Lessons

Lesson Info

Visual Content Creation: Pinterest

- [Megan] You can use the exact same strategies that Tiffany taught you about search to get your content found on Pinterest. So this is a really good example where I wanted to see if I could get a pin to optimize for something around the lines of black and white for work. So this is what Tiffany was talking about with thinking about those longer tail keywords. And my thought process here was really simple, right? I make black and white jewelry. People who have to dress nice for work are usually pretty comfortable dropping money on their clothes, right? That's an audience I want to target. So I'm going to create a blog post literally targeting those keywords. And I didn't show this in this screen, but what I love about Pinterest for keyword research is when you do a search in this bar, Pinterest now gives you related search terms. So it's basically the same thing that Tiffany was showing you guys with Google, but way more visual. Now, the sad thing is, you don't know how many people are...

searching for those terms. That's the downside. But it still gives you another way to process this information. So there was no cropping in this shot. So now, when you want a Pinterest and you search "black and white for work," mine is the first, literally the first image. And so what I did is I literally went through that same process that Tiffany showed you guys, putting my keywords everywhere they needed to be. So if we take a look at...So I have Rich Pins. And if you have no idea what that means, take the Pinterest class. Basically, at the end of the day, what a Rich Pin is, it's something that Pinterest allows you to give your content more real estate. You get to see, if we go back for just a second, so see how this image...that's a promoted image. This image just has a description. If we scroll down on mine, and of course we can't, you can actually see the headline from the blog post underneath the pin. So it just gives the user more information before they ever click through. It also means that when they're looking at it, they actually see a snippet, they see the first part of. In this case, it's a blog post that I optimize for. But you can do the same thing with your product images. So I literally used the title...I think the title of the actual blog post was "8 Simple and Chic Ways," or "Chic and Simple Ways to Wear Black and White to Work," right? I'm targeting black and white for work. So I used it in my post title. You can't see how I saved my image, but I literally...the file of my image is "8-ways-to-wear-black-white-to-work" with little dashes in between .jpg. My alt text is this description. "8 chic and stylish ways to wear black and white to work." Then the top of my blog post, just like Tiffany was talking about, write like you're writing to a human, but include your keywords. So my blog post literally started, "My love for black and white knows no bounds." Oh, yeah, by the way, black and white. I keep using the word black and white. I think you can't see the third sentence, but I'm pretty sure it says something like black and white is really chic for work, right? It's written like a human, but I'm using those keywords and not stuffing them in there. And then the other thing that you want to do for Pinterest is then, again, use those keywords in your description of the pin. So it might seem a little redundant, right? But I made this post maybe five months ago and now it's the top thing in that search. So it's okay to be a little bit redundant because that's what Pinterest is going to read. The other thing that I did was you'll notice that I also use the term professional style in here. So Pinterest uses a lot of interchangeable things, like professional style or work style. A lot of those words Pinterest is smart enough to know these are similar, show them up for the same thing. So this is actually pinned to a board that's also called "professional style." And Pinterest takes that into account, too. So when you're naming your Pinterest boards, you want to use keywords that you use a lot. I have a board that is literally called "statement necklaces" because I make a lot of statement necklaces. So the other mistake that I see people make is that they want to get real fancy with their board titles, right? I can't even think of a non-fancy way to say statement necklaces at this point, but they want to be clever, right? Instead of just saying it's a living room, it's shelter or whatever, right? Use the words your customers are searching for as the names of your boards as well. All right. So before I move off of that, do any of you guys in the studios have any other specific Pinterest questions? Sarah. - [Sarah] So if someone clicked on this specific pin, they're going to end up on your blog. And then within your blog, you have the links to where you can buy these outfits and the necklaces? - Yeah. So the way that I handled this image is...The way I create content for my blog is a lot of times, I'll do blog posts, and then I'll do roundups. So these eight outfits appear as individual blog posts on my blog. Then I did a new post that rounds them up. So when they land on that, they then can click and to go over to any of the one individual outfits. And in that outfit, then there's a link to my product. But at the bottom of this particular blog post, I believe I also...I then literally have a little PS that says something about looking for some black and white jewelry to wear? Here are a few of my favorite pieces, and then I dumped in a few of the images of jewelry that were featured in this post with the links directly to them. So, right. So the idea is that they're going into blog post and then you're funneling them to your shop. So, yeah. Jordan. - [Jordan] A couple of questions. So just so I understand. - Yeah. - If you then took that image and so you had five different outfit boards, and the work attire, the day/night attire, and then this, and if you repin that multiple times with different keywords every time of like black and white, or work attire, or...does that...is that better? - Yes. - Okay. - That's a great question and it absolutely is. I'm a little bit lazy, and I actually usually use the same description, so it's the same keywords. But I believe I have this pinned to about five different boards. So I do have one board that's just called "Megan Auman style" where I put all of my outfit posts and then some of my product images. So I do have one board where I only pin my own content, but I pinned it to that, I pinned it to my professional board, I believe I pinned it to my black, white and grey board. I have a general fashion and style board, I believe that I pinned it to that one. Probably I pinned it to a couple other boards as well. So you absolutely want to pin across multiple boards. And I do that spread out over time. So usually on the day the blog post goes live, I try to pin that same image twice. So I'll usually pin in the morning to my Megan Auman style board. And then I'll pin at night to, because I write my blog post in the morning, I'll pin at night to whatever the board is that's the most relevant. So in this case, it was professional style. And that is the board that actually the pin went viral from because you can see that. But then, I think I wait about two weeks and I pinned it to say with my fashion and style board. And then I waited another two weeks and I pinned it to the black, white, and grey board. But then, I will go back in six months, and I will repin it to professional style again because at that point, it's so pushed down on the board that I want it to show up again in my feed. And I actually do all of this with a scheduler. I don't sit down and have to remember this. I use Viraltag, it's just V-I-R-A-L-T-A-G. It's not free, but it's totally worth it because I make the pin, I put it in my scheduler, I schedule it for all of those times and all those boards that I just talked about, and I never have to think about it again. So for me, that's definitely worth it. - Two questions. - Yes. - So from what you just said, I'm gathering on my limited knowledge of Pinterest that when you post something, it matters that you're spreading out because they're going to show newer pins, more... - Yeah. So it matters a little bit less. So it used to be that Pinterest showed you everything of everyone you are following. So what happen is if when someone you are following decided to pin 100 images about The Great Gatsby when the movie came out, you had to see 100 images about The Great Gatsby. And nobody really likes that, right? So now, Pinterest switched to a partially...to an algorithmic feed. So they will send things out over time based on other things that you've looked at. But that said, they're not going to send those out into your main feed eight years later. So that's why I do pin in the morning... - So sort of. and...so sort of, yeah. I pin in the morning and I pin at night because obviously, most people are more active on Pinterest at night. So that's why I pin those two different times. - And wouldn't it also...like, because it's on different boards, it's related to different images. So now, it's in like the work attire, so when somebody looks at that and they see this image, it'll direct them to that or the rabbit hole. - Right, exactly. And the other thing is people have the option of following an individual board versus your whole account. So not everyone who follows me follows all my boards, they might only follow one or two. So by hitting those different boards, I'm also hitting different followers. - I have a question about, you know how yesterday, Tiffany said, "If you have duplicate content, it strikes against you on the web." Now, how does that work for duplicate images? - So I don't have duplicate images on my blog. It's just duplicates on Pinterest. - So that doesn't... - That doesn't, yeah. So basically, because...I asked Tiffany yesterday how Pinterest works in back links, Google sees Pinterest as a search engine, so it use those back links so little, that it actually doesn't care what's happening with your content on Pinterest for the most part. So, yeah. - So if you've linked to someone else's outfit within your little roundup, and then maybe those shoes aren't available anymore, like someone went to click on the link to get to the shoes... - To the shoes and the shoes aren't available. - Could that hurt you, or...? - It doesn't. And actually the way that I solve that problem is...and this is going to open up a whole can worms that we don't have time to get into. But I build my outfits first on Polyvore, which is basically another platform that integrates all this content. I still take them on to my own website, put them in Photoshop, do a little tweaking, whatever. So when I link back to products that aren't mine, I linked them on Polyvore. And what Polyvore does is if something sold-out, they recommend similar things. And so that's why I send people there, instead of directly to a shop. So one last question and then we're good. - Okay. Related similar... - Chug on, yeah. - You might just point me to your Pinterest thing. - Yeah. And I'm going to point a lot of you guys to the Pinterest class for sure, but... - When it comes to making... Can you go back to the last slide? So you're... - Maybe I can go back to the last. This one? - This picture. - Yes. - What do you use to make that picture? - Well, I use Photoshop. - Okay. - But you can also use Canva, which is a free online tool that's good for integrating images, you could use PicMonkey. I use Photoshop because it's what I've been using for a million years and it's easy for me. It's fast for me. But yeah, PicMonkey, Canva, any, you could search how to make a photo collage, and it's probably going to pop up 20 different services. - And do you have to crop it to a certain size or anything for them to appear like that? - You don't. But you can see vertical images work much better on Pinterest. And it's because they get more real estate. So anytime I can make a long image, it does better because it gets more real estate. I can also tell you that these roundups that I do, get way more click-throughs back to my blog than the individual outfit posts. One, they take up way more real estate. And two, people know that there's a ton of content worth coming back to. Yeah. The roundup post is...There's a million different ways to do a roundup post but man, they work like gangbusters on Pinterest.