:53]
Katie Trant
Yeah. So I think that you can. What I work with is a framework that I call a brand platform. And there's, you know, anybody who's spent any amount of time working at like a brand agency or even on the client side, they may have different terminology, different people call it different things. And different organizations will decide how simple or complex they want to make this brand platform. I think that you can really boil it down to three or four things. So your brand purpose, and that's why you exist, your position, and that's where you exist. You know, in this market, I always, I use my hands when I talk about this and I forget that people I can't see.
- [10:38]
Kate All
Well, we might have the video for this so that's totally fine.
- [10:41]
Katie Trant
But you, I do like a brand mapping exercise to find your position where you have like a matrix and you can have axes that you define as like, you know, I write a vegetarian food blog, so I might define my axes as like hardcore vegan at the top and like meat barbecue recipes at the bottom and then super healthy recipes on this side and really indulge in recipes on the other. And then within that framework, map my position like where I, I exist and that shows you, you know, where you are, who you're serving and who you're competing against as well. So that's purpose, position and then your brand values, so what you stand for, what's important to you and that, you know, the brand values themselves are a compass that help you navigate a lot of decision making in your business. And the brand personality is the last part of it. And the personality itself, that's where your visual identity, you know, how you look, how you act, how you sound, how you behave in different channels are all going to be important parts of the personality. And I think if you have just those four things, you know, you can obviously get a lot more, you can dive a lot deeper, you can get a lot more complex than that. But I think that's a really good place to start with those four components of a brand platform.
- [12:02]
Kate All
And do you feel like these things can be done? Whether you are a seasoned creator, let's say you are one of those creators where you've been in the industry for seven, eight years, you were hit by the helpful content update. Is the exercise like this a good resetting in order to set your vision to go forward?
- [12:19]
Katie Trant
Definitely. You know, I think that people who have been around for a long time, especially, you know, I've been blogging since 2010 and blogging has changed so much in those 14 years. And so it's gone through these phases of like, I've been in this never ending process of going back and updating and you know, nurturing old content or culling stuff that doesn't resonate anymore. And of course like in the early days we were just like telling stories about our lives and you know, maybe throwing up a recipe and you know, then there was like this super mega focus on SEO. And so it's like keyword hunting. And are those keywords all really relevant to your brand? You're kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall. So I think even if you have a business that's been around for a long time, you've been on the journey for a while, you might need help looking at, like, oh, my God, I've got like all this content, but what do I do with this? What does it mean? What stays and what goes? Who am I really trying to be? Like, what do I want the world to see when I present my brand? How do I want them to interact with and how do I want them to perceive me? And so I think it's powerful for someone who's new, I think you have to be a little bit seasoned. Like, I. I think it would be a real challenge to say I'm going to build a brand when you have no content. You know, I would, I would recommend having like, you know, six months, a year or two under your belt. But I think, you know, for those people who are new, starting with that strong foundation would be really powerful. But I think even more powerful is the people who've been around for a while and need help kind of, you know, navigating that snowstorm well.
- [14:03]
Kate All
And I also think you add the element, especially since you talked about, you know, the last 14 years, the element of different social media platforms and what they require of us. Because even though we went deep into SEO, like, I'm thinking about Pinterest and Pinterest traffic is so cold, right? And they bounce to your site, they sum you up less than a two seconds, they scroll, they see, is this going to answer my question? If yes, they stick around. If no, they leave. And you do get more no's. And then you add in Instagram and then you add in TikTok. And it almost feels like you have multiple branding personalities. Definitely, just by the different platforms that you're using.
- [14:40]
Katie Trant
Yeah, I describe that as like, I have my, you know, I am Katie Trant and I go to my job at my office and I have my kind of office Persona. And then I go to my gym and I have a gym Persona. They don't even call me Katie at the gym, they call me Katherine. It's super weird, but that's my gym Persona. And then I go, you know, to my friend's house for dinner and it's super casual, but I'll go to a party. And that's a different Persona. I'm still me, but I behave differently, you know, ever so slightly, depending on which one of those touch points I'm interacting with. And I think that the way our brands interact with all those different channels, all those different social media touchpoints is very similar. I'm not going to behave the same in Pinterest as I will in Instagram stories or whatever, you know, Instagram stories is where I get real personal. I, like, take a picture of my super messy kitchen, you know, to show that I'm a real person. I'm not going to do that on Pinterest. I would turn people off on Pinterest. Right, Totally. Mm.
- [15:40]
Kate All
Yeah. And, okay, so I want to switch a little bit because actually I'm framing up for me as a business owner. I've been doing this for almost 11 years now. And one of the things that stood out to me early on was you're from the west coast and there's Nordstrom, and it's this pillar of a, you know, retail store that started there, and they have this genuine. It's not just a brand. But, you know, at Nordstrom, I can return anything. They will gladly accept those returns. I will get excellent customer service. They had a long history of. In the shoe department, you would have people helping you get fit, all these kinds of things. And I read a book about that, and it was this, like, feeling of, how can you give excellent customer service like Nordstrom to be this level of service? And that stuck with me to say, I want simple pin to be Nordstrom like service. But I think you said something in the podcast with Bjork that you can't always control what people, how they perceive your brand. Right. Like, they can have different interactions with you, and they may not come away with this Nordstrom level of interaction. So I think, how do you. How do you. I don't know. Is there any way to control it or is it just this thing of, like you said, like, I can go to different places and I'm still me, and some of those things are just out of my control. Yeah.
- [17:02]
Katie Trant
I think that, you know, Nordstrom is a really good example. And not everybody who walks into Nordstrom is going to have that same perception. They're not all going to have a super positive experience. But I know, you know, I feel that way about, you know, the skincare brand Aesop, the Australian skincare brand. It's like a really premium one. And I love the experience of going into an Aesop store because if you ask, sample their hand creams, they give you, like, a little hand massage. And it's always just like this super nice experience. And it's obviously a thing that they've, you know, it's like Nordstrom with being able to return anything, no questions asked, and having a fitting experience. Those are decisions that they are making to help shape people's perception of them. But how we actually feel when we interact with that brand is Completely out of their control. You know, and it's the same with how we shape our brands and how we, you know, the work that we do in branding and with our brand personality and our brand experience and how people, you know, come to the website and are there a lot of annoying pop ups and are there a lot of ads and is it easy to navigate and do I feel welcome? Is the copy welcoming? Do the photos look appealing? All we can do is our best to help shape those perceptions and be really, really consistent about providing that experience. But ultimately the experience and the perception is out of our hands. It's in the hands of the user.
- [18:35]
Kate All
Yeah. And I think even kind of a little bit going back to the compass, there's this feeling that as business owners we need to chase that feeling for people. Like we need to orchestrate it. And if I think about overlaying that with the compass, that's not really a part of it. Like it, it is. You know, if you're talking about targeting vegetarian cooks, like there's ways that obviously you want them to feel, but there's all these others positions and brand values and these things that you need to incorporate into it. So if I'm trying to, I guess, pull myself back from this, trying to control what people think of me, because that is a real thing, right? Especially for women in the online space, we want to project this image, we want to project this image of our brand. And even for myself, I get caught up in chasing that sometimes instead of going back to my compass. So what is really, I guess if somebody's like, okay, I'm going to work on the compass, I'm going to do the action, right. What's the first thing that you would tell people? Like, go back to this. When you get entangled in all of that, like not just the compass itself, but like a part of it. Is that making sense how I'm asking it? Like, what's the thing that you're saying? Go back to this. If you get entangled and worried about what people think about you, I think.
- [19:52]
Katie Trant
Your, your purpose and your values, because that tells you who you are, you know, where you've come from and where you're going. And if you're getting caught up in, you know, all these activities in the name of shaping perception that may lead you off the path that you should be on. Those values and your purpose, I think are very powerful tools to help pull you back into the right direction for sure.
- [20:24]
Kate All
Do you think that those values have to be broadcast to everybody or they can be kept Internal, they can be kept internal.
- [20:31]
Katie Trant
I think that there are parts of the brand platform or parts of branding work that are typically designed to be internal. They're meant for, you know, they're meant to be your compass as a business owner and for anyone else who, you know, you have a team that you work with. So it would be your compass, but also the compass that you hand to every member of your team to make sure that they are acting and living the values of your brand as they represent it. There are some parts of some branding work you might do, like a mission statement or a value proposition that are intended to be consumer facing. It's like when Nike says just do it, you know, that's not meant to be only internal facing. That's something that is meant to, you know, rally the troops and, you know, bring people along the journey. So a lot of it, I would say it's like 80, 20, that when you do branding work, most of it is for you, yourself, the business owner, and then how you work with the brand and how it expresses itself should kind of innately carry those values and purpose and personality along for the ride. So you don't always have to be super explicit. Right.
- [21:47]
Kate All
Because I see people posting core values on their website or they kind of make it front and center. And I have, you know, done that in the past. But even as we were talking, I was like, okay, maybe these are things that like you said, when you get caught up in these things, you go back to this anchor to say, no, this is who we are and we're not this other brand. Or, and maybe I want to ask you, that is as you've worked with big corporate brands, as you have your own brand, have you wrestled with that as well? You've like seen something from the sidelines and you're like, oh, I want to chase that. And it feels a little bit squirrel like and you kind of lose yourself a little bit. Does that happen to you or have you just become so good at it that you're like, no, I'm going to ground myself here.
- [22:33]
Katie Trant
You know, I don't think that I've become so good at it that I'm going to ground myself. I think that I, for me personally, I don't have a lot of time.
- [22:42]
Kate All
You know, well, there's that.
- [22:43]
Katie Trant
Yeah, it's like I what am I going to spend my time on? And you know, I've got a full time job, I have a blog, I have two kids, and now I have Foodie Brand Lab as well. So it's about Knowing, you know, what is going to serve my brand and my branding efforts the best. And so, you know, I'm actually like doubling down on Pinterest right now because I feel like there's a good return on investment there for me. But I've never been a social media person. I can't stand it. You know, I've been on Instagram for what, like 10 years and I've got 3,000 followers because I just don't care. I refuse to play the game. I don't make reels, I don't do that kind of stuff. And I've made a decision a long time ago that I'm not going to compare myself to my friends that have 250,000 Instagram followers because it doesn't serve me. It's not what's important for me and my business. For other people, it's super important. You know, that's how they make their money, that's how they get their brand partnerships. I also made the decision that for my food blog, for hey, nutrition lady. I don't make. I don't do brand partnerships because I feel that it. I mean, first of all, I have a geographical challenge because most of my audience is in the US And I live in Sweden. So it's really hard for the brands that would want to work with me to access me anyways. But also because I have this nutrition blog and one of its, like, the fundamental values of it are no nonsense, fad, free nutrition. I have two degrees in nutrition and it's no. There's no fad diets. There's no, you know, fluffy information. It's all grounded in science. So I felt that brand partnerships might make people perceive me as less trustworthy and it just wasn't important enough for me to pursue it. You know, other people, I know lots of people who are registered dietitians. They've got the same, you know, scientific background and they do tons of brand partnerships and they make it work really well. So it's just a matter of deciding what's important, you know, what serves your journey and your core values as a brand and a business.
- [24:50]
Kate All
One other thing that this jogged for me was in your conversation with Bjork, confusing this idea of niche with branding. And I think even though you have a niche and you know exactly what's important to you, you can say, like, I'm not going to focus on Instagram, it doesn't serve me well. I'm not going to do brand sponsorships, but I am going to target this group of people and what you said where is. You were like, there's a lot of people who are really successful that don't, quote, unquote, have a niche. So talk a little bit more about that because I think that is huge into. I can only have a brand if I have a niche.
- [25:25]
Katie Trant
Yeah, not true. I mean, I think that in the hierarchy of things, brand is, you know, higher up. It ranks higher than niche because niche is very closely related to your brand position. So it's the people that you serve. And you can be a niche brand, which means that you only exist to serve a very particular community of people. You can also be very, very broad. And I don't think, you know, I think that a lot of times in blogging you're told you need to have a niche to be successful because you need to find your people. But I think that some of the biggest bloggers out there are super broad in general. But what has happened is that they themselves become the niche, right? Like they are the, the, the, the pillar that things are orbiting around and people are coming to them not because they serve a particular niche, but because of who they are, because their brand is very powerful. So I, I think that many people have found a lot of success by being like, I'm only going to do gluten free recipes or I'm only going to do, you know, Whole 30 or whatever. But that can be really, really powerful for some people. But I also think that those things change so much with time. You know, like the keto diet was so huge a few years ago and, you know, next year it'll be something else. And these trends come and go and the power of brand is being able to, you know, catch the next wave and keep moving along. And if you're too niche and too granular, then you have to figure out how to like, change your entire strategy.
- [27:08]
Kate All
Yeah, I was thinking about that whole idea between like vegan, vegetarian, plant based. And I was having conversations with some food creators who, some were very focused on plant based and some were using the word vegan. And it is important because there's keyword value in that. And that's what we were talking about with Pinterest, is that sometimes people will search vegan and sometimes people will search plant based. And I don't think it's limiting for them. Like they can't talk about both things. It's like you don't have to be just pigeonholed into vegan, but you do have to be aware of like, what keywords you're using that the platform uses. But don't let that limit you overall, right?
- [27:48]
Katie Trant
Yes.
- [27:48]
Kate All
And kind of hone in on just that one thing for sure. I think too, even as you're talking, I'm thinking about. A lot of people have come to me over the years and they will say, do you only do Pinterest? What about Instagram? What about all these things? And I've had to make that decision to say we are just going to do Pinterest. As tempting as it might be to walk into that other lane, I know that if I walk into that other lane, comes education, comes learning, comes all these things. And so I have to choose to stay in that. And it is very tempting to want to go outside of it. And it's hard, like what you said, to make a decision to give up social media or to give up brand deals because you see all these people making money in these areas and it's like, maybe you just need to hone it in and that helps you get better and better at your branding voice. You're clearer, you're more confident in what you're doing.
- [28:42]
Katie Trant
Yeah. I think that when you have a business like what you have the decision to say, we're going to go all in on Pinterest and we're going to be the best Pinterest service there is, rather than saying we're going to be a full service social media agency. And, you know, you and I both, I think, would agree that Pinterest is not social media, it's a search engine. So it's like an entirely different beast. And I think that there are, there is value in being really good at one thing. You know, we. I've worked a lot with recruitment over the years and I get these CVs where people have done like, they're, they're. We'll have one person apply for every role we have open. And it's like, what are you? Are you a strategist or an art director or, you know, a filmmaker? And they're like, I can do it all. But are you, are you really good at any of those things? So I think that there's a difference, you know, serving a niche or, you know, getting really niche with your content, whereas you're talking about, like honing your skills in a particular area to serve people. I think those are a little bit different.
- [29:52]
Kate All
Yeah, no, I agree with you there. So I want to know a little bit about how Foodie Brand Lab was born and you are so busy with all these other things. And so what was the initial idea to create this brand, to create the ability to help people learn how to do it themselves.
- [30:11]
Katie Trant
Yeah. So Foodie Brand Lab was born from my mastermind group of food bloggers. And we just had our monthly. I have this group of amazing women that I meet with once a month. We've been meeting for about two years and we have a rotating responsibility for presenting, you know, what the monthly topic is. You know, like I said, one of the women is killing it on Instagram, So she did a session on Instagram, Another does really well on Pinterest, so she did a session on Pinterest. And so we take turns. And I said, you know, I don't know if I'm the only one that has a day job or a real job, as I sometimes call it obnoxiously. But I said, you know, I don't really know if anyone's interested, but I work with brand. I've been working in branding agencies for the last 12 years. So if you want to hear me talk about that for one of our sessions, they said, yeah, yeah, okay. And so I put together this 20, 30 minute presentation with just like the basics of brand. And at the end of it there was just this silence. And then, and I was like, were you listening? And then everyone was like, oh my God, why are you not doing this? You know, I had, I thought they were, you know, had been, you know, making pins in the background or something rather than listening to me. And they were just furiously taking notes. And it had never occurred to me until that moment. You know, I've been writing a food blog since 2010. I've been working in branding agencies for almost just as long. And up until this year where all of a sudden the topic has been, you know, you have to build a brand. You have to build a, build a brand. It hasn't really occurred to me that like these worlds could or should collide. But as soon as they said that, I realized like, yeah, why am I not doing this? So I put my head down and created Foodie Brand Lab. I mean, it took like six months of hard work and a very dedicated and incredible VA who has been along the journey with me as well. And yeah, we launched it in September. And I built it to serve all levels of food bloggers because I felt like I had some conversations with people who, you know, there was some really big name bloggers who I had heard of hiring brand agencies before they went and did a website redesign or something like that. And that's, you know, working with a brand agency. Typically you need a six figure budget. It's like, it's really expensive because they've got a big team. They're going to have, you know, strategists doing an insights phase and then they're going to hand it over to, you know, a creative team and they're going to develop the visual brand and so on. And the beauty of the fact that I have this background in food blogging is I don't need to do the insight phase because I've been on the journey for all these years. I know the industry super well. So I was able to kind of productify or, you know, really streamline the brand strategy process and create a framework to work within. So we have a course which serves anyone who wants to take the course. It's super affordable, it's self paced, it comes with a lot of support like a slack workspace and monthly office hours. And then I've got some more premium services. I've got a done with you and a done for you service as well. So it depends on how much time you have on your hands and how interested you are in doing the work yourself versus having someone do it with you or for you.
- [33:47]
Kate All
And so if I want to clarify, if somebody is also like, maybe a lifestyle content creator, could they be benefit from it as well? Or is it really just. Or will they have to put on a cap of like when she mentions food, I just have to know it doesn't apply to me, but I can still apply it to my brand. Or is it like you just want food people?
- [34:11]
Katie Trant
No, I am open to all people. I think that all creators are welcome here. I think, you know, I built it as foodie brand lab because that's a niche I knew super well and I knew there was a need to serve food bloggers. I think that if it was a creator in a different kind of niche, then they could definitely, you know, the examples that I put in the course come from the world of food blogging, because that's the world I know. But I think it wouldn't be that big of a leap to say, oh, this could be, I don't know, a crochet blog. We're talking about rather than a, rather than a food blog.
- [34:49]
Kate All
Yeah. And I find too, as I've learned over the last couple of years, we share experience and we share our firsthand story. That is actually a better way for people to learn. Instead of, you should do this as a food creator, you should try this or, you know, kind of just sharing a different vantage point. But I love, I call them experience shares. I love them because I learned so much through them. So I appreciate that you clarified that because I want anyone who's been listening to this and who's never gone back and really built their brand or made intentional decisions about what their brand is to find that this could be a really cathartic and amazing challenge to grow their business to the next level.
- [35:32]
Katie Trant
Yeah, definitely. And I think it takes. There's a reason that big companies hire brand agencies, right? And they these big companies, like if we talk about Coke or Starbucks again, they've got a brand team, they've got a head of brand, they've got a head of employer brand, they've got regional brand managers, they know brands and they still work with outside agencies because the coming from an outside in perspective allows you to see things that you can't see when you're too close. And I find that a lot of the time when I'm working with people, what is there? Their brand? It's already there. And it's just a matter of someone saying, hey, what about this? You know, isn't that your brand or isn't that your value? Isn't that your personality? And kind of helping to draw that out of them and guide them on the journey. So it's the compass again.
- [36:23]
Kate All
Yeah. And honestly, it even sounds really appealing to me. You know, coming along, coming up to 11 years in this business, there's been a lot of things that have changed with the Pinterest platform. There's been a lot of things that I've learned and I almost. It's appealing as I think about it, to just go back and re and center again on like, okay, who is simple pin media going into the next 10 years, even going into 2025, as our landscape has shifted so much and how can I go back to. These things are really important to our brand and they're non negotiables, but we also want to just have a refresh and have a reset. So I'm saying that to anybody listening who's also in my shoes, who maybe they are like me, they're an accidental owner of a business and they never really thought they'd be here. But they've also never been really intention intentional about branding. They've never sat down and done exercises and said, okay, I'm not just a person who started at my kitchen table 10 years ago talking to my friends on the Internet or writing a blog post about my grandmother's brownies, but now I do have a business, I am a business owner and I want to be really intentional about that. So that this sounds like the perfect fit for somebody in my shoes and somebody I'm even referencing.
- [37:42]
Katie Trant
Yeah. And I think that if you're someone who, you know, you've been in it for a while and you think, oh, I really want, you know, I want to update my website. I want to refresh my brand identity. Maybe my logo needs tweaking or maybe the identity itself is fine, but you want to update the, you know, layout and structure of your site. I think that starting with the brand strategy work and, you know, getting your house in order before you do that, that's the correct order of operations. Otherwise you're, you know, putting like one of those IKEA sofa covers over the frame without really understanding what's underneath it. So, you know, starting from the correct point, I think is what I recommend.
- [38:24]
Kate All
And it's very on brand for you to use Ikea being there.
- [38:27]
Katie Trant
Yeah, I know, right?
- [38:30]
Kate All
Okay, Katie, where can people go to connect with you, Learn more? I know we'll have links, links down in the show notes and the description, but I want you to be able to just invite them over to check it out.
- [38:41]
Katie Trant
Yeah. So you can find me on Instagram at Foodie Brand Lab, also at. Hey, nutrition lady. That's my food blog. And Foodie BrandLab.com is the site where you find information about the course and the other branding services that we offer.
- [38:57]
Kate All
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom. I feel like my brain is now percolating with tons of different ideas, and it's exciting to have that feeling, especially going into 2025 after we've had these couple of years of just the snow globe, you know, circling around us and not knowing where anything's going to land, but the hope of going into the future and saying, okay, maybe we can put. We put some posts in the ground of our branding and we can really build on that and feel confident about what this new online space is going to look like.
- [39:29]
Katie Trant
Yes, agree.
- [39:30]
Kate All
Yeah. So thank you again. I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom.
- [39:34]
Katie Trant
Thank you so much for having me.