Get discovered on Pinterest with Precious Rodgers

"The thing is, you want to make sure that you are specifically on Pinterest, like with the visuals, letting them know exactly who you're talking to." - Precious Rodgers

Is Pinterest a social media platform? Not exactly! It’s more like a search engine. Which means folks are on there looking for solutions to their problems. Solutions you have! On today’s podcast, we’re chatting with Precious Rodgers of The Pinning Oasis, a boutique agency that helps consultants, coaches, content creators, and businesses, drive more people and profit to their business by leveraging Pinterest.

Highlights:

  1. What is Pinterest, and why should businesses be on it?

  2. How can businesses use Pinterest to drive more traffic and sales?

  3. What are some best practices for using Pinterest for your nonprofit-serving business?

  4. Optimizing your Pinterest strategy through keywords and posting.

Connect with Precious:

Find Us Online:  https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com/

Connect with Cindy:

Cindy Wagman Coaching https://cindywagman.com/

The Good Partnership https://www.thegoodpartnership.com/

Connect with Jess: 

Out In the Boons: https://www.outintheboons.me/

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Cindy: Welcome to the Confessions Podcast. I'm Cindy Wagman.

[00:00:03] Jess: And I'm Jess Campbell. We're two former in-house non-profit pros turned coaches and consultants to purpose-driven organizations.

[00:00:11] Cindy: After years of building up our separate six-figure businesses from scratch, we've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall and have lived to see what sticks.

[00:00:20] Jess: We're on a mission to help other non-profit coaches and consultants looking to start or scale their own businesses past the six figure mark by pulling back the curtain.

[00:00:30] Cindy: Whether you're still working inside a non-profit and thinking of one day going out on your own or you've been running your consulting business for years, you understand that working with nonprofit is just different. We're giving you access to the business leaders who serve nonprofits as their clients. You know, the people who truly get it.

[00:00:52] Jess: No more gatekeeping, no more secrets. This podcast is going to give you an inside look at what running a successful nonprofit coaching and consulting business looks like. Basically, we're asking people how much money they make, how they get paid and what has and hasn't worked in their businesses.

[00:01:11] Cindy: Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers, and the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to building a nonprofit coaching or consulting business, we're gonna empower you to make the power moves that give you the income and freedom you set out to create from day one.

[00:01:28] Jess: You ready? Let's go.

[00:01:32] Cindy: Hey, Jess.

[00:01:33] Jess: Hi, Cindy.

[00:01:35] Cindy: So today, we are diving into Pinterest and one of my confessions is that I'm a little envious, maybe a little more than a little of your Pinterest game. I'm so glad you invited your Pinterest manager. Is that what you call Presh?

[00:01:52] Jess: Maven Superstar Champion? Presh Rodgers-- The Pinning Oasis.

[00:01:58] Cindy: So helpful and what I love is actually in this conversation, I feel like you contribute some nuggets of wisdom as well. One of the things you said that I found so helpful is so often, we think of people behaving as we behave, right? We think of our audiences, ourselves and that's not true. And so looking at audience behavior and how they show up and what they're using Pinterest for to actually guide our decisions was like mic drop for me.

[00:02:32] Jess: Yeah. I think that when you become a business owner, there's all of these decisions you have to make about where you can put your energy to show up. I happened to get lucky three years ago by going down the Pinterest rabbit hole. Mackenzie and I managed our account ourselves for two and a half years and it was really working with very minimal effort. If I can compare the effort of Pinterest to Instagram, it's uncomparable. And frankly, I think Pinterest does maybe a better job of growing my audience and my email list.

[00:03:08] Jess: And so it's been really nice to work with an expert paying the fast pass for someone like Presh who walks us through all the things you need to do to get started with Pinterest, what you should be putting your energy towards. We talk about a tool called Tailwind, which can make your life so much easier. Paid Pinterest, the whole thing. It's such a great episode and if it's something you're willing to invest. I think she says at the beginning, anywhere from like four to six hours a week. Is this kind of I call it the sleeping giant of platforms because it has this ability to just do the work way beyond you having to create the content.

[00:03:49] Cindy: Well, it's almost like the audience is doing the work for you, right? Because it's a search engine because people are actively looking for information instead of just following you 'cuz they like you or some of your content on Instagram. This is like they're ready to take action. They're ready to consume and I think that that is so powerful. So.. yeah.

[00:04:10] Jess: Such a great episode. One thing that she said that I think really we didn't say on the episode, but I'm gonna say it now is we talked about demographics who is using Pinterest and one thing that she didn't mention is I think the average income of a Pinterest user is $83,000, which is significantly higher than Facebook, Instagram and others. So to just to your point, like people are on the platform, not only in a different mind frame to buy, but they actually have the income to be able to buy. So it's a great episode for anyone interested in Pinterest. Enjoy.

[00:04:45] Cindy: And if you're not interested in Pinterest, you should still listen because you might be, so here's the conversation.

[00:04:54] Jess: Yay. Welcome back to the Confessions Podcast with Jess and Cindy. I am over the moon excited to welcome someone that I get to work with on a regular basis. Presh Rodgers of the Pinning Oasis to talk about all things Pinterest, the sleeping giant of online platforms. For you today, welcome to the podcast, Presh!

[00:05:18] Presh: Thank you for having me. I never heard somebody call it the sleeping giant but I'm like, "That's exactly what it is."

[00:05:25] Jess: That is exactly.

[00:05:26] Presh: So I love it. I love and I'm excited to be here.

[00:05:29] Jess: We're so thrilled. I know Cindy and I might use this as a mini coaching session. So for everyone who doesn't know about Pinterest and your business, can you just start us off with a little bit about who you are and what you do for business owners?

[00:05:46] Presh: So, hey, everyone likes she said. I am Presh Rodgers and I am the Pinterest badass of the Pinning Oasis. So it's a boutique agency where we help coaches, content creators, online businesses, and all those with content learn how to drive more people and profit to their business by leveraging Pinterest. So that's it in a nutshell.

[00:06:06] Jess: You're amazing. We have been working together for four or five months now?

[00:06:10] Presh: Six months It's months to it.

is it six months now?

[00:06:12] Jess: Oh is it six months now? Oh my gosh.

[00:06:13] Presh: That was that I [overlapping] six months.

[00:06:16] Jess: Oh, time and place. I know Precious's such a thoughtful business owner. She sends these little physical reminders of gratitude every several months and it's just a really nice way to surprise and delight your clients. You can just speak from personal experience. But let's dive into Pinterest. I think we should just address the top of the question like why Pinterest? Why would anyone want to invest in Pinterest in their business?

[00:06:46] Presh: Yeah. Now it's usually the top question, and my question is usually why not? Because it is a search engine. It is not like any the average social media platform. Yes, there are social aspects, but the primary aspect of it is that it is a search and discovery tool, so people are going there specifically to search for something, to discover something, to find something. So if you want to have something that's a part of your marketing strategy where people can find your content at any point in time when they are searching for it, Pintetest is definitely something you should consider.

[00:07:21] Jess: Okay. Amazing. And can you tell us a little bit about the demographics of people who are out there pinning. I know them. I was quite surprised who is actually on the platform but you probably have up to date information.

[00:07:39] Presh: Yeah, I hope. So as I checked last time, I believe it's about 65% are women and then usually about of those 65%, about 80% of those are mothers so that's always good to know. And then the rest that's left for the 35% that is usually men and that's growing a lot more. Because it could be like 60-40 now as time goes on 'cuz every time I look, it's always growing more with more men getting on the platform, which is very surprising for a lot of people.

[00:08:11] Presh: But that just shows like Pinterest is someplace where people are seeing the value of it. The age range is like all over it. We have the new generation what is Gen Z [inaudible]. I'm like, "So what's this?" We have millennials, we have those at the millennials, so everyone is pretty much there and they're all using it for different reasons and different ways. But at the end of the day, it's all to use a platform that's going to help them find something that they looking for to get inspiration, to discover something.

[00:08:41] Cindy: I love that. And I always think like my first, especially when it comes to nonprofit audiences, my first reaction is always like, "Oh, these are parent councils looking for fundraising ideas." But Jess, I know you've had a lot of success building an audience from your Pinterest with Presh. So I'm super curious like what are people looking for or what kinds of content of yours are they engaging with?

[00:09:12] Jess: I mean, Presh can help me because she literally, at this point, I don't touch it. So I think one of the things to step back and talk about is that Pinterest is a tool that you can really set and forget. And I'd love Presh to put a pin in the topic of Tailwind because what it allows you to do is create content.

[00:09:32] Jess: So two or three years ago, I spend every single week blogging and coming up with freebies. And now, what I'm able to do is this function in Tailwind, which is a separate Pinterest tool creating these loops. And so for example, right now, 60, 30, 90 days out from Giving Tuesday, I'm just automatically looping all of my Giving Tuesday content because people are searching about how to raise money on Giving Tuesday leading up to Giving Tuesday, not on Giving Tuesday.

[00:10:04] Cindy: Right.

[00:10:04] Jess: And so it allows you to create content once and it just kind of feeds itself over and over and over again. And one of the things that Presh helped me be able to really refine is the way people are searching, specifically using keywords. Presh mentioned it's a search engine tool, not so much a social media tool.

[00:10:28] Jess: She's also really helped redesign, I would say the cover pins because you want those to be super clear. And I don't know Presh if you just wanna talk about a little bit over the last six months what you've noticed on the back end?

[00:10:47] Jess: I can share some of my personal results since working with Presh. I just looked the other day and I texted Mackenzie, my right hand gal and we're like, "Holy shit." Because when I say I do nothing, except create the blogs or create the content, I do nothing. Nothing. And before Presh, I was still doing pretty much nothing. I was probably making one hour a month of effort and now I do nothing. And she has quite literally poured gasoline on the Pinterest fire. So I don't know what have you noticed people searching for in relation to my specific content which sits in more the fundraising space?

[00:11:30] Presh: Yeah, it's definitely... you can see... what I love about Pinterest is that you have your content and that you can create. And of course, a lot of times we're creating all this type of content 'cuz we don't really know... we create content thinking we know what people want to read and need and all that stuff. But one thing about Pinterest, it allows you to see what people are actually searching for and what they are actually going to. So I know like a lot of your top posts are like the 10 ways to raise 10k. A lot of the strategies around like fundraising and how to actually get there are your top content.

[00:12:05] Presh: And like I was telling McKenzie is that we just need to create more of this type of content because a lot of times we wanna do like different things, but really, what is working is what people are searching for. And it's like how do we take that and just create more of it or make it more fresh, maybe do more idea pins or things like that.

[00:12:22] Presh: But definitely, the fundraising content, how to actually... I think that 10k is the number that people wants to see. But even that can be like for an example, if anyone has something like that, taking that from Five ways to make 5k. Or it's just you taking it a little bit differently but now we're just breaking it down a little bit more. Or it could be 10 ways to raise 2K in two weeks or something like that but it's literally, the same content but you're putting it out there in different ways so that you are able to continue to get people seeing that same content because most people keep needing to see it.

[00:12:57] Presh: And what else? I think when we were able to really just grow your Pinterest even more, it's just really focusing on the key things that people want and realizing how can we make it better. And then of course, like what you said with the Giving Tuesday, we're putting out content now, even like the newer content now for this upcoming season. Because like you said, you don't want to wait until two days before you wanna do it, at least 45 days out from whatever that big thing is.

[00:13:27] Cindy: Okay. I just wanna... I am sitting here with my pen and paper taking notes and I wanna encourage all of our listeners to do that because you just mentioned so many things that I have questions about. The first is, you can find what people are searching for. Please tell us how, where you're... there's so much it like such a noob but---

[00:13:49] Presh: No, it's fine. So like one way is if you have not created any content, you can just go into Pinterest and see what is coming up for those search results. So depending on if you are helping non-profits for marketing or something like that, you can look up marketing plans. And the thing is you want to make sure that you are specifically on Pinterest with the visuals, letting them know exactly who you're talking to. Because yes, you can say 10 ways to raise 10K for a fundraiser or you can do it could be for a gala, these are similar things. But depending on what you're talking about, it could be a school fundraiser whereas now you're talking specifically to certain non-profits.

[00:14:34] Presh: So making sure you're even more specific makes it more hopeful from when people are searching for your content, they know, "Oh, well this person is speaking specifically to me." And same thing for like you creating a marketing plan, it's like how to create a marketing plan as a nonprofit versus how to create a marketing plan as someone has like maybe a finance business. So it's two different things

[00:14:53] Presh: So seeing how people are marketing themselves, what they're putting out there, what's at the top of the search results are really helpful for your specific search terms. And then on the other end, if you are already creating content, looking at your analytics to see what people are actually clicking on and going to.

[00:15:10] Jess: I, too have so many questions and I'm writing them down so I don't forget them. So I'm putting myself in the shoes of a listener. They're listening to this, they're like, "I've been blogging for three years. I've got all this content. I show up regularly on Instagram which you can also pin loop to. I wanna start with Pinterest." What are like the 1, 2, 3 steps to get started so that people listening can experiment with taking action. And can you also talk a little bit about expectations? Because does is this an immediate instant gratification? Does this take months and months? What is a reasonable amount of effort one should expect to put into this to see the similar results that I have had?

[00:16:04] Presh: Yeah. So we're gonna start with expectations because I think that's just something that people should know. One, Pinterest is definitely a long game. It is not something that's going to work for you overnight, but it is something that I like to say is the gift that keeps on giving because like you said, you have Giving Tuesday posts from probably three years ago that are still relevant, that people can still come across this year. It doesn't make it... it's still something that they can use and find. So if you go on Pinterest, I can find things from four or five, six years ago, probably even 10 years ago if people still have their blogs up like that. Because if it's something that was popular, and got to the top of the search results that people are still clicking on, it can still be relevant. Hopefully, they've updated the blog post, that's another thing. But you wanna make sure that you're giving yourself, if you're a very new account, six to 12 months is what you want to give yourself.

[00:16:54] Presh: If you have already been using Pinterest and like I would say like Jess when she came to me, she's already been using Pinterest so her account was already in a place where it was already growing. And within three to six months is when we can start really seeing what is happening with the account. But definitely, six to 12 months is when you will start really seeing your results and what you're putting in.

[00:17:15] Presh: But I also say, usually, I tell my clients, when I work with my students in my program is - dedicate two to four hours a week to Pinterest. It can even go down to one or two hours like you were saying, you were spending one hour a month. And it really depends on how you set your schedule up, what content you have, and knowing exactly what you want to do. In the beginning, it's going to take you longer because it's a new thing. But I wouldn't say you shouldn't spend more than like six to 10 hours a month on Pinterest content.

[00:17:47] Presh: And then, as time goes on, I know for myself, I spend an hour a month probably for my idea pins because those are manually posted. But for my actual content, probably, four hours every quarter because I'm going to set everything up so that it goes through tell one, and it's just going to go out for me. I'm going to batch things so that I am prepared for the next three months. And that takes time, of course, but it requires you to actually discipline putting yourself in the beginning. So any questions about that before I continue?

[00:18:22] Jess: I mean, well, like amazing. I don't know who isn't salivating at the idea of doing something like one to four hours a month that just generates this many for me. It's mostly email addresses that I'm after, I build audience building, but like that is so cool.

[00:18:40] Presh: Yeah. And people think it's gonna take so much time, but it's really like once you have the content and you have like a system in place to create your Pin titles, you know what your descriptions are gonna be and things like that, it becomes much more easier and much more efficient. It takes longer when you spend too much time on your pin designs or something like that, when really they don't have to be. You don't have to... if you spend an hour on one design, that's way too long. I can do 10 pins in 10 minutes so you have to really train yourself and use your templates and stuff like that so that you can be more efficient.

[00:19:19] Cindy: I love that. Go ahead.

[00:19:21] Presh: I know. And then the three steps to take action on. So outside of a course, creating a business account 'cuz that's what you're going to want to create. You want to make sure that you set your profile up for that and it's optimized. So that's going to be completing like all your your boards and your profile name and things like that, claiming on your websites. Basically setting your account up to be used. And your boards, just to give a tip, you should base your boards... the title titles of your boards off the content that you already created. So if you already have a whole bunch of blog posts, you know your main pieces of content, you know your main topics that you talk about and that's what you should create boards with about so that you have places to put those pieces of content.

[00:20:05] Presh: And then the second thing is your keyword research because it is a search engine, so that requires... it's very important that you sit and do your keyword research. For most of my clients I probably have at least 175 keywords for them because it's going to be something that... for example, somebody could look at fundraising tips, but they can also look up ways to raise money. Same thing. So you want it to come up in both of those things. And even like something as simple as that, ways to raise money, we don't know what they're looking to raise money for, but that's why if they were to see your pin that says ways to raise money for a non-profit and they are looking for that specific thing, they're gonna click on yours as opposed to somebody saying ways to raise money for your business or whatever.

[00:20:51] Presh: And then the third thing was to repurpose your content. So if you're creating something like TikTok or reels, I would definitely start with idea pins right away. Make sure they are the most valuable ones and the most action taking ones and ones that actually inspire people.

[00:21:13] Jess: All right, Presh. We are back with another round of rapid fire questions. Are you ready to play?

[00:21:18] Presh: Yes.

[00:21:19] Jess: Okay. For the good listeners, tell us what is the first thing you like to drink in the morning?

[00:21:24] Presh: Tea .

[00:21:25] Jess: What kind? Yellow tea lover?

[00:21:28] Presh: Hot cinnamon sunset tea. It's like a cinnamon chai tea. I love cinnamon chai. I love chais and I love cinnamon so putting those together, it's amazing.

[00:21:37] Jess: Oh my, actually, Christmas in a cup. What is your love language?

[00:21:42] Presh: Physical touch. And actually, that's a lot. I dunno why. That's the first one I came in mind but that is like my third one. Actually, my top two are quality time and acts of service. And then I guess physical touch. I can be in there too.

[00:22:01] Jess: Oh my gosh, I was gonna guess gifts 'cuz you're such a good gifter.

[00:22:04] Presh: It's so funny 'cuz I love giving gift. I love receiving gifts too, but I think that's actually number four on my list.

[00:22:10] Jess: Okay. Maybe that's acts of service then. And then if I'm coming to Atlanta, where are we going to brunch or lunch?

[00:22:18] Presh: Oh my god. I don't know. I don't go nowhere.

[00:22:23] Cindy: Actually said that, that is like a---

[00:22:28] Presh: Interesting on TikTok, recently, about like when your friends come into town and you're the homebody, so you're just like, "I don't know where I'm gonna take these people."

[00:22:36] Cindy: Just come to my house.

[00:22:37] Presh: Just like on TikTok, "Things to do in Atlanta," and that's how I figure out everything. But I actually do like this one brunch spot called Piedmont and 10. So that's where I would take you.

[00:22:48] Jess: Amazing. And then last question for anyone else who's on TikTok, who are you following? What's an account you love to long scroll on.

[00:22:59] Presh: Oh my God. So I actually use TikTok a lot for my other business, which I am an author, so I write fictional books. And so I follow a lot of like Book Talk. So...

[00:23:10] Jess: Book Talk is wild.

[00:23:12] Presh: Yes. Who is my... I can't even think of names. One of my favorite [content] is like Black Romance Connoisseur. I think that's her name on there. Lot of romance books and just fun stuff. So... yeah.

[00:23:29] Jess: Okay. Sorry, I have to squeeze in one more question.

[00:23:32] Presh: Yes.

[00:23:32] Jess: What is the worst Book Talk recommendation you've ever gotten on TikTok?

[00:23:37] Presh: Oh my gosh. There's a lot.

[00:23:41] Jess: I know.

[00:23:43] Presh: See, I'm---

[00:23:44] Jess: It's okay. You can say something Calling Hoover. It's okay.

[00:23:46] Presh: See? I knew you was gonna try to go there. But I actually like Calling Hoover, I get it. I haven't read her books. I read like some of her books, but number one, It Ends With Us. I read it a long time ago, and I'm like, "Well..." I mean, there's a lot of toxic books in here. There's a lot of toxic men and they didn't end up together. Spoiler alert, sorry. But I don't get the hate so much because at least they didn't end up together. But I get both sides. But I've had some... I'm such a picky reader that it's really hard for me to for sure read something that I'm seeing recommended. I like Seven Days in June, I think by Tia Williams. But it wasn't as good as I like the people was making it like I was like expecting so much and I was like, "All right, y'all. This is okay." We're sorry. I thought it was gonna be like a high five star read for me but I am a very picky reader. So there's that.

[00:24:51] Jess: All right. Good to know. Well, thank you for playing.

[00:24:53] Presh: No problem. That was fun.

[00:24:59] Cindy: Okay. I have two questions. I wanna talk about Tailwind. But then I wanna talk about you mentioned idea pins a couple times, so I wanna talk about what kinds of content we should be putting out there. But before we do, to elaborate on Tailwind, because I've used things like... Oh, what, I can't remember.

[00:25:19] Presh: Pin drops, maybe?

[00:25:20] Cindy: Not for pin drops, but we all know Facebook and Instagram have like where you pre-post stuff, But for those, most of the time, it's like new content. it's repurposing content but it's new on that platform. So I would only have one Instagram post like wouldn't post the same Instagram post multiple times. So I want you to talk about how Tailwind works. Are you actually duplicating pins or are you promoting pins that already exist or are you creating new pins but on autopilot? Tell me how that works.

[00:25:56] Presh: Okay. So like when she mentioned the smart loop, that is basically they're putting out, in instance, they're duplicating the pin. They're putting it back out there on that specific board so whatever board she already set up. And we can set it up so that it goes out maybe like once a week for the next 12 weeks because it's around a certain time so it can go out to a different board every week

[00:26:21] Presh: And in our head, it looks like we are just pinning the same pin or duplicating, which we kind of are. But as a pinner, they won't really see it that way because if they were to either search for something on Pinterest, they would just see it in a feed. Or if they were to go to your profile, they would see it in the different boards. So it's okay for them to see it more than once. That's something they are kind of used to 'cause even like seeing the same or a different pin that links to the same piece of content that's coming on Pinterest. And then as far as... does that answer your question, I think? Lemme make sure.

[00:27:00] Cindy: Yeah. So that definitely answered. That was helpful 'cause that's what it sounded like. But I was like, "Is that...?" And then the second question is what's an idea of pin versus all the other kinds of pins?

[00:27:11] Presh: Yeah. So idea pin is the more newer feature on Pinterest. It is very similar to... it's like a mix of.. it can be like TikTok, it can be like reels, it can be like short form video content, it can be just a picture by itself or like a regular looking pin. But the purpose is really to give an idea, to inspire. So I like to say or a comparison is like you know how sometimes you might create an Instagram story, and you might have a video, and then you might have some slides that are just static slides. That's kind of what Idea Pin can be.

[00:27:45] Presh: It can be a mixture of things. It can be up to 20 pages is what they call each of the different slides. Don't do 20 pages. No one's gonna sit there and look at all 20 pages. I have never come across one that's 20 pages, but they can be 20 pages. Anywhere from one to six is usually a good type of idea pin that I usually see. It could be just a video, so a idea pin or not idea, but like a reel or a TikTok. It can just be a video, like a short form video of you giving three tips around something. So it can be a mix of different things.

[00:28:24] Presh: But the difference from idea pins and other pins is that idea pins currently do not link anywhere unless you are lucky like me and I was on a beta testing, so my idea pins actually link somewhere. But I got lucky by being on a beta group that they were hosting, which makes me think that they are considering to open up links to idea pins, they just have not done it yet. But I do think in 2023 at least, that they will probably links idea pins. But that's the only difference right now is that they don't technically link anywhere. They're really good for engagement. They're really good for building more brand awareness. It's really good for giving people certain information that would get them interested in you and want to follow you or go to your profile and see what more information you have.

[00:29:14] Jess: So for someone again who's maybe thinking about getting started with Pinterest, what kind of ratio would you say that they should dedicate to regular pins versus idea pins? What is Pinterest favoring knowing that our idea pins don't have links. So for example, my static pins, you can go and read my blog post or it takes you to my template shop or all of great places and my idea pins don't. And views don't pay for my mortgage . So I'm just curious what kind of split you would recommend for someone just getting into this?

[00:29:57] Presh: Yeah. And you know what's so funny about that? A lot of people they'd like, "Oh my God, I want idea pinch the link places." And I'm like, "But you've been using Instagram where you had to tell people to link, click the link in your bio for the longest and that's what you've been doing and it's been working for you in some way or another." So the same thing is true with idea pins, though they don't link anywhere, they still have the ability to get people to go to your profile and then either follow. They make it very easy for them to follow you because as soon as they watch the idea pin, it comes up for them to follow you if you're not following them.

[00:30:32] Presh: And then from there, if they start following you, one, they're going to get more of your content. More than likely, if they found your idea pin in a search feed, which they probably did from searching, then they're probably going to see your other static pins anyway. So it's going to still work out in your favor. I know that a lot of people, they'll see a lot of growth just by using idea pins because that gets people interested and now they're going to go to your profile or just see more of your pins. So it's not something that you can't actually grow from. It's just something that's new and you know it's a difference.

[00:31:04] Presh: But I would say you definitely want to always lean into newer features because they are going to push that more. So I always say have a good balance between your idea pins and your static pins. I always make sure we have static pins going out because we want those to always be there as well. But I know for most of my clients, I do anywhere between four and eight idea pins a month just so that we are also leveraging that part of the platform as well.

[00:31:29] Jess: Incredible. So another thing that you have driven for my account, something I had never really dabbled in before working with you is ads. And so the way our arrangement works is I pay you a flat fee. You take care of all things Pinterest, but then a portion of your services goes to an ads budget.

[00:31:52] Jess: And I don't know, Cindy, how you feel about paid ads of anything. It's especially tricky when your client is a non-profit, non-profit fundraisers for us, specifically. And I mean, why would someone want to explore, experiment with ads for context because I believe in transparency. I think we do like $200 a month and from my account, it usually is around $130, $145 so it's a really low ad spend. But can you just talk about paid ads on Pinterest? I feel like some people don't even know you can do paid ads on Pinterest.

[00:32:34] Presh: Yeah, they don't 'cause it's still kind of a newer thing. But yeah. So just for transparency, what we do with your account, it is to accelerate the growth of your Pinterest. So the purpose is to drive more traffic to your pins and the fun thing is that we can drive traffic to your, or do run ads on your idea pins, which are the fun ones. So that's always cool too.

[00:32:59] Presh: But if you are really interested in like what conversions, your ad spend will be much more, just so everybody knows because I don't want people to say, "Well, they only sit like 145.." And no, we are getting some convergence on the template shop. So just so you know, that's great. But those are really because we are pushing our pins to get in front of more people much faster than normal, I would say because we all don't have patience of six to 12 months all the time, so we wanna make things go a little bit more faster. So that's why we do use ads.

[00:33:32] Presh: But I think it is a great thing to use, one, if you have the budget. Two, if you just wanna accelerate your pins to reach people faster, it helps you to see what is and isn't working quicker. Because once again, you're now able to see like if I'm putting just a little bit of money behind these four blog posts, let me see which ones people are going to interact with more. So if they're interacting with this one, this specific one, let me create more content around that so that I can send people more of that. Unless you see what's happening even quicker to get more data. And maybe in the long run, if you do have a bigger budget, you can always go and run even bigger ads and really go back and target people. So that's really great.

[00:34:15] Cindy: So I wanna know, and this is actually for both of you. Obviously, we're all gonna go check out Jess's, Pinterest, but who else in specifically in our sector like who are serving nonprofits? Is anyone else doing this well? Who else should we follow? Maybe no one. Or outside of our sector. Presh, who do you look to for inspiration?

[00:34:41] Presh: I would say I don't follow other non-profit. I mean, 'cuz why ? But I didn't really research it too much because I will say that I do think Jess does really well in that sector. But I'm pretty sure there are others. I mean, if I just Google nonprofit fundraiser or not Google what Pinterest nonprofit fundraisers, other pins come up. So definitely, O know that other people are definitely there.

[00:35:08] Presh: And then, who do I follow for inspiration? Other Pinterest people. Usually, I don't know if you know Simple Pin Media with Kate. Before, when I first got into Pinterest, I like binged all of her podcast episodes. It was like so cool for me to actually be on her podcast earlier this year. Yeah, I was, for this one of her summer episodes.

[00:35:33] Jess: And like fangirling so much that you did that.

[00:35:36] Presh: I was like, "Oh my God. I literally listened to all your podcasts." When I was learning catchers for myself and my business, it was like that was the go-to person. And then there's a few others that are either we kind of came in together with our own mentor and we have basically still been around because people kind of leave the space and you're like, "Oh yeah, you're still here." So that's basically, I would say it's a pretty tighten it when it comes to like the Pinterest managers and experts and stuff like that. And we pretty much still like pretty much support each other because it's only about so many of us and there's a lot of clients. So...

[00:36:15] Jess: Totally. Yes. I, too, I'm a big fan of Kate from Simple Pin Media. She does have a fantastic podcast, great email list, she has workshops. She's a really great person if you're---

[00:36:28] Presh: Yeah. I stay with all her stuff because for me, I know that obviously, she's been around probably like three years before I started my business. So I'm like, "You always probably have more knowledge than I do." And that's the hardest part, being an expert in your field is finding somebody that you can learn from still because we only can know so much. I would hate to part Kate all because like you gotta be the top. So...

[00:36:55] Jess: Totally, totally. I think Pinterest, as far as examples goes, is a really interesting experiment because I, myself, I'm not a pinner. I'm not a Pinterest person. And so, I think a lot of times when we're marketing our business, we do what we what we think we would do. And I just got so lucky three years ago when I really started accelerating my business in terms of marketing, that I caught this idea about doing Pinterest and that it can really be this like little engine that could many, many years down the road.

[00:37:30] Jess: But I don't really follow anyone on Pinterest. I'm not really... even Kate, for example. Her aesthetic is so not my aesthetic. So at a first glance, if I didn't have her in my ear and everything, I would be like, "I'm not following her because her aesthetic is not my type of aesthetic." You know what I mean? You know what I mean? She's amazing. But it's just like... it's just totally---

[00:37:58] Presh: I was gonna say, that's another thing. When I think about it, I can't even think who I really follow on a Pinterest. I know I follow people, but that's how we go back to like the social media aspect. No one really goes to Pinterest thinking, "I'm gonna see what this person is up to." We're not going there for that. We're going there for the content. So even if I follow you on Pinterest, it's probably 'cuz I just decided to click on the follow button.

[00:38:22] Presh: But usually, I'm going to go there and I'm gonna specifically search for something unless I'm pretty sure I can find it on your page. But then it's like there's so much maybe content there, I might just wanna search and see what I find. So that's a really good example of like, "Yes, we might follow people on Pinterest. Yes, people might follow you, but a lot of the times, it's really about your content and not about you as like the person of the business."

[00:38:45] Jess: And I would say, if anything, I'm going to Pinterest to search for inspiration. So if I'm searching like gluten free potatoes soup recipe and something really catches my eye, I might take that design inspiration and apply that to my Five Ways to raise $5 on Giving Tuesday, because it was clear, it cut out from a design perspective but I'm not trying to copy the content. So I think that's also something to remember about Pinterest in general.

[00:39:17] Presh: A lot of inspiration from there.

[00:39:18] Jess: So much inspiration. I'll also just say looking up my Pinterest in real life. just going back to the importance of followers. I have 709 followers. I've been doing this for three years, but as this is because of Presh, I have 152,000 monthly views. It is my number two lead gen source outside of my virtual summit. And before working with Presh, I think it was like a top monthly views, again, doing basically nothing was Like 7,580k monthly views, which is still a done. I mean, it's like I follow some really big marketers who have like 50, 60,000 people followers on Instagram and they have less than me on Pinterest.

[00:40:10] Jess: So I'm just saying it's like you have accelerated, like I said, poured the gasoline on so much and in ways I could have never done, but it really has been such a low lift, which is such a fresh breath of air.

[00:40:26] Cindy: Can I ask?

[00:40:24] Jess: Oh, go ahead.

[00:40:24] Cindy: About conversions before you go, Presh. Or maybe you can answer this because like at the... we talked about for Jess, her goal is email acquisition, and so you have high engagement. Do you have an idea of list growth or email acquisition from that?

[00:40:45] Presh: Oh, we don't because...

[00:40:49] Cindy: Uh-oh is Jess in trouble? Tell me Jess is in trouble.

[00:40:54] Presh: No. Her email platform... well, we send the emails or the people to on Pinterest, we can't track anything because we can't put any of the tags on there. So we can't see where, what is actually coming from Pinterest or anything like that. So I tried to get her to put on her her website so that we can thank you for the website---

[00:41:15] Cindy: Is this just like pixels you just don't have on or there's---

[00:41:19] Presh: But [overlapping] anyway.

[00:41:22] Jess: Totally. I know Mackenzie's on team Presh for this, I'm sure. So I use Flow Desk as my email service provider is my email opt-in page, but my website is hosted on Squarespace. And the pins, which many a times run to my blog posts are on Squarespace. And so sometimes there's the disconnect between where you read the content and you opt in for the email and so it's been hard to track.

[00:41:47] Jess: That being said, I am not at a phase in my business where I am promoting a lot of opt-ins, like ever, at all. And I am still consistently growing my email list without doing anything. And I know that they're coming from Pinterest because no one is just like finding out in the---

[00:42:04] Cindy: They're not coming anywhere else.

[00:42:06] Jess: No. So I know that, that's for sure. I'll also say I launched my template shop in late May so it's only been, what is that like five months or something? And so as Presh mentioned, it takes six to 12. And so, our new strategy is I think to pour more gasoline on the template shop fire. So that we can see how those convert. I can tell you right now that, again, I'm not really promoting that ever, and I'll just get sales and I'm like, "Cool." I can't wait that to like be more consistent and we're working on some of that behind the scenes.

[00:42:49] Presh: Yeah. Def. I know, it's one of those things that where it's good to pay attention to certain things and even knowing your website traffic. So if you're seeing you can look on the back end and see like if this amount of traffic is coming from Pinterest, then I know that some of these people probably are signing up and comparing those things.

[00:43:11] Presh: Because a lot of times, I have clients who... they're not... maybe not getting convergence in the way that they want from Pinterest. And then I also ask them, "But how many people are actually going to your website from Instagram?" And they'll be like, "Oh, well, yeah, but more people are coming from Pinterest, so maybe they're not converting right now." Because one people from Pinterest are going to be new to you. You're gonna be cold traffic, so you have to warm them up. They have to get them used to you, but you're getting more people seeing you from a certain platform than you are from another, you have to know that it might just take a little longer.

[00:43:41] Presh: And a lot of times people are so used to, which is weird because Instagram doesn't work as fast as we think. We've just been using it for so long, that these people are literally have been following us, following us for like months or half a year, and then they make a sale or make a invest in us. But it's like they've actually been there for a long time so you can't expect it to work the same or at the same rate. So it's always good to see the differences and know that the platforms are going to be used for different reasons. And I think one of the main things with Pinterest is it is going to get you more awareness, get your content in front of more people, especially new people.

[00:44:20] Jess: That's such a good point. I'll also just say that I know people come from Pinterest because they tell me. In fact, one of the non-profits, I talk about them all the time, they've become a favorite client of mine is Tender, Jay Cena found me on Pinterest. And I would say that this is a little bit of a sweet spot because there's not currently a ton of non-profit consultants out there using Pinterest. And I believe that it's a fair game. So come at me, come at me and get your own clients from Pinterest because it works. I can't tell you how frequently that is a way.

[00:44:57] Presh: Especially you have like blog content because when I see blog, when I see bloggers post their blog on Instagram, and I'm like, "Who? I'm not gonna leave. I'm not leaving here." That's where I'm going Pinterest. And I'm usually going there probably to find a blog post on whatever I'm searching for. So it's more likely that I'm going to click there and I'm gonna visit your blog or it might be a podcast or whatever it is. And now, I'm going to probably see more blogs. But if I'm on Instagram, the likelihood of me going to read your blog, it has to be super, super intriguing that I will want to leave the platform and go do that.

[00:45:34] Jess: You are such a wealth of information. Presh, for anyone who wants to be in touch with you, follow up, work with you, what is the best way for people to come and find you?

[00:45:46] Presh: So, funny enough, it's Instagram. So I always say, yes, you can find me on... I'm actually at PreshRodgers, P-R-E-S-H-R-O-D-G-E-R-S across all platforms. So, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. You can find me on all of those but Instagram is my favorite place to actually interact and hang out because it is an engagement platform. So just remember that

[00:46:12] Jess: You're the best. Thank you for spending so much time educating us, teaching us. We really appreciate it.

[00:46:18] Presh: Thank you. Bye.

[00:46:22] Cindy: Thank you again for listening to the Confessions podcast for nonprofit coaches and consultants. If you enjoyed today's episode, which I sure hope you did, you can enjoy your support in one of three ways.

[00:46:33] Jess: Number one, post the screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy so we can repost you.

[00:46:42] Cindy: Number two, share this podcast with a fellow non-profit culture consultant.

[00:46:46] Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple Podcasts so that we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.

[00:46:52] Cindy: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.

[00:46:59] Jess: And to our fellow non-profit coaching and consulting friends, remember we're an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions.

[00:47:07] Cindy: See you next time.

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