Are you ready to maximize your online presence with Pinterest? In today’s episode, I’m continuing my series all about branding, and chatting with Pinterest expert Jen Vazquez. Jen is sharing her top marketing tips plus how to reverse engineer your Pinterest strategy for success.

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Today’s episode is brought to you by The Green House, my resource garden for photographers! Let me help you AMPLIFY your heart online and in real life to turn bridesmaids into future brides through templates, workshops, and freebies!

Review The Show Notes:

Scrolling Pinterest For Inspiration (5:27)

Photos To Consider For Your Next Branding Session (12:12)

Incorporating A CTA (17:14)

Getting Your Ideal Client Off Pinterest And To Your Offer (19:10)

Maximizing Your Branding Gallery (21:38)

Getting Started With Pinterest (25:52)

Where To Drive Your Pins With Or Without A Blog (28:36)

Building Authority With Pins (36:15)

Creating Eye-Catching Graphics (41:31)

Organizing Your Boards (44:37)

Using Collaborations To Boost Your Pinterest (49:56)

Key Tip From Jen (55:14)

Connect With Jen:

Instagram: instagram.com/jenvazquezmedia

Website: thepinterestqueen.com/resources

Pinterest: pinterest.com/jenvazquezmedia

Podcast: jenvazquezcoach.com/podcast

Pinterest Resources: https://thepinterestqueen.com/resources

Tailwind: https://www.tailwindapp.com/i/quiannamarie

Review the Transcript:

Quianna: Oh, hey, gorgeous. Welcome back to the branding series. I have the honor of introducing you to industry leaders, my business besties and mentors to help you prepare for your next epic branding session. Headshots are cute, but they don’t even scratch the surface for the amount of impact we can make in our businesses and throughout our lifetimes here on earth.

This is why I’m curating this entire branding series to not only help you look and feel your best, because trust me, I know that’s important, but to find alignment with your clients and to be seen by the ones that need you the most. Today, I have the honor of bringing back one of my business besties for a second time on the podcast.

It wouldn’t be a complete series without chatting with Jen Vasquez, my favorite Pinterest queen to help extend our branding and business strategies with Pinterest. Over 10 years ago, when I first met Jen through our San Jose rising tide society, Tuesday together meetups, I vividly remember Jen making me cry in a crowded Starbucks with about a dozen creatives and entrepreneurs in a circle around us.

Jen told the group that she just booked a client that found her on Pinterest through a blog that I encourage her to write and to share on Pinterest. It literally brought me to tears and made me so happy. so proud and happy. And if you know me, you know, my emotions run deep and it’s really not that hard to make me cry.

Happy tears, right? Happy tears. If I get really mad, I cry. If I get really happy, I cry. That’s kind of like my default, right? Since then, Jen has ran full force in the Pinterest and Tailwind world, learning the best marketing strategies, searchable tricks, blogging hacks, and slow scrolling graphic ideas that have completely surpassed my understanding.

Jen has been a Pinterest expert for many years now, helping her clients boost their online presence and connect them with the clients and customers that beg to work with them. Jen and I both share a similar background in photography with a passion for weddings and family portraits that has now pivoted into more branding photography.

As a podcast host, photographer, marketing strategist, and Pinterest genius, Jen is the perfect special guest to share more insight on helping your brand shine online. Today, we’ll be sharing a full circle marketing strategy to help plan, prep, and dream up your next branding session through sourcing ideas for your own session.

We’ll be reverse engineering your own Pinterest strategy to help your ideal clients find you just like you search for location ideas, outside services, and even your dream local photographer. Then we’ll be breaking down how to maximize your branding gallery and what the heck to do with your photos.

After you receive your gallery, there’s nothing photographers love more than seeing your headshots, styling details, product shots, and lifestyle photos actually being posted and shared online. Jen helps create a streamlined checklist and workflow. So adding Pinterest to your workload feels as easy as brushing your teeth in the morning.

Actually, it’s even easier than that because with Jen’s game plan, once we create a system that works, we don’t even have to work on our Pinterest every single day. If you enjoy pinning recipes, planning vacations and dreaming up your custom home build or next shopping spree on Pinterest, you’re going to love curating your own business Pinterest page to actually work for you.

I’m all about planting seeds and growing roots from our businesses that grow with us. Located in the Bay Area, California, Jen Vasquez offers incredible branding photography and coaches Pinterest marketing globally. She’s a mama, proud grandmother, and dog mom that has built a career that fuels her family time and adventures.

If you’re ready to extend the life of your content and to help it live on to boost inquiries for years to come, sign up now. This conversation is for you. Let’s get this party started in a hopper. Right. In this conversation for my hometown of San Jose, California to Scottsdale, Arizona, please welcome Jen Vasquez.

Welcome to Quianna Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins, big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast

Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party. Ready? Let’s go!

Hey, hey, hey, welcome to the party, Jen. Thank you so much for coming back. Again, this is the second time we get to hear all about your education, your love and encouragement. How are you doing?

Jen: I am doing great. I’m very honored that you asked me back. It’s like a little love fest. We get together, we talk about business and all that kind of stuff.

So I really enjoy it and I appreciate the invite.

Quianna: Yes, of course. Oh my gosh. Well, you and I can literally talk for days about life, business, your grandbabies, of course. All things Pinterest, so I would love, and I want to selfishly ask this for myself, so here we go. I’m ready. This whole conversation is going to be like a little, uh, you know, like when you pick your brain session.

Scrolling Pinterest For Inspiration

So let, let’s go. So with this branding series, I’d love to walk through a branding session with you and use Pinterest as our new best friend and this incredible tool that I actually believe a lot of us are sleeping on, right? So what are some of the best keywords or searches we can use to scroll Pinterest for inspiration?

So we’re looking, we’re searching, we want to come up with ideas. What do we start looking for on Pinterest for our next branding session?

Jen: So as a photographer or as a person wanting photos for our business?

Quianna: Great question. I would say a entrepreneur, small business owner is looking to book a branding session and they’re looking for ideas.

They are looking for a location. They’re looking for what to wear. What type of keywords should we be searching for?

Jen: Yes, absolutely. So first thing I will say, and this is a caveat, and I know all the photographers will love me for saying it, but it is really, really true. We as photographers do not copy photos.

So when you have, or start collecting photos for us, which we want, right? We want to see what you resonate with, what you are drawn to, maybe what your website designer wants, those types of things, it’s great. Just know that we’ll do it in sort of our own way. Um, we don’t copy, but what I, what I always recommend for my clients to do is to, to look for a couple of different things.

One, what are they selling? So if they’re selling coaching services as an example, look for that. See what photos are out there. See if anything resonates with you. Go according to your industry. Then go according to colors. So if your brain colors are pink or whatever, ’cause obviously mine are, um, you like, look for pink branding photos.

That brings up a ton of photos that are all in that pink area. It’ll help you to sort of narrow in on the coloring, like do you want to wear black so that your brand colors are pink? And so it’s going to make you, make it easier for you to create graphics and stuff for it. Or are you going to wear actual pink?

Or are you going to have your props pink? So you want to do search terms for colors. You want to do search terms for your industry. You also want to, I love when my clients look for prop ideas, like brand photos with props. Like the cool thing about Pinterest is whatever your theme is. Thinking or wanting to know about just literally write it in that way and Pinterest will serve up information for you.

Then you can revise it and revise it to get to the things that you want. And then of course, add all those photos onto a board that you can then share with your photographer, because of course we want to know what photos you resonate with. And last thing I will say is search, and this is something that my clients almost never do, but I think it helps them so much in marketing, right?

I’m very marketing focused. So a search for feelings. So what feeling do you want your ideal client to feel? Right? Um, are you, do you want to look like you’re frustrated or like struggling, get some photos like that, because that helps you in social media to really sell what you’re talking about. So a lot of times I do that for my clients when they don’t, but I do talk about that in our consultation, because I think it’s really important to make sure that you have photos that you can use to tell a story.

On social media and in your blogs and everywhere else.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. Well, we are literally going balls of fire here. All these tips, all these things are coming out. And I really wanted to reflect a little bit. One of the first things you mentioned, and I really want to hit this home, is that as photographers specifically, when we get suggestions from Pinterest, right?

And, and, and I’m saying this with so much love, but you’re right. We do not copy. We will not take that image and duplicate it. And there are so many other factors that go into it, whether it is everything from you, we think it’s obvious, but it’s not right from body size of the person that you were trying to emulate to the, her hairstyle, to the location, to the lighting, to the season, to the time of year, all of these things really add that.

That sparkle to that photo that you’re trying to recreate and it literally drives me insane. And I’m saying this, I’m saying with so much love, love, love, um, when, when clients are, when people want to duplicate these photos and they’re looking at the pose, right? It’s, Oh, okay. She’s sitting by her laptop and her arm is here and her arm, you know, and her leg is this way.

And, you know, and I, I’m saying, like I said, yeah. This is just, uh, a love note to remind us that we are just searching Pinterest for inspiration. We want to convey all those things that you just mentioned. So then you, you are trusting your photographer to put yourself in those shoes and to document you in the best way possible.

And one of my favorite things to do, this is me coming from the wedding world, is sharing We are making new Pinterest photos for people to pin. Yes! That is literally the point, right? So I love your tips on Google, er, Pinteresting suggestions for emotion and feelings and um, an industry. I would have never thought to look for a specific industry.

And I love that.

Jen: You can also go the opposite. So for instance, um, I am a Pinterest manager and a photographer, right? But maybe I’m going to go look for where my ideal client will hang out. And if my ideal client is a female service provider, maybe she’s hanging out in mom groups or maybe she’s, you know, so you can look up other things like mompreneur photos or like all these ideas.

A lot of times when we do brand shoots. The business owners only think to photograph themselves, but it is helpful to have a friend come and sit across a desk from you and have you having a convert live conversation with someone. I had a brand client just, um, a few weeks ago have bring her daughter and she sat on the floor and was playing with blocks while she was working.

Like it’s real life stuff. So think outside of the box also is just some suggestions.

Quianna: Yes. These are all so smart. And I do want to just do a quick little highlight to how we as business owners are searching, right? So let’s say we’re planning this branding session and we’re searching for locations and outfit ideas and prop ideas.

And I love that you mentioned searching for a color. I don’t think I’ve ever searched a color while looking for brand photos. So smart. And I really just want to highlight the fact that Since we are looking for that service and we’re looking for that experience, your dream clients are looking for you, right?

Like you’re like just how we are searching for that. So with that in mind, I would love to kind of shift the conversation, Jen. So I’m looking to prepare our next brand session to completely maximize it using Pinterest. So in your opinion, what are some poses and some types of photos we should consider for our next branding session?

Jen: Yes. So I will say, and this, this is, it’s kind of swung this way anyway, because Instagram is, you know, up and down. And so is Pinterest. And when I, I am saying up and down, it’s portrait, if you’re a photographer, but it’s the up and down photo, right? I would say to make sure you let your photographer know ahead of time what you need these things for, right?

First of all, sometimes they have no idea what they need them for. If you’re working to update your website, work with the website designer and ask them what photos that you need, right? We probably need hero photos. We probably need stuff like that. But when it comes to the portrait size up and down photos are the ones that really Give you the most real estate on Pinterest and give you that opportunity to get found.

One thing I will say of the biggest mistake that people make is they tend to utilize Canva and the Canva free photos in marketing because And I know it’s very uncomfortable to have your face on everything, right? It’s like not a comfortable thing for most people, but it’s a way that you’re able to share your brand on Pinterest and brand recognition is huge on Pinterest.

People follow because of how things look right on Pinterest. And so utilizing your brand photos is a great way. The only thing I will say that I’ve seen mistakes made on, on this is when. People just put a photo up on Pinterest, and that’s great, right? That photo is probably going to get pinned by someone for a brand photo shoot inspiration, right?

Like, that’s awesome, but that’s not grabbing your client. So just because you have the photo, don’t forget to put keywords on top of that photo that say what you’re wanting to get across. right? Make sure that your website is on there. And more importantly, that people always forget is make sure to have a call to action on there.

And so you can do that beautifully with photos. Photographers hate to put words on top of their, on top of their beautiful images. But we have to if we want to get found by our ideal client and not just be popular on there because someone wants to copy our photo.

Quianna: Yes. And I love this so much because I just had a similar conversation with Lina, who is part of a brand strategy, part of this branding series.

And she talks about that. She said, how many times do we take photos where we’re just posing with a laptop or maybe we have a podcast and we’re posing with a microphone? So many times. But you don’t know what you are, like people who are searching, they can’t articulate, wait, are you a realtor? Are you a fitness coach?

Are you a photographer? Like, what, what are you selling? What do you offer me? Like, you look gorgeous. And this picture is stunning. But, and like, that’s where I love how you mentioned, Definitely adding those keywords. And when you say keywords, you’re talking about adding actual text on top of Canva. Yes.

Jen: Titles. So it’s, um, keyword, you know, words on top of the photo. Basically you’re designing it just like you would in, in Instagram where you want to put words on it. You’re doing the same thing. And I’m just saying that those words should be something that attract your ideal client. So you could say, You know, frustrated with your photos not helping you sell your business right for a brand photographer or whatever you want to use words, not only that are keywords on Pinterest and all you have to do is put it in the search bar and see what stuff comes up to know if you’re using the right keywords.

But you want to be able to use keywords that entice or intrigue your ideal client enough to click. That’s the other thing. And I will say too, you mentioned this, but I think we should definitely sort of double down on it. Oftentimes when people are wanting photos for a website launch, as an example, they want gorgeous photos of them, but we do need to take it and step further.

And most brand photographers who do strategy on that marketing type piece as well, like yourself. Yeah. We’ll ask those other clarifying questions. Like if, if somewhere on your website, you talk about the frustration of something, maybe you need a photo that exudes that frustration that people go, yeah, that’s how I feel.

Right. It’s easy to take photos, right? You can take your cell phone and go outside and just take a bunch of photos, but it’s, it’s more important when you hire a professional photographer that they’re looking at how we can capture these photos that help you tell a story. To book your ideal client.

Quianna: Yes, and all of that comes in the marketing, in the messaging, and then plug in playing with these keywords.

Yes.

Jen: Yes. So,

Quianna: one thing you mentioned, and I want to circle back to you before we’re like, oh, you mentioned that and I don’t want to get away. When you talked about incorporating a CTA, which is a call to action. So using Pinterest, what are some great heavy hitters or must haves for CTAs?

Jen: CTAs are incredibly important, and I feel like people skip them because they aren’t quite sure what to say, or they’ll use the same one over and over again because they don’t know how else to say it.

Um, you could do some research on Pinterest and see what calls to action, like, actually catch your attention. Um, or. It, I have a free download for everyone that is 80 calls to action and you can use these not just on Pinterest, but you can use them everywhere. So when I say call to action, I don’t just mean the words on top of the pin, but I mean putting those words in the description, or if you’re sharing on Instagram, putting it in the description or the caption as well.

Like we’re so scared sometimes. of being salesy, that we, we don’t take that next step with people to entice them or intrigue them a little nudge in terms of getting in touch with us. So that’s what I mean by calls to action. Read now, learn more, free download. Those are just a three that are pretty popular.

Quianna: Perfect. I was just going to ask you, can you give an example? We are all absolutely going to go download that free guide for you. Thank you so much for offering that. I’ll make sure to include that in the show notes, but you’re right. I feel like, you know, for us to put so much time and effort, and we’re going to get into systems in a second, but to put that time and effort into.

Developing the graphics, putting them up on, putting them up on Pinterest. And then, then what? Right? Like, Oh, this is pretty great. Scroll. But you need to capture that audience and you need to send them somewhere. So I love that. And where would you say, okay, so I get the call to action, you know, learn more, read more, listen to this.

If you have a podcast, download all of the

Jen: things,

Quianna: all of the things. And in your opinion, what do you feel has the most traction or what, what is the most Clickable thing because with Pinterest, technically people like they’re searching for something. Not a lot of us are actually mindless scrolling. A lot of times we’re actually putting something into that bar.

Yeah. So in your opinion, what is the easiest way to get someone off of that platform and onto your website or onto your offer?

Jen: It, it’s, it’s not a secret, but people do struggle and, and don’t know this, it’s, it’s speaking your ideal clients. Words. So when you work with people and they say things like, Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to work with you because I’m just horrible at this.

Or I’m so glad that you’re helping with this because I get, I struggle so much with this, right? Whatever words that your clients say to you, write them down. Have a notebook in your purse. I use my notebook on my cell phone, like whatever you need to do, repeating what your ideal clients have felt. to a new audience is what will stand out in the feed and get people to click, right?

Pain points, like a lot of times people on Pinterest are like, I’m a mom, I’m a cat lover and I bake sourdough bread. Or whatever, right? Which is great. I love that. But that’s in the no like and trust process. That’s probably on Instagram after they find you on Pinterest. Pinterest is all the top of the funnel stuff.

It’s a search engine just like Google and YouTube, right? And so it’s a, people are searching for something specific or for inspiration, which is great. It’s the best way to get eyeballs on you, but you don’t have to sell on there. right away. You want to do the selling in the email follow up in when they’re, you know, stalking you on Instagram.

Most people say they found you on Instagram, right? When they actually found you somewhere else, but they’re just making sure you’re a person that they want to work with. So repeating words that you’ve heard from your ideal client back is helpful. Talking about the pain points people feel those are going to always do way better for you than anything else on Pinterest.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. I love these so much. And as you’re speaking, I’m thinking of a million more questions. I’d like, wait a second. I want you to walk through the five hour conversation. Yes. I need you to hold my hand through every click, every keyword, every description, all the things. So I would love to kind of fast forward to our branding session.

Okay, so let’s say we’ve already worked with our favorite local photographer, aka me in Arizona or you in California. You’ve worked with a photographer that you love and you’ve gotten your gallery back. Okay, maybe you’ve gotten a couple sneak peeks and you’re feeling on fire. You love them. You get your entire gallery back.

And the one thing, and I’m literally speaking to a lot of my clients here when I say, Now what? Like now I have these photos. I’m going to update an email signature. I’m going to update my profile pic. Maybe I have an ebook coming out and I’m going to use these images for an ebook or a new offer.

Launching a party, launching an event. They have photos to play with, but I love to say, if you’re not using Pinterest, you are not maximizing this exposure. So I would love for you to kind of walk us through your game plan, where you’ve gotten that gallery delivered. You have access to your images. You’re ready to download.

Now what Jen, I want you to take the wheel. Yes.

Jen: So the first thing that I would say that is a mistake that a lot of people make who are not photographers is they download the high resolution images and they start to share them everywhere, like our websites and all that kind of stuff. And that’s going to slow your website down nine times out of 10.

If your website is slow, according to Google, It’s because of images like I can’t I can’t say that enough. So my general rule is it depends on on the photographers gallery and platform and all those things, but you want to ideally download web size photos and most galleries allow you to do that. If not, if you have high resolution image and for whatever reason you don’t have the low res ones, open up the one you’re going to use.

That’s good. resize it to 1200 pixels on the long side. So if it’s a portrait image, it’s going to be 1200 pixels up and down, right? Uh, tall. And then in, or if it’s landscape, it’s going to be 1200 pixels wide. That is a great general rule of thumb that most people don’t consider. So that’s the first thing I would have everyone do is make sure you have low res.

or social media sized images. From there, I would, if you have a full session and you have emotional type photos, like feeling frustrating, whatever it is, put those in a folder. And you can use Google, you can use Dropbox, that part doesn’t really matter, but use something other than your laptop. You can have them on your laptop too, but you want to make sure that you’re backing up these images.

And I will say, if you’re an Amazon Prime person, that’s free storage. Not supposed to use it for businesses, but in this situation, it’s a personal photo we took of you. Use it on Amazon, um, because you want backups of these photos. period. Most photographers, if you run into an issue, we’ll, we’ll have it for you.

But contractually, we only are a certain amount of time that we hang on to those photos. Put them somewhere else and then have them divided. I also say put them in Canva so you have easy access to them, but put them in Canva in a folder. So if you have like a graphics folder or a marketing folder, don’t just put them in the uploads because I just found out from a Canva person.

You don’t want your photos in upload. You want your photos in folders. Didn’t ever think about that, but that’s a free tip for you girls. But you want to put them in specific folders so that when you’re creating graphics or you’re going to want to add them somewhere, you can find them because you’ll know they’re the emotional feeling ones, or they’re the hero images where it’s, you know, big, wide, expansive space, or your headshots.

That kind of thing. If you’re also a speaker or an educator, you want to have a folder of speaker images as well that you can easily share a link from a Google folder or something like that when you go on to a podcast as an example.

Quianna: Oh my gosh. I love that so much. And I love you for sharing this because we haven’t even tapped into Pinterest yet.

I love that you are laying the groundwork for us creating systems and making things. easier for us. This is so huge. So what’s next, Jen? After you have kind of sorted your photos, you get them in the right resolution size to start pinning, to start sharing. How do we even get started with Pinterest? Tell me what to do.

Jen: What I like to say is that you want to have at least one pin a day because Pinterest is very much about consistency. They want to know you’re going to keep delivering content and that they can trust you. And that, and when I say they, I mean the algorithm, right? So one pin a day is great. So if you create a blog post, you want to create three to five.

Pins, you’re going to go into Canva, use those images or go into a third party platform. But what you want to make sure you do is that you are creating pins for that blog or creating pins for your services, or even more important, creating pins for your lead magnet so that people can start adding, getting added to your email list.

That’s the first place I would start.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. I love this so much. So question, when you are mentioning one pin a day, are you actually going into Pinterest and creating a new organic pin? Or do you have a system that you are kind of doing a bulk action and making that happen multiple times? I have so many questions about that one a day.

I don’t recommend

Jen: doing bulk actions on Pinterest. And, and the reason for that is because like, Instead of taking the time to repin your pins that won’t get as much reach as the first time that image took place on Pinterest, you really want to create different unique pins. So when I say three to five pins on Pinterest, that’s three to five different photos.

with different keywords, different titles, and different descriptions. You can use AI to help, so don’t panic like I’m hearing everyone right now. I do think that it’s helpful every six months or so to re pin pins that are already doing very well, but that’s so minuscule compared to the question you asked, so I wanted to be really clear on that.

You can re pin things, but you Only want to repin things if it’s bringing in the right amount of outbound clicks, which are your marketing clicks. Those are the money clicks on Pinterest. You know how many followers you have, how many impressions you get, how many saves are are not important to marketing, but they are important to Pinterest, so you need to pay attention to it.

But the numbers that you want to look at on your growth on Pinterest is all about those outbound clicks.

Quianna: Amazing. Oh my gosh. Okay, so you are in a system here. And I do want to ask a quick question for someone. You know my heart. A lot of my listeners of the podcast are photographers and many of us have blogs.

But some don’t. Or some are a little dusty. But I would love if you could speak quickly to those that may not have a blog. Can you still pin to Pinterest and where should we be driving? Can we chat about that?

Jen: Yes. So I love driving traffic to places that enable you to get no like and trust. So if you have a YouTube channel or if you have a podcast, those are amazing places to drive traffic to.

So you can, and you can do this in a variety of ways. You can make a short reel, like we all kind of create a reel for Instagram for our podcasts, right? That should be on Pinterest too, driving people to that podcast. Or if you have a YouTube channel, you can make content for that. You can also right now, um, this came back.

So it used to be you could claim Instagram and then it kind of went away for a while and then now it’s back. And the cool thing about how it’s back now is that it, You can, it will automatically post whatever you post to Instagram to a specific board. I recommend that be your business name board or a free resources board.

You don’t need an Instagram board. Like a lot of people think that that logically makes sense, but it doesn’t make sense marketing wise. And so then whatever you post on Instagram automatically get posted, gets posted on Pinterest, but I wouldn’t leave it there. That’s going to drive people to Instagram, which is great.

We always want to grow our Instagram and it’s an easy way to do it. But we also want to make sure we’re driving people where they can book us or talk to us. So if you don’t have a website, but you have a Calendly to schedule consultations, right? You can make pins for that free consultation on your website building and whatever it is, right?

You want to, you just want to make sure that you’re driving people where they can convert. And I have to say, if you don’t have a website, like that would be the number one thing you can do for your business. And you can do it on the doubt. Like you don’t have to spend a lot of money on it either. I love Squarespace and all these other platforms, but you can get a WordPress site from a developer for like 12 a month.

So it’s, it shouldn’t be something that keeps you from. from having a website, even a landing page of a website, even if you don’t have a blog. One thing that you want to be careful with, though, that most people don’t even think about is you don’t want to pin the exact same URL more than about once a week.

Could be five days, could be seven days, like it doesn’t have to be perfect, but you don’t want, if, if you only have a landing page for your website or a stand store or something like that, you don’t want to pin that link. every single day. So you have to wait about a week, five to seven days ish. And I hate having specifics because there’s some people that can post, you know, every other day for a week and not have a problem.

And then others will do that same thing and it looks spammy and all their numbers drop. So it is a sort of a general rule that helps Pinterest feel like you’re giving them different information. And so they tend to give you more reach. They, meaning the algorithm.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. Okay. So I’m trying to wrap my head around a schedule or some type of system for this.

So for example, let’s say I am pinning a recent branding session, right? I love doing that. I love highlighting my clients, celebrating them and sharing about their offers and stuff. So when you mention the pin Once a day, try to be consistent where like, do you have a bucket? Do you have a resource? How do you keep track of these things?

So then you could go back and kind of bounce through the different URLs or the, the different connection points you’re trying to make. I’m so confused. Yeah, it

Jen: is. It can be, that can be a little difficult, but it’s as simple. I mean, I use a Google spreadsheet and I’m a Pinterest manager. I manage 12 different people’s Pinterest accounts, as well as two of my own.

And a spreadsheet works great for me. Just putting the date you pin it, the title of the pin, and the link to the content that you’re sending them to, that is so helpful because then you’ll know the last time that you pinned it. So I recommend just a simple Google sheet works well. You know, using a third party scheduler is also helpful.

I’ll give you a link for tailwind. It’s my, my favorite one I’ve been using. I’ve tried every single other ones out there all the time. Cause I don’t want to miss out. Um, but I keep going back to that because it can take me from, you know, Five hours of Pinterest management work for all of my clients for each of my clients that could come down to it saves me about 44 hours of work so that is an investment, obviously, but they have such great things like AI built in to come up with all of those Pinterest titles and stuff.

And it’s a great way you can see where the pins are going. You can, you know, when your queue is empty and all of my clients, well, the majority of my clients use it because then they only have to spend one hour a week and it’s sending out pins for them. So that, that’s awesome. But if you don’t have the budget for that yet, you can still use the Pinterest scheduler.

You can pin up to 30 pins out 30 days. on your desktop. It’s different numbers on your cell phone, which changes a bit, but you can totally do that too. And in there, when you, if you’ve scheduled them in the Pinterest schedule, which is free within Pinterest, and you go into your Pinterest account, you’ll see all of them scheduled and the dates that they’re scheduled.

So you kind of, you’ll know when it’s been a certain amount of time, but I do recommend using a Google spreadsheet. It just, it helps you to just know, cause we all do not have great memories. All of the time.

Quianna: Yeah, well, and I’m so happy you’re bringing this up, especially with consistency because I feel like I get this fire under my butt and I maybe listen to one of your podcast or I see one of your posts or I see something and I think, oh gosh, well, instead of just watching TV and just kind of vegging out, I’ll start pinning.

And so I kind of turned this like yo yo pinner, which I’m sure is good, but it’s probably hurting me. It’s better than not pinning, right?

Jen: So we’re going to give you props. For, for doing it. Yes. Um, my recommendation on that, because it is very hard when we are a solopreneur and we’re pulled in so many different ways and many times we don’t have a team to help out with that.

So I think it’s really good for you to have a specific day that you do it. a specific time. I like to choose a day where I feel the most awake and the most into it and all those good things. And the day that I have like maybe no meetings, right? So pick a day in a time, spend an hour, pin the entire hour.

And when you’re done, you’re done. And then you go to next week and you figure it out from there. But tailwind. Will really help with that because with a Pinterest scheduler, it is more laborious to put a pin on there. And then you want to put another pin on there with different, you know what I mean? In with tailwinds help, it pulls them all up and you can just go boom, boom, boom, boom.

And it makes it, it makes it easier, but it is doable. I do have some clients that just use the Pinterest scheduler for financial reasons, and they’re making it happen. So it works.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. Well, I would love to kind of double down on this consistency and I would love if we could kind of unpack some other ways, whether there’s tips and tricks, and maybe this is getting into the marketing and the copy and the words and the keywords, all the fun things, but what are some other ways, Jen, that we can create authority with our pens?

So we’re not just in this like vanity metrics, like this is who I am. This is what I do. Here’s my freebie. But. How do we really gain this authority on Pinterest? And when we are searched or our area is searched, ping, ping, ping, you’re going to see our faces, you’re going to see our offers. I’d love to kind of pick your brain about that.

Jen: Yeah, it’s called, it’s, it’s like having you be uniquely you, right? There’s no other Quianna out there. There just isn’t, right? So. I think leaning into that a little bit in the way the words that you use, like when you consider your copy on your website, one thing I like to do just to help you guys out. I love to go into chat GPT and I will say, I need five and you can write this down.

You guys, if you’re, if you’re running right now with the kids or something like that, come back because you’ll want to write this down, type into chat GPT, please create five. SEO optimized Pinterest pin title and descriptions. And then in parentheses, 375 to 400 characters and no hashtags because you do not need hashtags on Pinterest for this content.

And then put what your content is. If it’s your website, you can actually use your website link. Um, if it’s whatever it is, sometimes you can copy and paste it and put it in there. And it’s going to give you five different. pin titles that are SEO optimized. And then you can use those as the words on top of your pin as well.

And they’re going to be there. It’s going to help you with that SEO stuff. If you are a local business, if you own a yoga studio or you’re a photographer, whatever it is, lean heavy into the keywords for your area. Bay Area, San Jose, Silicon Valley, Northern California, California, like lean into all of those descriptive words because that will let you stand out.

And then the other piece, which is what we’re talking about right now is with your brand photos. If you’ve considered brand colors and props that really are unique to you. Those types of images are always going to stand out on Pinterest, and they’re always, always, always going to do 10 times better than any stock photos, period, because it’s not you.

So using the words that are like your brand voice. As well as your custom images. That is what’s going to, and, and the location specific keywords if you’re local based, those are what are going to help you stand out. And again, using different titles, and text overlay on every pin that you make for that one piece of content.

Because when you’re using different keywords, you’re attracting different people and you’re attracting more people because you’re not just using the same title and description for five pins, right? Just by the nature of using different pins will help your brand stand out for visibility.

Quianna: Yes. I love that so much.

And I love that you mentioned the location based searches. This is so important and I feel like this is something that gets totally kind of disregarded. And it almost kind of reminds me too when we’re building our websites, right? I mean, how many times have you gone to search for something and you’re like, where are you located?

I don’t know where you exist. And then you move on

Jen: to the next person. Let’s be honest. You’ll, you’ll lose That potential person because it’s not very specific on where you are.

Quianna: Yes. It’s so frustrating. Oh my gosh. These tips are so good. And PS, I must be a dinosaur because I’ve been adding hashtags to my descriptions on the bottom of Pinterest.

So

Jen: are they going to hurt you? No, but it takes time to make them. Right. Mental space and you’re taking up space that you can use more of a description for what it is. So people put content onto Pinterest, but they don’t consider that that description is what’s going to sell them or intrigue them or entice them to go to that next step and go to your website.

It is super important. And then the call to action also helps. helps to stand out because most people don’t use them.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. So good. This is also amazing. I have to re listen to this because you dropped so many little nuggets here and I’m like, wait a second. And even with the, what was the number of characters that you mentioned in the description?

Jen: 375 to 400. So you can use Up to 500. Okay. Um, I like to do 3 75 to 400 because at the end of my description I like to say something like, brought to you by Jen Vasquez photography with my website, because sometimes if a link gets disconnected, they can still find you plus. It gets my business name out there all over the place.

Brand visibility, that’s a great way to do

Quianna: it. Yes, so smart. So I have another question about creating these graphics that just popped in. And I do believe that we mentioned this in one of your last episodes on the podcast here. But for someone that hasn’t tuned into that, what is your advice for creating those eye catching graphics?

I personally love sticking to my brand colors. I love that cohesive look. But I also find that I’m gravitating towards some hot colors, like some bright colors, or some solid black, clean, um, looking modern stuff. So what’s your advice on that with kind of almost like throwing a splash of color through our feeds to capture that attention?

What are your thoughts on that?

Jen: Yes. Like bottom line, yes. So consider yourself searching on Pinterest, right? Let’s say we’re searching and I’m only using this because it’s very specific, but let’s say we’re searching for a wedding photographer. What we’re going to see on that feed is probably a lot of pastel colors, right?

Because in general, most photographers for weddings are very pastel colors. That’s just sort of, uh, an often used type of color, right? And so if you had something that was bright yellow or day glow blue or black, you’re going to fully stand out on that feed and people are going to actually read what’s on that pin.

But we want to make sure that our Pinterest is fully branded, right? Because we want people to like recognize a pin basically when they come to us. So what I recommend for that is if you make five pins, you make four pins, your brain colors, and one pin you’re going to go Different, totally different.

Doesn’t even matter if you like it because we’re testing the water to see what works. Black, black images, which I’m not a fan of work so well on my account. So I do them often now because I know it’s going to stand out. I know those are the pins that typically stand out. Also, um, sometimes on my account, it’s just.

Just words and no photo that stands out. So maybe in your five pins you start testing one that doesn’t have any photos and just has really big words because that of course is going to stand out as well. I think that’s helpful. And then don’t or try not to use cursive when you’re doing text on top of the pin.

I love me a cursive. I think it is like very, it’s very branded and very female, right? But if you want to use cursive, totally use it, but use it for words that are not keywords. So, for. The like, you can use a bunch of words that are not keywords with cursive, so just be thoughtful on that because that is, that is something, especially because a ton of people are on Pinterest on our little tiny phone and some cursives that are really cute are not very readable.

So just be thoughtful how often you use that.

Quianna: That’s so smart. And you’re right. It’s these eye catching things. It’s developing that consistency, developing that authority. throwing in some fun splash of colors here and there. I love that. And I would love to kind of share more about these boards. So for example, and I would love your opinion on this.

So I had, um, on my boards on Pinterest, I’ve had one that was called Kiana Marie weekly podcast, right? And that was my podcast for, so I would drive every pins to that. But then I started to realize. Okay, nobody, I mean, I should say people that don’t know me are not searching Kiana Marie anything. They’re, they’re looking for business podcasts or looking for marketing podcasts or looking for photography education, right?

So I went in and I changed it and updated that board name. So I wanted your like magic touch on this and to share your advice for what are some ways, because I know a lot of us that are listening, we may have some dusty Pinterest that we have recipes on, we have dream backyard pools that we have, and those may kind of be clogging our Pinterest if that’s not our business.

Jen: Yes. So I have so much to say on this, so let me try to make it quick. First of all, if you have boards that are not about your business, Like not even remotely about your business, secret them. You can still pin to them all day long. That pool sounds amazing. I like share, you know, pin to that board all you want, but hide it from Pinterest.

Pinterest in order to know who you are, looks at your profile and looks at all your boards and all your pins as a whole. So if all of those boards and pins and profile does not say brand photographer. Then there’s a problem, right? The other thing I would say for you is I would have two boards. I would have one board that’s Quianna Marie Weekly, and I would have another board that’s marketing podcast or photography podcast or branding pocket, like whatever you want to say.

Um, and then also consider when you have, let’s say five pins for a blog, you want that first pin going to the most appropriate board. If it is a podcast about website design, your first Board should not be Keanu Marie and it should not be a podcast board. It should be about branding or about like whatever it is that you were talking about a website, whatever it is, put it on that board first.

Then you can put it on the other board. And then another one can go on your Quianna Marie board. And then another one could go into your Quianna Marie board. You’re just business board photography, right? But you want to put that the first couple pins, you want every pin to go to a different board first, and you want it each in order to go to the very first most appropriate board.

So I love to have multiple boards about my stuff. So I have Pinterest marketing, I have Pinterest tips, I have Pinterest trends, I have like a bunch of different Pinterest ones so that when I’m pinning something that has to do with Pinterest, I’m Figuring out which board is the most appropriate, but it’s going to go to all of my Pinterest boards.

So you don’t just have to have one board. If your whole business is branding, you want to have at least half of the boards about branding and you can say branding photography in a bunch of different ways. Arizona brand photography, Mesa brand photography, like Phoenix brand photography, um, Cal, you know, Arizona brand photography.

Like there’s many ways to say it and you can have multiple boards. Trouble comes in though, when you have so many boards, but you’re not pinning to a bunch of them. So when you have multiple boards, make sure it’s boards you’re tending to pin to a lot. Like I would say unique brand photography. Board as well, right?

Without the Arizona plus content about Arizona. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

Quianna: Oh my gosh, this is so smart and so brilliant. And I love that all this takes is a little bit of time, a little bit of organization, a little bit of JATCPT, a little bit of market research.

Jen: Time on your calendar. That’s literally what it’s about.

Get that time on your calendar and then decide what you’re going to work on in that time frame.

Quianna: Yes. And you know, it’s so funny. I hear oftentimes, especially in the photography industry and pretty much all industries, right? Where. Oh, you know, I, I, I’m tired of all the things I have so many things on my plate.

Oh my gosh, you know, and it’s so funny because I, this is me being the projector and human design and just the big sister and just in the industry for so long. And I’m kind of giggling to myself saying, wait a second, you’re complaining about doing the work, but you need more work. So hold on, how can we streamline

Jen: and be strategic?

And I will say, and I have, I say this all the time and I know it’s like a broken record but it is so true, Instagram you have 24 to 48 hours for the lifespan of that thing, and nine times out of 10 no one will ever see it again after the week you post it, right? Pinterest. I have pins that are from seven years ago, still popping up in my top 10 pins as a photographer.

That’s embarrassing sometimes. But if it’s bringing in traffic and people are booking me from those pins, I don’t

Quianna: care.

Jen: Yes. Yes. So the time that you invest that one hour a week. will pay off a hundred fold compared to Instagram that we sometimes kill ourselves with.

Quianna: Yes. It’s that constant hamster wheel.

So one thing that I have been seeing a lot, so I know, you know, I’m a huge country music fan and I love my music and I’ve been seeing so many So many collaborations like this has always been a thing. I know this even all the way back to old school country and 90s country and even to today. There’s been so many really fun collaborations and I would love to hear your opinion on how we can use collaborations with other businesses to boost our Pinterest.

Jen: Okay. Are you ready? I’m so excited for this. Um, so it’s easy when it’s like wedding photography, because you have other vendors, right? The key is to tag people in your, so like, let’s say you photograph a yoga teacher, right. For your brand photography. When you’re creating pins, you’re not just creating pins about you, brand photography, and your area.

You also want to create pins with titles for yoga instructor brand photos. Those are the things that people are going to go to time and time again, always. Whenever we’re, I’m planning one for, you know, a brand photo for myself, I create a board and I look sometimes for podcasts. Prime photos, a look for all the different things, right?

So oftentimes when we’re creating those pins and we’re putting them on the board, we’re considering our business only. You should be tagging your client. in every single pin you put on there. If they’re on Pinterest, if they’re not on Pinterest, there’s nothing more you can do, but you can put their name in there, right?

It’s amazing to me how many vendors email me and thank me so much for tagging them on a pin because they booked a client. from it. So just tag people. And if you’re biz bestie or the person you’re photographing isn’t on Pinterest, tell them how great Pinterest is and that you want to tag them. So maybe just make an account if nothing else.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. These are brilliant. And this is a perk. With working with a professional brand photographer, because we are pinning your images. We are celebrating you and we are creating this circle effect of just like this referral based business that lives on Pinterest and continues, continues to grow.

Jen: It is the low maintenance. Easy marketing platform. It’s the only one in my opinion that is easy. Yes, there’s work. There’s work to everything. Let’s just be honest. But for me, it’s work I can do while I’m watching a rom com or a reality TV series. And I just binge it kind of like background music and I’m just pinning and use AI to help you cut down the time.

For sure.

Quianna: Yes. And this is why if you’re on the fence about booking that branding session, you absolutely need to, because you’re just going to receive this bank of content, beautiful images, beautiful, um, like I almost said clip art, I’m

Jen: dating myself, but it’s, it is, it’s a custom gallery. It is literally something that I use brand photos.

It’s funny. Cause I’ll go lighter with my hair and darker with my hair. And so I do brand photos all the time. And when I’m dark, I hate sharing photos of when I was blonde. It’s like, it’s kind of wonky. But now that I’m back brunette again, I have all this plethora of content from years and years and years.

One thing that is really helpful when you book a brand photo. session. If you are working with a brand photography that like specializes in that, and I do recommend that just like a wedding photographer, it’s a different animal. And yes, you can have your picture taken by a bunch of people, but when you work with a strategic brand photographer, they’re going to be photographing you in a way that those photos will help you sell your business.

So they’re giving you a gift. To making marketing easier. I promise.

Quianna: Yes. Go make that money, honey, and connect and connect with your dream clients. Like all the things.

Jen: They give you a reason to show up is kind of what I’m saying. If I have a great photo, I want to share it, but I’m going to put caption to it that has something to do with my business.

Then I’m it’s selling. It makes it just easier. It makes it easier and not feeling when, you know, everyone has to use stock photos. here or there. I totally get it. But when you work with a brand photographer, they’re not just getting photographs of this. They’re, if they’re specialized in brand photography, they’re getting photographs of you writing on a, on a notebook, on your favorite colored notebook.

They’re going to have you typing on your computer. It’s going to be detailed shots as well as shots. So it really does give you so much content for so many, for all the platforms. Yes.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. Will you have to reach out to us? Cause we will take such good care of you.

Jen: Like very good.

Quianna: Very good care.

Oh my gosh. And like I said, I can talk to you for hours and hours and hours. And I just love Pinterest so much and I love how strategic you are and so forthright with sharing your wisdom and just like your heart is just made of gold. So thank you so much. I would love to close, as you know, with my favorite question.

What key tip would you like to share today? What is one thing that entrepreneurs and busy mamas need to know to help grow their business?

Jen: So it’s, it’s kind of cliche, but oftentimes when you complain to yourself or your biz besties that you don’t have any leads coming in, no matter what the economy is, right?

Okay. Right now, everyone’s complaining because it’s, you know, politics and all the things, but the fact is, is when you take your foot off the gas of marketing, that’s emails, social media, all the things. When you take your foot off the gas. You’re going to see in a month or two, a slow of, of leads and it’s, it literally is going to go right back to your marketing.

So if I have one piece of advice that will totally help you, Pinterest or not, make sure that you’re doing marketing every single week without fail. That should be high on your agenda. Just like client work, it is equal to client work because you won’t have any more client work if you’re not doing marketing.

So when you’re overwhelmed, don’t let that stop you from marketing. That, that’s my advice because it is, it, everything goes back to the effort you put into voicing yourself out there in the community.

Quianna: Yes. Oh my gosh. That is so brilliant. And the beauty with utilizing Pinterest is you can knock out a successful Pinterest plan.

What did you say? Planning about an hour a week. It’s about

Jen: an hour. You only have about an hour of work, of work a week. That’s it. It’s little, but you have to do it consistently. You can’t do it this month and next month and then forget about it for four months. But I will tell you. Pinterest is the most forgiving platform.

If you ever go, if you ever have stopped pinning and you go back to start pinning again within the first week or two, you’re going to see that love come back already. Your numbers are already, Pinterest is like, we’re woken up. Let’s go. Right. So, so don’t beat yourself up, but get back on it. Don’t like, let that lead you to a bad habit of not pinning is my point.

Quianna: Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you so much, Jen. How can we connect with you? How can we tap into those resources that are literally marketing gold? How can we connect with you?

Jen: Yes. So, um, I will give you, it’s thepinterestqueen. com. Slash resources and on there. I do have my most recent challenge, which was six weeks.

It’s like one hour a week for six weeks. So there’s six videos that take you from not ever being on Pinterest to creating a system. to do Pinterest work, right? A workflow. So that’s in the resources and I just recommend doing that. You can also find me on every platform, Jen Voska’s media.

Quianna: Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your magic and we can’t wait to see your pins.

So if you are listening to this, please, please, please take a screenshot of a pin and get it on social media. Share it with us. We will absolutely tag us. I will

Jen: give you. So much love on that. Yes,

Quianna: we are. We Jen and I, this is why I love you so much is because we literally are your biggest fans. We are your biggest cheerleaders.

Both of us know and I usually just speak for myself, but Jen, I know, you know, I know like you are so powerful. You have so much to offer. We just need more people to know about you and Pinterest is the lazy girl Queens way strategic girls way to get it done.

Jen: Strategic girl way. Yeah, it’s my favorite platform.

Quianna: I love it. Yes. Oh my gosh. So incredible, Jen. Thank you so much for your time. And if you missed, um, the last episode, you absolutely have to go check out. We already had a conversation about this for wedding photographers. So if you are listening as a wedding photographer, you got to go scroll back and go check that out.

And I just, I’m just so grateful for you, Jen. Thank you. Right

Jen: back at you. Thanks.

Quianna: Have a good day. Oh, wow. Wasn’t that a good one? I am always blown away by Jen and her impactful, but simple strategies that helps get you results. Make sure to follow along with Jen at @jenvazquezmedia make sure to head to her Instagram to grab freebies and resources to get started with Pinterest today.

Jen also has hundreds of episodes released on her podcast, Marketing Strategy Academy with Jen Vasquez for even more marketing, Pinterest, and business education. I’m seriously so blessed to have so many inspiring, big hearted educators in my circle that are so giving with their knowledge, experiences, and business strategies.

My network is your network, babe. And I’m so grateful you hit play to join us today. If you found this episode helpful and have just two minutes to leave us a review, please do shoot this episode over to a friend as well. We are grateful to expand, grow, and experience life and business together. I’m loving this branding series and can’t wait to continue introducing you to even more experts coming up over the next couple of weeks.

Make sure to scroll back to any episodes you may have missed to help prepare for your next branding session. Always cheering for you, babe. Remember, you are incredible. More people need to know about you. Keep on dancing, baby. I am cheering for you. Always. Love you. Bye.

That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie Weekly!

Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at quiannamarie.com/podcast

I’d be honored if you’d show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app until next time. Keep on dancing!

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