How To Get More Traffic With Less Work Using Pinterest with Cara Chace

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED Diane: Hey, Hey, today's guest car chase is a Pinterest rockstar and my favorite gift for opponent. Seriously, don't set the two of us off in a Facebook group, unless you want us to take over. We've been friends for a few years now and despite my struggle to get on the Pinterest bus, she never loses faith. That one day I will see the light. Maybe today will be that day. Hey Kara. Welcome to the show. Cara: hi, thank you so much for having me and you are right about that gift for it's. We do not mess around Diane: People try to challenge occasionally, but no one can beat us. Cara: everybody just steps aside. Diane: So we have one of my favorite origin stories. So let's start with a bit about your business journey. Cara: Sure. Well, my origin story had nothing to do with business. As you know, I started out my professional career as a special agent for the federal government, right out of college. I was recruited and I spent 10 years as a criminal investigator doing everything from high-tech. Investigations and export control to child exploitation, drug smuggling. I mean, you name it. It was very high speed. And after several years in, I realized I didn't want to be doing that for 25 years. And it was severely affecting my health, my wellness, my body, my like everything. It was not a good fit. So I left with. No plan. Right. Everybody thought I was crazy like this super safe government job where you still get a pension and all this stuff. They're like, what are you doing? I'm like, I don't want to die 20 years early. Thanks, bye. And I had no plan and we my husband and I moved up from San Diego to Portland, Oregon. And. A very long story short. I ended up becoming the social media manager for the band Megadeath and Dave Mustaine as my very first job in social media, we could spend an entire hour just talking about how that happened, but yeah. At the end of the day, I was managing 13 million fans across 17 social media accounts. As my first social media job. And I was really good at it and I realized that marketing was a good fit for me and I left and started off out on my own and did what every entrepreneur does when they're a baby entrepreneur. I did everything that I could possibly get paid for. So I was building websites and blogging and email marketing and all the social, like everything. And after a couple of years, I really got tuned into what kind of clients I liked working with what I liked doing and not doing. And at the same time, what was the best ROI that I was seeing for my efforts and my time for both myself and my clients. And it became really clear that that was Pinterest. So in 2017, I niched into Pinterest management and marketing. And that's what I've been doing ever since for clients and members. And it's, it's been one of the smartest and best decisions I've ever made for my business. Diane: and so do you still have one-to-one clients that you do it for them or are you more consulting? Cara: I am not taking on any new one-to-one clients at this point. I have switched from doing four week coaching sessions with small businesses. One-to-one that is what I'm focusing on now for the client one-to-one aspect. I'm no longer taking on those monthly recurring service clients. Diane: okay. So Pinterest, Cara: So Pinterest, Diane: Pinterest and I we've been eyeing each other from a fall for a long time. And. You know, prior to the podcast, everyone knows. The reason I do the podcast is it is literally the only consistent content I have created my entire time in business. it's the fit for me. Right. And so prior to that, I liked the idea of Pinterest, but what was I going to pin to? Right. And this was back in the day when Pinterest was, you had to put into a blog or whatever, and. I keep coming back to it and I keep stumbling at the very first hurdle of keyword research. And it's a lot of work. Cara: I'm going to disagree with you. Can I jump in and just tell you how I view it? And how that might, how we might be able to change your perspective. Yeah. Diane: I doubt on the only one who thinks this, Cara: Oh wow. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So keywords, as we all know, they are about what people are searching for. Right. But where people get stuck with keywords and they get way too in their head is they think people are searching for what they do, not the problem they need to solve. So a great example would be a friend of mine who we both know who is a business coach. And she goes, people aren't searching for business coaches. I can't find my keywords. I've done all this work and it's really hard. And I don't, I don't think people are on Pinterest looking for business coaches. And I said, you're right. They're not going on Pinterest to search for a business card. They're looking for way back, back in that customer journey. When they first identify that I have a problem. So they're looking for how to get through their, to do list, how to have a more productive day, how to build on their strengths and their personality type. All of these things, will people start thinking, I really wish I could be better at this thing. And they have no idea that what they really need is a business coach. So that's the first thing is switching your mindset from the keywords around what I do to where is my customer, when they first figure out that they have something they need to fix. And what are those search terms? Diane: It's that kind of curse of the experts is amplified in Pinterest where you're like, well, I know that they need a business coach, so that must be what they're searching for when the reality is they're actually searching for one tiny piece of the puzzle, be that a template or a how to. Cara: Yeah. And you can use your other keyword research. Like a lot of people where I create their profiles with them, or we're doing live Q and a in my membership, you know, they say, well, I've already done all this SEO research. Can I, can I just use that? And my answer is, well, that's a really good place to start because there will be kind of that Venn diagram overlap, but keep in mind A Pinterest user is somewhat unique in how they're typing in those search terms. So you still want to go onto Pinterest and see if the research you've already done matches with the kind of content that's coming up. And so the really great thing about using Pinterest for your keyword research is you're going to see the kinds of pins that have. Ben tagged or that come up with those keywords to see if it's a good match or you're on the right track or not. So it's actually a fantastic research tool in and of itself for keywords. Diane: Yeah. I think for me that even when I get to the point where I have like so many keywords, I don't know what to do with myself. I'm then almost paralyzed by the idea that I might use the wrong one. Cara: Oh, Diane: I've now done so much work. What if off to all that work, I pick the wrong one and I say paralyzed and I mean procrastinates, Cara: Yes, that is the perfectionism. Like I'm not, I'm not sure if this is going to work perfectly, so I'm not going to try in the first place. Diane: okay. Yes, exactly. That is 1000% me and Pinterest. That's like our relationship. We're not in the healthiest relationship with each other. Right now. I ignore Pinterest and Pinterest torches me. Cara: Right. So I would be the same advice that you would give anybody where you've just got to start and see what works and what doesn't. And that's where all these amazing things like analytics come in. And. There's nothing wrong with you're not, it's not even a mistake. It's more, well, I tried that and that didn't work the way I wanted it to. So what I would recommend instead of like, Oh my gosh, I have this list of 100 keyword phrases that I could use with all my Pinterest content and what do I do? And how do I pick, I would actually start with like, 10, maybe 20 that are like your top when you type it in Pinterest, you see content that really is that competitive. That competitive research type. Content where you're like, yes, this is where my content fits. I would pick out the top 10 to 20 based on the categories of what you talk about in whatever, and start with those. And you're going to see a pretty quickly I say quickly in terms of Pinterest, you're gonna see within like three to six months what keywords are working for you and, and what isn't, but you're never gonna know unless you just go for it. Diane: And so tell me what the Nirvana is I jumped this hurdle. I dive in Pinterest works amazing. I get all my keywords. Right. And what is that? Cara: So the goal is to be able to use Pinterest as it was designed, which is as a visual search engine to get your content. Products, whatever that is, your content could be your blogs. It could be your podcast episodes. It could be your lead magnet or your freebie page or whatever it is, or if you're e-commerce has products. And you want people to go from Pinterest to your website to do the things that you want them to do as a business owner, as part of your audience. So ideally it. What happens is you get your keywords situated. You put them everywhere. They need to be your profile, your board titles in your pans, all of that. And then you create a system tell me what that looks like is creating a batching system for my content. That is part of whatever content creation or content marketing system that you probably already have in place. Even if it's loose, it's you create some content and you are creating two, three, five, however many pins. For that content and you schedule that out. I use tailwind. There are a couple other platforms that I know are approved by Pinterest. So that you can get back to creating more content and being a business owner and not be creating a fresh new pin every day. And in Pinterest, who wants to do that? Nobody wants to do that. I don't want to do that. I want to have a system. I want to batch it. I want to think about it once a month and get back to being creative and putting out the content that's going to help my audience. So. Walk that back and kind of circle that up nicely. You, you get over that hump of this is what I need to do to get started. You create your batching system, your scheduling system, whatever you want to call it, that makes life easier for you. So you can be consistent while not being a slave to it. And then you wait for the traffic to roll in and see what's working and what isn't. But the goal is to get traffic from Pinterest to your website, which is why it's not a social media platform because social media platforms want you to stay exactly where they want to, which is on their platforms. Diane: So your preference from Pinterest comes from the fact that it's more like Google and that it's driving traffic to somewhere versus say a Facebook or an Instagram, which is penalizing you for driving traffic somewhere else. Cara: That's exactly right. You can think of a Pinterest strategy. More like an SEO strategy. It would be more like YouTube than anything else where it's this searchable evergreen place for people to find what they need and solve their problems. So it also matches with the long-term strategy that Pinterest is. Right. That's the number one mistake that I see people make is they're not patient and they don't have the gumption to be consistent for a long enough amount of time. You need to think of your Pinterest strategy, like a longterm SEO strategy that will take time, but will work if you do it properly. Diane: And I know you have some pins that are many years old pre a couple of brandings ago, probably that still drive traffic for you. Cara: I look at some of those old pins and I'm like, Oh, that graphic designer was horrible. Right? When we first start doing something, I'm like, well, what was I thinking? But it's a viral pin and it's never going to die, which is the blessing of. Pinterest at the same time, one of my top traffic drivers every single month is from a blog and a subsequent pen that I put out in 2015, teen sit with that for a sec. So when you see those graphics effects that are like a tweet last 12 minutes Facebook posts last, you know, like the lifetime quote, unquote of whatever. Content you put out there. The last one I saw said something like a pin lasts four months and I laugh because I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's 2021. So we are now looking at six years that this piece of content is consistently driving traffic to my site. It's pretty amazing. Diane: Yeah, that's a pretty big plus in the Pinterest pro column, Cara: I would say Diane: maybe I should write that on like a post-it and put that so that every time I sit down and I go, okay, today is the day I'm going to do. Pinterest. Pinterest is on my to-do list every single week. This is the week that I'm going to do pins for my podcasts. Here we go. Cara: Yeah. What happens when you have that really sticky item that you keep rolling over and over the longer you roll it over, the more you resent it. Diane: Yeah. I mean, you and I have been talking about Pinterest for what, three years, at least, you know, And it is funny. Like there was like, Oh, there wasn't content to Penn and then it, and then it had to be a blog. And recently we were in a session where you were talking about Pinterest. And I remember you saying like you can pin anything Cara: anything that is your URL. Diane: and it almost became this huge universe when hours like. Oh, my goodness. I should be pinning everything. Oh boy. Okay. Now I don't just have keywords. No, I have like keywords because if you think like a lot of my podcasts or guest interviews, I would want to make sure that they were Pinterest tags for, so for every guest, there are also like keyword things for me. But if in six years time, that podcast episode, I mean, someone's going to have to go way, way back. To binge all of our podcast episodes. But if that pin is still driving traffic to my podcast Cara: to that URL. So that's another thing that people, there are so many mistakes that we all do. But number one, you're correct. You don't have, it doesn't have to be a blog. It never did. That was just a nasty rumor and perception that people had. You can connect a pin to any URL. That's yours. If you want the analytics for it, if you send it somewhere else, like an affiliate link or whatever, it's not going to show the analytics in Pinterest for that. It has to be to your website. That's hooked up with Pinterest. It can be blogs, products, anything with URL, but the key is you have to have it. Connect to that specific URL, if you want people to be able to find it. So what I see happen is like, say I've got a new blog up and I mistakenly pin to care, chase.com/blog, instead of blog slash you know, like the actual blog, then people land on the homepage and you're right. Maybe that blog is like five pages And they click off. Cause it's not where they thought they were going to go. So that's a really important point. Just you know, tactic and strategy wise is like, make sure that you're super specific. About the URL that it's going to on the opposite side of that, I have clients come to me and they're like, well, I don't, I don't think I can do this for e-commerce because I have new collections every spring or new, like whatever. Like how has this pin that's three years old and I don't have this product anymore. How is that going to help me? You have the opportunity to still serve that client or that customer by creating custom four Oh four pages for your products where it says, you know, sorry, this was sold out. Here's something really similar or here's our top sellers or here's what's new this season or whatever it is. So don't I'm terrible about using cheesy phrases. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water, right. Just because this pin might go to a product that expires six, nine, 12 months from now. Doesn't mean you shouldn't put it out there to begin with. Diane: right. So if you were pinning to say a sales page, that's maybe a product that you have this year, and you're not sure you're going to offer that service next year or the next year or the next year. You just want to be somehow tracking, I guess, where pins have sent things to so that you don't ever just have a pen kind of die. Like maybe that snails page has gone, but it now redirects to your work with me or something. Cara: You should see my URL map list on the backend of my website for like old blogs, that are redirected to new versions or somebody else, or, you know, whatever it is. Every time I take down a blog or change a URL or, you know, a program or whatever it is, I make sure that I take care of that backend and do my best to not lose that person if that's possible. Diane: and I can't believe I'm going to say this, but that's actually somewhere where I think Pinterest wins over SEO because SEO, like one of the fundamental rules of SEO is you don't change the URL. If that URL has ranked you don't then change that URL. But with Pinterest. You can redirect it. I think more easily. I'm sure SEO doesn't mind if you redirect, but I'm sure it notices that it's not going to the same place. Cause Google is all knowing. Cara: Pinterest is pretty advanced in their algorithm with, they to make sure that where you're sending people to matches with a pin. For example, if you put up a pin about your top 10 entrepreneur books and the picture that you use on the pin is of a puppy. Pinterest is going to be like, this doesn't make any sense. So this must not be a quality pen. We're not going to show it. Diane: Does it then also do anything to scan the page to see that I'm actually sending them to a page with box Cara: Right. So if you said top 10 entrepreneurial books, I recommend, and on the page, it was, Here's my gift list for Christmas 2021, that would not work. So there, it doesn't have to be exact, but it does have to be congruent is the word that I typically use. It does have to make sense, and it can be as simple as making sure whatever verbiage you have on the pin and in the title. And in the description of the pin shows up somewhere. It doesn't have to be all over the place. You don't have to keyword stuff at whatever, but it has to show up somewhere and it has to make sense. So Pinterest does have a pretty advanced algorithm and the reason they do is to try and combat spam, which is a problem for every platform. Right. so yeah, be thinking of that when you're putting together your pins and where it is leading to that there is some congruency there and it makes sense. Diane: And if there wasn't. So say at the moment, you know, I have a variety of intensives, very business coaching, let's say next year, I don't know. Next year, I decide to go to Canton college. And so now my new sales page has hired me to come and do your children's birthday parties, which Cara: Right. Diane: laughing because she can't think of a job that I'm less qualified for them than anything at a children's birthday party. But now that's very in-congruent right. So Pinterest comes along and sees that I'm not in congruent. Does it say, okay, I'm just not going to bother showing that pin to anyone or does it go Diane's whole account must be rubbish. I'm not going to show any of her pins to it. Cara: One of those backend algorithm questions that Pinterest will never answer. That falls into the, we're never going to commit to exactly, what we will do when every possible scenario If you completely changed direction that you might put up a totally different site or a different Pinterest profile or it is , so obviously that's a funny but extreme example. So yeah, when you get into the, are they going to block me for a P like all those super backend algorithm questions, that's not something. Anybody can answer sometimes. I don't know if Pinterest could answer it, but that's one of those they're never going to give you a black and white direction for that. Just do your best to be congruent. Diane: So really big spreadsheets slash air tables of these are my pins. These are the URLs. These are the kind of key words. Cara: I rely on analytics for the data Diane: Oh, no, no. I'm thinking about like, , if you change something and you want to make sure you still got similar verbiage, it would be much easier to go. These are the five pins that go to this new page. Cara: You're thinking way too much about it. So here's what happens. This is the reason you can't do that. I put up pin one a that is, you know, triple your traffic from Pinterest. When that gets repinned by somebody else. When they save it to their own board, that's a separate pin. And that is now their content that they have saved. So if I were to go back to, and so we could say that's pin one B or whatever it is, if I go back to pin one a and say, you know what, I want to update this description for whatever reason, it's not going to update across Pinterest for every iteration of that pin being saved. So there's really no point in trying to go back and fix. Everything cause you can't, there's no way you could possibly do that. Diane: Hm, that's super interesting that it is almost like disconnected from your account. Now, I actually meant if we change. So I'm thinking of the multi-passionate people who are not like you are like married to Pinterest you in Pinterest, right along you're in Pinterest on a longterm relationship is a good chance that next year you will still be offering Pinterest. And therefore your pins will flow to somewhere. That's vaguely congruent. I'm thinking about like, if we've changed products and we now have a new sales page, what were the pins saying about that original sales page so that I can make the new sales page vaguely congruent so that it feeds that's what I was having a spreadsheet for. Cara: This is where you take care of people once they are on your website and your people and off of Pinterest platform, this is where you might say. So I do this with a lot of my old social media stuff. I have a specific landing page that says, you know, thanks so much for landing here. I no longer do general social media. Here's the best resources if that's what you're looking for. So, you're, you're getting too caught up in. I'm not starting because what about the future? Diane: Yeah, I'm always about, like, I want to know that something is a hundred percent worth the time and the effort before I'm going to kind of. Dive headlong into it, especially if it's a long-term thing. Cara: Sure. Here's all you need to remember. Every time you start questioning all of that. Kara has a blog from six years ago. That's still one of the top traffic drivers for her website. Is this worth it? Let me think about it. It is worth it. It's just a matter of, of doing it in a smart way and thinking of these things, like, I might not do this a year from now, but here's how I can take care of my people once they're off Pinterest. Cause there's only so much anybody can do to control what happens on somebody else's platform. Diane: I feel like I could set you up for like three hours and just have like a one-to-one Pinterest session with you and like call it a podcast episode. I definitely feel like I have like a wider view of Pinterest from our conversation. And I feel like if in doubt, from 2015, it still drives most of the traffic to her website. Cara: Yes. Yes. And so it's interesting, you know, when you look at your Google analytics, typically you're going to see your top traffic is like direct traffic or organic Google search, or, you know, whatever it is. There have been times where my Pinterest traffic has been more than Google, organic search or direct. That doesn't happen every month, but it is possible. And that's mind blowing. Usually people have to pay for ads for that so yeah, get on it Diane: So if people are listening and they have been Pinterest phobic like me, or maybe they've just tried Pinterest and they feel like, Ooh, I don't know if this is worth what I'm doing or what's a good way for them to really get started or refresh Pinterest. Cara: Right. So I have a brand new free masterclass that I put together. The official title is how to triple your traffic from Pinterest without adding more marketing to your to-do list. And I teach this because the core of what I do with my membership is teaching people how to three things, optimize batch and scale. So just like what I told you at the, I, you know, after you get your keywords done, the first thing you have to do is optimize your profile. I liken it to if you've got your foot on the gas, but you're a neutral in your car. If you're not optimized, you're in neutral, no matter how many pins you put up. So you've got to optimize your profile, make sure everything's set up correctly. All that foundational backend stuff. That's another place where people get stuck because they go, Oh, they throw up their hands and they go, Oh, I'm not techie. I can't do this. Actually. Yes, you can. And there's a lot of help guides and step-by-step guides to do that. Number two is batch. So that is when. You sit down and I teach people how to do it in three to four hours a month, an entire month of Pinterest content that's consistent and optimized and out there. And then you start scaling. That is where you get into the CEO aspect of your business, where you're thinking about your lead magnets and your funnels and all of these things that you can do with your audience that is getting to your website from Pinterest. So it's Kara chase.com/free. And you get instant access. There's no like, you've got to confirm your email and whatever, as soon as you sign up, you'll be redirected straight to the training and you can watch the free class about the three things you have to do. Diane: All right. I feel convinced I'll be brave. I can do this. So to finish up, I always ask my guests a couple of questions first. What is the number one lifestyle boundary you have for your business? Cara: Lifestyle boundary definitely has to do with my personal and family time. So, one of the many reasons I niched into Pinterest is that concept of I can look at it once a month and I'm not constantly on my phone. Check-in stuff at the end of the day, my business is not about Pinterest. It's about working smarter, not harder, and it's about working better so I can live well. My priorities are my family and my health and wellbeing. And Pinterest helps me do that in a way that other marketing techniques do not. So I have a lot of boundaries around family time. Like I'm done for the day at three o'clock because at three o'clock I go pick up kiddo number two, and then we're doing dinner and play and whatever. I very rarely make an exception, for that. So, you know, there's different things depending on the day, but. In general, it's the time that I have set aside for myself and my family is non-negotiable. Diane: I can see how Pinterest plays into that. from 2015, slightly obsessed with. It's like, I want to go and set up my Pinterest account just so that I can go and find that pin and pin that pin. All right. Finally, what is the worst piece of cookie cutter advice you've received as an entrepreneur? Cara: Oh my gosh, there's so many, like cookie cutter is the antithesis as you well know, like tell me not to do it and I'll do it twice and take pictures. I would say Six years as plus somewhere around six years , the, the whole idea that if you pay more money for something, you'll have skin in the game and be more focused on it. So a lot of people talk about this where it's like, well, if your audience is getting it for free, they're never going to take action because there's no skin in the game or the other side of it, where it's, you have to pay for high dollar masterminds. Because then you're going to get, you're going to be focused on it and prioritize it because you've spent so much money. And what I've realized from both ends of several high dollar masterminds that ended up being a bunch of crap, excuse my French. And I have also. Downloaded or signed up for free things that have made huge differences in my business. It's really about your mindset and your decision to prioritize whatever it is you want to learn or do or take action on. It is not. The same as the dollar amount assigned to it. It could be right. It could be, I, you know, I paid for this, so I'm going to take advantage of it and, you know, focus on this. I'm going to decide to prioritize that. I'm not saying that's never the case, but one doesn't necessitate. The other it's really about your mindset. Diane: I'm with you, if it was really like, we would never get anything done. If we didn't invest high ticket, exist. Because I wouldn't figure out how to change a washer on my tap, watching YouTube when I could pay a plumber. A hundred bucks on a call-out charge plus an extortionate price for a washer, Cara: yes. That's what I'm saying. You've got all these people that are like, don't give it away for free because then nobody does anything it's like, well, actually think about your own. I mean, maybe that's true for you, maybe, you know, whatever it is. But again, my experience has been, there are plenty of free things that I have gotten that I take action on because I've decided whatever that is about is something that's important for me to do. And at the same time, I paid a lot of money for mastermind groups where I fizzled out because I realized it was not the right place for me. It wasn't delivering on their promises. It was not what I needed to be doing. And those are hard lessons to learn when it involves that kind of money. But really it was about, my mindset and my priorities and what I decided Diane: Awesome. Well, thank you, Kara. This has been amazing. I promise Cara: so glad Diane: I also realized this is about the 17th time I've made that promise to you. So, you know, I've never put a deadline on it. So there we go. Where's the best place for people to connect with you who want to continue the conversation who want a bit more Cara: Yeah, absolutely. So if you do the social media thing, Instagram is pretty much the only place I'm still out. So it's at Kara chase, C a R a C H a C E. You can see what I'm pinning on Pinterest, same username, but really I'd love to spend my time and talk to people is on my email list. I encourage conversation and that's really where I kind of do the behind the scenes real life stuff. So you can just go to my website. There's any number of opportunities to opt in there. Diane: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun