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62: The Magic of Pinterest for Small Business with Renee Dick

62: The Magic of Pinterest for Small Business with Renee Dick

Lauren Tilden  

Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast for small businesses who want to make a big impact. I'm your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 62. 

Today's episode is all about your new marketing secret weapon Pinterest. Pinterest is a platform that I have recently discovered is very underrated by marketers and small business owners. And I'm super excited to bring you this conversation with a Pinterest expert Renee Dick of My girlfriend, Renee. But before we jump into the goodness of Pinterest, here are three quick updates. 

First is if you've noticed that I've been a little quiet on Instagram and other places on the internet that I normally hang out, it is because as of April 20, I am a parent, I am loving getting to know our little guy, Casey James and slowly jumping back into taking care of my other baby work. If you're interested in details on Casey's arrival and how I'm now approaching business as a parent, check out episode 61. 

Second, I have a new resource for you that I think you're going to love. I put together a content creation guide that walks you through a process to help you figure out what to talk about in your marketing, and it will help you generate a lot of really good content ideas on demand. You can find this guide for free at makinggoodpodcast.com/content .

And finally, I really want to invite you to the Facebook community for this podcast. It is called The Good Business community and it has been such a fun spot to hang out. For community, accountability, inspiration and good conversation. You can join at makinggoodpodcasts.com/community 

Okay with that, let's talk about today's episode with Renee. Renee Dick is the creator and founder of Fresh Perspective Community which provides tools, support and resources to serve female small business owners. Renee also has a Pinterest course for small business owners to learn how to explode their traffic using the power of Pinterest, and she is the co host of The Dreams to Plans podcast. If you're anything like me, maybe you thought that Pinterest was something you can use to find interior design inspiration or to plan your wedding. But you may not have thought too much about how Pinterest can generate sales for your business. Well, I am now convinced on the power of Pinterest and I'm so excited to share this interview with a serious Pro. 

In our conversation we talked about why small businesses should be using Pinterest. Why you should think of Pinterest more as a search engine than a social media network. Where to start with your business Pinterest account. What parts of your Pinterest profile to optimize and how, why keywords matter and how to find the best ones for your business. Rene's weekly Pinterest routine, how to repurpose your content across platforms, the mindset to approach Pinterest with and so much more. There is seriously gold in this episode, feel free to take notes or just check out the show notes at makinggoodpodcast.com/62. I just want to make a quick note also that for some reason, my audio is not awesome in this conversation. But Renee is great. So I apologize for that in advance. But I know you're going to enjoy it anyway. Without further ado, here is our conversation. Renee, welcome to the podcasts.

Renee Dick  

Hi, I'm so excited to be here.

Lauren Tilden  

Thank you, I'm so excited that you're here, we are going to be diving into a topic that is kind of a new one. For me. It is Pinterest. So I use Pinterest as a consumer, I use it for haircuts and for like home decor stuff. But I have really not been very thoughtful about how I use it for my business, which I know there's so much opportunity, particularly as a product based business. So this is gonna be a great conversation. I know everyone's gonna get so much out of it. But before we kind of dig into the weeds, I would love if you could introduce yourself and your business and maybe a little bit of backstory about how you got to where you are now.

Renee Dick  

Yeah, so I'm your girlfriend, Renee, the girlfriend you never thought you needed in your small business. I swear that is like my tagline because once people meet me, they're like, hey, where have you been in the rest of like my whole life. I was a hairstylist and then I was a spray tan technician and ended up being a stay at home mom after I had my son, did not like it. So it was really hard for me. I started getting anxiety. I was like such a people person. And I ended up losing that. 

So a couple years later, my husband was like you need to start a blog to do something for yourself. And I was like homeboy, I'm not that cool. Like, I don't know how to do that. I don't even own a computer. I don't even know anything. And I ended up going to a women and business conference where that day my life completely changed and I ended up buying my domain, started my blog all that night. And slowly but surely in the process. I met with so many other business owners that were asking me how the heck are you doing this? All of these moms were like How are you doing this so fast? How are you building website? I know you, you went from hairstylist, stay at home mom to this. And my content followed, my business grew. And now I have a, I have a business called The Fresh Perspective community. It's an online community for small business owners where we focus on support tools, education, and knowledge to grow your business. And my main focus is Pinterest. Because like I said, I started my blog, and I thought everybody was going to come and read it, and nobody did. So that's where I found Pinterest. And that's where the love of Pinterest started.

Lauren Tilden  

Love that. Yeah, there's the adage, like, build it, and they will come. And that is just so not true. As anyone was like 100% new figures out. I think we kind of went I mean, at least I speak for myself, when I started the business, I really felt like the hard part was, I mean, in some ways, it was like the decision to do it. And like the setting up the products and you know, all the logistics, but marketing is actually not easy. And I have a background in marketing. And I still something that I mean, everyone has to kind of constantly be upping their game. 

Renee Dick  

Ever changing. So it's like by the time you nail something down, there's something else to learn.

Lauren Tilden  

Totally, totally. Yeah. So Pinterest. So let's just start off really kind of top level. Why should people be considering using Pinterest for their business?

Renee Dick  

So like I said, I started my blog. And I was like, I built this, I spent all this time, my content's amazing. Come and read it. And nobody came. And I was like, Okay, what am I missing here. So you think about it. When you're on Instagram, it's like stumble upon content. When people are on Instagram, they're bored. They're in line at Target, it's commercial, it's, you know, people are just scrolling to get some sort of entertainment. So if you're trying to promote a blog post or a product, you're essentially trying to get them to click off of the platform to go to your platform, if that makes sense. And with Pinterest, people are there to search for something. 

So by going to Pinterest, you have a problem in mind, like you said, you were using Pinterest for short haircut ideas, or home decor or baby shower ideas or recipes, you're going to actually find an answer to your problem. So as small business owners, we tend to put all of our content on social media like Instagram. And it's lessening the chances of getting found where if you just put it on Pinterest take one more extra step, you can reach an entirely new, warm, targeted audience for free.

Lauren Tilden  

Mm hmm. And one thing that you are saying, which I would love for you to go into a little bit more, more deeply is this idea that although Pinterest kind of gets put in the category of like a social media platform, it's actually more of a search engine. Could you explain thata little bit so that people can kind of get their mind around thinking about it a little bit differently than they would something like Instagram or Facebook.

Renee Dick  

Yeah. And it's super common. People always think like, oh, it's just another social media platform. But if you really think about it, it's not, it's a visual search engine. I call it like the women's search engines because every single girl you know is on Pinterest. 

It's a visual search engine, we go to get inspiration, we go to get ideas, we go to search for things. Think about when you go to Pinterest, you open the app, what do you do, you go to the search bar, and you type in some sort of question or key word, kinda like you do on Google and YouTube, then Pinterest goes to work sending you more ideas along those lines. So it's your job as a small business owner, to be the person that is the answer to their problems that your pins come up so they can get introduced to you. And then all of a sudden you build a relationship with them.

Lauren Tilden  

So smart, so smart. Okay, so let's say that we have in our our first five months of this conversation convinced people that they want to kind of take Pinterest seriously. Where should someone start? Who has no Pinterest business account? Or has really done nothing with Pinterest for their business? Where would you suggest that they start?

Renee Dick  

So, I like to say whatever you can manage to do that. So my, the easiest thing that I can do, because I'm running, you know, you have like Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and all of these accounts. My advice is just to switch over your personal, your personal Pinterest account over to a business account. It's super easy, you just flip it over. And then you can claim your websites. And you can still use it for personal reasons, because you can create secret boards. So people will say like, I want to still have my private life on Pinterest, and then I also want to have a business, but I'm like, Hey, business goes first. We're in here to make money right? So I always think about I'm like, I don't go to Instagram for personal reasons. I don't go to anything anymore for personal reasons. I'm in there to work and grow my business. 

So when I create a Pinterest account, I want it to be a business account so that I use it with a purpose instead of just like for personal reasons. So my advice is switch over to a business account. And keep your Pinterest boards that you like or your home decor, your hair cut ideas, keep those separate so you still have them but go with a strategy in mind. And another bonus of having a Pinterest business account is you can see your Analytics, you can see what pins are performing, what your content is doing, and how you can improve and what to double down on. And it's free. So I would say 100%, do a business account, and just keep your board secret versus having two separate accounts.

Lauren Tilden  

Okay, cool. So we have our business account, let's kind of go at this from a couple of different angles, because I would say the majority of listeners are product based businesses, but I do also have some service based business. So photographers or graphic designers. For me, I think, when I'm thinking they're like, how to use Pinterest for business, I have an easier time thinking about how I would use it as a service based business because I'd write a blog about like, you know, here's how to do Instagram marketing. And then I don't know, it's a little more obvious to me how that would directly lead to like, people following me and trusting me and building authority. Can you talk through a little bit how your approach might differ depending on what kind of business you have?

Renee Dick  

Yeah, for sure. And I always say this, like, I think we've all kind of learned this, especially with Instagram getting so popular, is value always wins, right? No matter if you're a service based business or a product based business, it's not enough to just show your products where I always tell people that I'm like, you can't just put all your products on Instagram, and expect people to purchase same with Pinterest, you have to give something else the world is just too competitive. So I always tell people, whether you're a service based business, whether you're a product based business, find a way to provide value, whether that is showing how to use your product, what problem your product serves, or solves. And behind the scenes, whatever you can do. And I always say I always encourage product based businesses as well as service based businesses to have a blog, because it's free to have if you just go through like Wix, or if it isn't, like I use Squarespace, you can get it for like 20 bucks a month. And you take that content because people are so you know, ingrained to put everything on social media that you don't own. So by putting it on your blog, you can just house your stuff. And then it also provides value to a completely different audience and you build that know, like and trust factor that we all need.

Lauren Tilden  

Mm hmm. So we have our Pinterest business account. And then we've started to think about creating different blog posts of topics that would be interesting that we can pin on Pinterest. I know that keywords are a really big deal. When it comes to Pinterest, can you talk a little bit about why keywords matter and maybe how to find the keywords that would be best suited for being found and being discovered by potential customers?

Renee Dick  

Yes, keywords are mandatory. So first, let's park on where they need to be. So we already talked about setting up your business account, there's a couple places that you need to have optimized on your business profile. So you need to have your title. So your name, my name is My girlfriend's Renee on Pinterest and then next to it kind of like Instagram, you have that little extra little piece that you can put what it is you do. So if you're a business coach, you would write my girlfriend, Renee business coach, or if you're a product based business, it'd be my girlfriend, Renee stationery company, or whatever it is. So use that spot to type in what you do or what your product is or what your services or whatever keyword you are known for, because people can actually search people on Pinterest. So you want to make sure your profile is coming up. 

Next you have your profile description, which is like your bio. And it's the same as Instagram, you want to tell them in five minutes or less, or five seconds, sorry, five minutes was like a really long time, five seconds or less of what they can expect from your content using keywords. And then the same thing goes with your boards, your board titles, and then your pins, right, those are where all the keywords are going to go. So you can tell these are really important things to know. 

So with keywords, there's a couple of ways that you can find them, you can go to the Pinterest search bar. And if you type in any type of word that relates to your business, or your content or your product, Pinterest will go in and they will they will suggest other sentences that people are searching. So say you type in a 2021 planner, they're going to tie it they're going to show you what other people are searching as far as terms. So what I do is I take note it usually take a picture or a write a Google doc of all of those sentences. So it'd be like 21 or 2021, daily planner, 2021 planner aesthetic, or how to get organized with a planner, paper planner, all these things. And I'm taking note, then you can go one step further. Pinterest just released this a couple months back. It's called Pinterest trends. You can find it@trends.pinterest.com and it's actually just a service provided by Pinterest or you can go to your analytics board and click trends. And what this does is you type in a word and then Pinterest will go and show you the past searches and how popular it is throughout the year. So say it's like a perfect example would be workout ideas or goal setting is really huge in the month of January. So Pinterest will show you on a graph, the traction that gets in January. 

So now you know, Pinterest prefers that in January, because that's what people are searching, then underneath, it also gives you extra words that people are searching as well. So if people type in goal setting, on the little on Pinterest trends underneath, it'll give you suggested words like goal setting for businesses or goal setting for, you know, new body or whatever they want to say. And then that way you can use that data. And you can create new pins and content for that as far as like blogs or your pins, or whatever it is. So it just gets you aware of what people are searching a perfect example. For a product based business, my friend has a fitness accessory company. And so she would say, you know, booty workout or leg workout and lower body workout. And we were like, Okay, let's figure out which one's going to rank the highest. So lower body workout and leg workout, pretty similar. But when we went to trends, leg workout performed better. So now we know when we connect or create our content, we know to put in leg workout versus lower body workout. Does that make sense?

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah, totally. And you're, you're identifying which one performs better through Pinterest trends

Renee Dick  

Correct, because Pinterest will tell you, in some stuff isn't going to come up because it's still collecting data. Like I said, it's pretty new. So some stuff will not come up. And that just means that they just don't have enough data to show you. So what you can do is just go to the Pinterest search bar, and then type in if people are searching it, and look at the content. So you know how when you go to Pinterest, you type in something, and then auto populates all of these pins. So you can see what type of pins are coming up. And if that's in your content in your wheelhouse. And you're like, hey, this is where I want my pin to show up, then use that keyword. But if you type in something, and then all of this content comes up, and it doesn't really relate to your content. Now, you know, don't really use that word. Let's find something that works better.

Lauren Tilden  

So are there other places that we should be looking at identifying keywords? Or would you suggest Pinterest is really where people should go for that?

Renee Dick  

Pinterest is just where I start. You can do Google Analytics, another one that I just started using, it's called answerthepublic.com. And that one, you can type in any search term or keyword or anything that you want to search. And it will give you a whole selection chart of who, what, when, where, why can all using those search terms. So say you would type in workout, It would say who, what, when, where, why. And it's all the questions people are searching in that term. And that's a really good one to have, you can download that and use that when you're creating content.

Lauren Tilden  

Awesome. So let's say we've taken your advice, we have set up our blog. And we have a new blog post about let's say like behind the scenes of how I create a greeting card. What would you do next? So I have this blog post, obviously, we want to create some pins for it. But what are the steps that you would take for that.

Renee Dick  

So I try to make images on my blog. A lot of people do this. It's not mandatory, but you create pins on your blog. So pinnable images, and then you have that little Pinterest Share button embedded into your blog or your website so that people can pin directly from your website. It's not mandatory, but like I said, it's like it's free, why not. So you can have that. And what I do is I like to create five pins per blog post. So if I have a new blog post that's just published, I go in and I create five pins for that blog post, they could be completely different, or they can be completely the same just switched out with images. 

And then you can also type in like, if you have you know, usually if you're doing a full on blog post, you have paragraphs in your blog post, right, like you have an intro and then you have like a couple of different tips or meat and potatoes that you want to do. So you can also create five pins from those paragraphs using the content of each paragraph. So if you have a pin that saying you know behind the scenes of going to the stationery card, or you want to type in something different, like if you're using what could be an example, I don't do stationery. So it would be like if you want to do the behind the scenes of the tools you need or something like that, or where do you get them printed, you can create pins with that type of tagline or text overlay to see what's going to perform better. And you can kind of split tests on an AB so you can do a pin that has just text that says behind the scenes of me creating a stationary card and then you have a video of you actually doing it. And then you also have a picture of the actual finished product. And you can compare those all leading back to that same blog post and compare them next to each other and see what your what contents are resonating with your customer.

Lauren Tilden  

So it's so strategic. It's like oh, it's funny because I can really we all use Pinterest. Well, not all but many of us use Pinterest just kind of like for fun and to think that

Renee Dick  

Now you you can't go back. It's like when that first hit me like that realization that you just said right now is like when I saw that I was like, what?! This whole time like this is what  Pinterest is like, you just think it's just pins right? You don't put the connection together. You're just like this is what Pinterest does. It's just images, you know, you don't realize these are all little people inside of it like putting their content for you to find, it's mind blowing.

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah. Yeah, the stuff that you're landing on, it's because someone really, like put some effort into it. So yes, exactly. That's funny.  Do you have any tips on like pin design? So I know for me, like when I'm using Pinterest, obviously what it looks like that is making an impact on whether or not I click more and like even more, so whether I click through outside of Pinterest to go to the link. Do you have any advice on that?

Renee Dick  

Yeah, so go, go in it with the mind of at first, like when you're first starting out, go with the mind of what appeals to you, right. So when you go to Pinterest, take note of what pins are popping out on the screen to you. It could be, you know, calm, cool modern design. Or if you're like me, it's very pink and loud and vibrant. I'm more inclined to pick that. And then what's cool with Pinterest is you can do video, and you can do animated pins. And you can do so many different styles. So take advantage of the tools that Canva provides. Everybody uses canva.com to create your pins, take advantage of the tools that they're providing, and test everything like I used to do pinch pictures of me back when I was like just started. And then I started doing stock photos, and my stock photo pins crushed it compared to the photos of me in there. 

Now that I have like professional images, I have an actual photographer, now I can use pictures of me and they perform very well. But using stock photos usually will give you a better return on clicks and saves than your regular images unless you have really good like professional clear images. But I would say always split test, do two different things. Do swirly font fun font, I would do a very minimal and very serious and then bright colors, some like mellow colors. It's all a test and what works for my audience isn't going to work for your audience. So make sure you're testing consistently and figuring out what is getting the best results.

Lauren Tilden  

Awesome. So we know that we're going to add a new pin or her many new pins with each new blog post or piece of content that we're putting out there. What else should we be doing? Like, let's say I'm releasing only one blog post a week. Is there more that we should have going in terms of like our Pinterest activity?

Renee Dick  

Yeah, you can do so a lot of things that you can do is you can grow your email list with Pinterest. So say you have a product based business and you share a lot of your tools and resources that you use to run your business, you can put that into a pin or a blog post. And you can go ahead and grow your email list. A perfect example is I have this pin or this blog post that I created forever ago. And it was a cute packaging ideas. And it kept going crazy. I don't know why this pin just took off. So I kept recreating more pins, just with different images, different wording, different stuff like that. And it lead back to my packaging supply lists like where I get my poly mailers, my tissue, all of that. And one of my friends this was about four months ago, one of my friends said hey, you should probably make this like a PDF. So I took the the list the packaging list and I created a PDF and you have to put your email in to get the download. Then I put that on my blog. So then after three or four months, I kid you not I think now that we're in this month, it's four, it has over 1000 people on that list, just that list alone, I have an exclusive list on my website for that. And it is grown to 1000 people just off that one blog post. So it's taking it and strategically thinking how can you make it better? How can you make this work for your business, but still provide value. And you can also link to your Instagram, you can link to a YouTube, you can link to literally anything on Pinterest. 

So if you even have product based businesses, you can link to, you know your brand new products, you can link to your website, you can link to anything you want. So don't just think you have to link back to a blog and come up with all this crazy content. Get creative. If you want to grow your Instagram, go ahead and link a Instagram post that you did that's valuable or a video or something interesting your reel or your Tik Tok or whatever you want, and link back to your Instagram so they can click there if you want to diversify your content.

Lauren Tilden  

Love that. This is amazing. So what in terms of like on a weekly basis? What is your routine when it comes to Pinterest? Like are you doing any engaging like pinning other people's things? Or is it mostly like making sure to add new stuff of your own? Do you ever add the same pins that you've already added? How do you kind of approach maintenance? 

Renee Dick  

Okay, so Pinterest is kind of like Instagram where they're constantly changing, right? They're constantly evolving. What worked like two months ago doesn't work anymore. So Pinterest used to be a group board Tailwind tribes, the group or platform. 

Now Pinterest is showing that they prefer fresh content. They want fresh pins for their users to find. So if you were to create and repin it to multiple boards, it doesn't get as much traction as if you were to just do one fresh pin, it'll go farther. So what I do is I go in with five pins a day, Monday through Friday. So that's 25 pins of my content every single week. So what I do is I take a Tuesday night, usually Tuesdays, like my pin day, and I create my 25 graphics. And then I schedule them all in Pinterest scheduling so I don't even use Tailwind anymore. And I do that, it's free. And I scheduled them for the week, and then I'm done with Pinterest for the week. 

Pinterest, you don't have to continually, you know, engage with other people. It's more of a search engine, right? It's not a social media platform. So the only reason that you're pinning other people's content is if you find it valuable. But remember, we're using Pinterest to grow our business, our brand and our traffic. So if you are pinning other people's content that doesn't really serve you in the end, if you find it valuable, sure, nothing wrong with that, I usually say pin 80 to 90% your content and about 10 to 20% other people's. And like you said, if you were only starting out and you have like maybe five blog posts, then yeah, I would pin other people's content just to get your, you know, your traction built up, get your get in the routine of actually utilizing Pinterest. But it's not necessary to pin other people's content, it helps with vanity metrics. But it doesn't help you in the end. So your monthly views is what's going to go up when you start pinning other people's content. But it doesn't increase your link clicks or your email address. So I'd like to steer people away from that.

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah, that's such a good point about kind of having a really strong intention behind why you're using it like I think I've heard other people say about Pinterest that how many followers you have, like really doesn't matter on Pinterest. Not about that at all. And we say that about Instagram too. But like it matters a little bit more for like credibility and authority on other platforms on Pinterest, it seems like it's totally irrelevant. If you're being smart, and you're creating good content that people want, and they're gonna click through. That's really what matters.

Renee Dick  

Having followers I mean, they're more if people follow you, and they follow your boards, obviously, when you upload something new, they're going to be the first ones to see it. And then if they're getting a lot of traction on it, it's gonna get pushed farther in the algorithm, right? Same with Instagram, but it's not your end all be all, your end all be all is results. Same with Instagram, if you have 1000 people that are just creeping in the bushes, that doesn't translate to money in your wallet, right? I go deep, not wide, I'd rather have 5000 people that I love and know me and engage on a daily basis that have 10,000 that are just casually scrolling. So I always say, focus on what is moving the needle forward, if followers are there, and that's right for you. And you need that for credibility, cool. Focus on that. But I always say focus on what's moving the needle forward, you want to have your, your pin clicks, and your links are in your saves is going to be your end all be all, don't let the vanity metrics fool you.

Lauren Tilden  

Mm hmm. Great point. So you said every week you do about 25 pins, correct? What are these pins? are they like past blog posts that you're like, obviously, you're not releasing 25 New pieces of content every five minutes.

Renee Dick  

So I have a routine of I double down on this is where consistency and long term and paying attention to your analytics comes into play. So like I said, that packaging pin does very well. So I continue to create pins promoting back to that blog post right so that I can increase that email list. I also have a podcast that I release every single Tuesday. So I always post my graphics and then I post pins leading back to that podcast episode. And then I also have a live every single week that I do on Instagram. And then I post my video there. So it's constantly repurposing the content that I'm creating for other platforms and turning them into Pinterest. But it's not necessarily coming up with all this content, right? So like, I go live on Instagram, I download the video. And then I upload it into my blog and I create pins for that blog post. Even though I'm not really creating all new content, like I didn't do an Instagram story, and then I did a blog video and then I did a YouTube video. It's just taking one piece of content and then sprinkling it everywhere and playing by that platform's rules. Does that make sense?

Lauren Tilden  

Totally. So good. Is there anything more you want to say sort of like logistically about how to use Pinterest before I talk about some of the mindset stuff I know you're really big on?

Renee Dick  

Yeah, I think people just, it's a common mistake that people think that it's like Instagram, right? They're like it's social media. And then they do it for a week and they give up. And with Pinterest. It is long game strategy. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it takes a while it can take anywhere from three to six months for you to get traction. I've been at this for over a year consistently over a year, and I'm barely starting to get some traction on some of my pins. So don't beat yourself up. And this is where it leads into mindset. 

But people think like, Oh, I've been doing this for a month, I'm not getting anywhere. And it's like, if you just wait a little bit longer, I guarantee you're gonna get some traction, like trust the process. I know, it's hard, like, I manage multiple Pinterest accounts for my customers. And it's hard, it is hard and right when they think it's not going to work. That's usually when we start to see the needle move. So it's constantly testing, it's constantly working. And it's the same kind of like Facebook ads, you have at least three months to figure out what works, you got to find your groove. So don't beat yourself up. If you know you're doing this for a month, and you're like, Oh, my God, I'm getting nowhere. Just trust the process and keep going. Because guess what, it's free. It's free marketing, like, you don't have to pay for this. So why not take advantage?

Lauren Tilden  

Right? We're just having this conversation on my Facebook group actually about how like, really, I feel like the business owners who succeed quote, unquote, succeed, whatever that looks like for them, are the ones who like really grit it out and like, are willing to sit through these slow periods. And the times where doesn't feel like your efforts are working? Like you really, like pretty much no matter what you're doing, there's gonna be some of that, and it's so easy to just feel discouraged. And oh, well, my effort isn't doing anything anyway, I'm just gonna stop. 

Renee Dick  

You always think somebody else has it easier than you or it's working better for somebody else. And we're all on a different course. We're all on a different path. And it looks different for everybody. There isn't like a book that anybody can follow because everybody's journey is different. Right?

Lauren Tilden  

Totally. So I know that one thing that we've talked a little bit about is repurposing. And so you've said like repurposing your content from other platforms to use for Pinterest? Is that a strategy to apply? Like beyond just Pinterest? And do you have any tips for people to be more efficient and using the content content that they do have?

Renee Dick  

Yeah, I I'm a big believer in repurposing because as a small business owner that has like I literally wear 40 hats, I don't have time to constantly create new content. So what I do is, every time I create content, I go with the mindset of being able to repurpose it. So perfect example, I go live every single Friday on Instagram, I go to Canva, I create my presentation with my little graphics. And I answer small business owner questions. So it could be anything like the live from this week with Clubhouse. Another one was how to engage on Instagram. And then another was, how to invest in story pins, which we need to talk about that, Don't let me forget. And so I create my little graphics. And then what I do is I download the video from Instagram instead of posting it directly to my GTV. I download it and then I cut up the clips into each section. And then what I do is I create blog posts with that one video, say it's a 17 minute live, I go in and I create five different blog posts from all the sections from that. And then I create, I put that on YouTube. And then I put that same video on my blog. And then I create five blogs from that. And then I created on Pinterest and then I turned it into a newsletter because 90% of the people on Instagram aren't seeing it anyways. And then after all of that is said and done. I go in the next week, and I posted on IG TV. So now it's that one video, I used Instagram to host it. And then I platformed it, I put it everywhere. For one. All it did was take a couple of steps with a little bit of strategy. And it didn't cost me anything.

Lauren Tilden  

That is amazing. That is a content machine.

Renee Dick  

That's how my brain works. It's funny because I've I think people think like that. But I guess I just that's just the way my brain works. And a lot of people that I know don't think like that, right? They think they just go up on Instagram. And they're like, Okay, I know I need to take that and make another video and they think they have to have like a film, a videographer, they have to have a video editor, they have to have a fancy camera I do all of this with my iPhone, and Canva. You know what I mean? Like, that's just how my brain works. Same with my podcast, like people think like, and you know this growing a podcast is so hard. And so when you're kind of posting on social media, think about it. You're asking people to get off of social media to go listen to your podcast, right? You can ask them to subscribe, or you can ask them to do things. But realistically, asking people to take action is very hard. So if you can go in and take that podcast graphic that you're putting on Instagram, and go put it on Pinterest, and you have that wav file on that teaser clip that plays automatically in the feed. So I am on a mission right now to grow our podcast. So I take all of these graphics, and I do those wav files that I'm putting on Instagram. And then I put them on Pinterest and we put them on our blog. We have a website for the podcast. So it's like just taking that content and thinking of how many ways can I repurpose this?

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah, yeah, I'm inspired I feel like my podcast content is, it's a really good I have to say, and so I'm like, I have grown pretty well so far, but I have not even thought about really SEO which is something I know a little bit about, and Pinterest which I know pretty much nothing about until right now.

Renee Dick  

I mean, its own beast, you know what I mean? It really is, and it's just trying to, you know, figure out the best way to, you know, move the needle forward and what to invest in. And you know what it's okay to admit that it's not your strong suit. I mean, you can't be good at frickin everything, it's really hard to be. So if you don't know how to do SEO, then it's better, you're better off hiring that out, you know what I mean? Don't beat yourself up for that, you know, you're not thinking like that. That's just the way my brain works. Do I have people that helped me? Yes, of course, I have because I have a co host. So it's like, we have, when we also record our podcasts on video as well. And it just makes it so much easier to have content, it's like you're already in the routine of doing. So just take that and think of it a little bit bigger, take a little bit more extra steps. And I guarantee you, your life will be so much easier when it comes to content.

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah, I love this. And I really like just want to draw attention to sort of the attitude that you are describing toward content, which is that you don't need to reinvent the wheel every time you don't need to feel like every single piece of content has to be like this huge revelation that you've never said anything like it before. When we talk about branding, one of the core principles of branding is repetition. So actually, you do want to be seen repeating the same kinds of things over and over again. So people are, you know, knowing like Lauren is the person who always talks about using business for the good in the world. So actually, repetition in your social media and your content is really a good thing. And you want to like focus on creating that repetition rather than avoiding it.

Renee Dick  

Oh, I love that you said that. And that's what happened with Pinterest is I started using it for my blog, and it was working. And so when something works, you share it. And that's exactly what I did. Like, it just started to evolve to where I was sharing subconsciously talking about it all the time that I became the authority and every single person if they had a Pinterest question, they're like, that is it. And I did a poll on my Instagram Stories of like, if you were to introduce me to somebody at a party that I wasn't there, what would you say about me? And every single one of them was like small business Pinterest Tips, like every single one. Oh my gosh, and that's when you know.

Lauren Tilden  

Yes, that is so brilliant. Like, I just want to I'm gonna go to this after we hang up. Everyone listening should go do this on your Instagram, put a poll or a question sticker and say, as Renee said, if you were to introduce me at a dinner party, what would you say about me?.

Renee Dick  

I think I heard that on like, I think it was either YouTube or a podcast or book. And somebody had said that, and I was like, Oh, this is genius. Like, how does people see you? Because then you know, if you're all over the damn place, and people are like, they don't really know, then you got to work on being, you know, establishing yourself as authority. And really, you know, deep dive your content. But if you're known, like people saying small business tips, like anybody has a small business, I tell them go see, you got to see my girlfriend, Renee. I know I'm on the right track. That means my brand pillars are solid.

Lauren Tilden  

Right? So good. I just want to make sure we circle back you mentioned Pinterest stories. This is something I've been around, but I know absolutely nothing about tell us about Pinterest stories.

Renee Dick  

Pinterest recently, let this go. And it's still access only you have to ask for access from it. So older accounts, and new accounts are probably gonna have a harder time, but they are rolling it out pretty quick. It's the same as Instagram stories. So when you log into Pinterest on your app, it's going to be the first thing you see at the top, you can click through it. And so what I really love about this is that everybody is in the habit of uploading stories. Now put that in your system to make sure that you're uploading it to Pinterest. So it's not as fun because people aren't engaging on it's not like people can send you a DM I mean, they can but it's not as easy. And you know, social media easy as Instagram is, but it's free. And it's just taking those graphics that you're already creating for your Instagram and putting them on Pinterest stories.

Lauren Tilden  

And can you click, Do they work the same as like a pin where you just click through if you're interested all the way to the link?

Renee Dick  

Yeah, it does it at the end, it takes you to their your actual Pinterest profile. So that's something that I do not like about Pinterest stories is that you can't click the actual like, pin and lead to a link. It's going to take you to a board and then you can click on it that way. So it's not as easy. I'm sure that will be coming in the future. But I think it's more to keep you on the platform.

Lauren Tilden  

Well, is there anything else we want to say about Pinterest before we start to change gears a little bit?

Renee Dick  

No, I think we covered it all. I mean, there's so many resources to I mean, I have literally tons and tons of content on Pinterest. So if you are I have content, like literally Pinterest for beginners all the way to more strategies. So it's just the contents out there, you'll be able to find it pretty easy.

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah. And if people want to go see your content, specifically, is your blog, the best place? 

Renee Dick  

It's literally like I said, I take that thing and I put it everywhere. So chances are on my blog, it's on Pinterest, It's on YouTube, and it's on my Instagram. And I'm at @mygirlfriendrenee on everything I make it easy for y'all.

Lauren Tilden  

Perfect, perfect. Awesome. Well, I feel like I have a primer on Pinterest like, I just want to go like make some pins.  And I mean, it sounds like kind of the ethos to the way that you approach this is all about just taking action, like, take action now. Evaluate, look at your analytics, but like, you just have to keep taking action. That's how you end up seeing results. And you have to be willing to play the long game. So I really liked that kind of just, I don't know, like not instant results approach.

Renee Dick  

Well, that's just I mean, everybody knows it's not, that's not the case with anything. I wish it was.

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the kind of the topic of this podcast, which is using small business to make a positive impact in the world. When you hear that, what does that mean to you?

Renee Dick  

My whole focus is community and its community over competition, and it's giving back because like I said, we're all on a different journey, right? Your journey isn't going to be my journey. But I have something that I can share with you, that might, you know, change the trajectory of your business. And I think by us creating that sense of community and small business sticking together versus like, you know, not sharing anything, and there's, there's not enough for all of us, there really is. And I think when you choose to give back and you know, take your time to help somebody else, it's going to come back tenfold. 

So I think going into the mindset of always sharing what you know, and I mean, there's balance, we all know that. But sharing what you know, if you can really cut a couple years off somebody's journey and make their life a little bit easier, take advantage and do it. Because that's what that's what grows this small business community. And I think small businesses, especially in 2020, we're like, we got to stick together, you know what I mean? So it was way bigger impact this year. And I think the more you show that you're supporting other small businesses, I think that kind of grows your traction as well.

Lauren Tilden  

Speaking of small businesses, what is one small business that you admire?

Renee Dick  

Oh my gosh, there's so many. Like I'm such like a junkie on like product, because my entire business is my community is small business owners. I have everything from Etsy to product base to CEOs. I have like literally everything but somebody that I really resonate with is Jasmine Star. She has a it's called Social Curators, and she just, she thinks how I think, and I've literally been following her since I started my journey. And the way that she projects herself and just gives back is somebody who I truly admire and somebody who I truly, you know, try to live my life after is like, she just gives so much and it's all with a kind heart. And I always try to remember like, what would Jasmine Starr do, you know what I mean? And I just love the way she carries herself and just gives to so many and empower so many business owners.

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah, she's awesome, great recommendation. What is one business book recommendation that you have?

Renee Dick  

Oh my gosh, okay, so I have three that I'm obsessed with. And they're all for different points in your journey, okay. So if you are looking to build a community of like your following and turning followers and people into an engaged community, it's called Super Fans by Pat Flynn. It is like the best book on building community and engaging your followers. He is like, the king at this and that book totally breaks it down. It's an easy read. If you are looking to hire somebody, or if you are looking to scale your business, the E Myth is a really good one because it breaks it down into you know, the separation of working on your business versus working in your business. And then The Law of Attraction is good for mindset. So that one I use to, you know, really make sure that my mindset is in the right place that I need to be to tax the day every day.

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah, anyone who's listened to the show before and knows how big I am on mindset. I feel like you can't put enough energy into getting your mindset right. Okay, so I know you have tons of resources, tons of stuff going on, where can people find you and connect with you online? Maybe tell us a little bit about your podcast, I know you have community like let's just hear all the things.

Renee Dick  

Okay, so I'm at my girlfriend Renee on literally everything I bought all the domains to make it easy. And then we have a podcast called The Dreams to Plans podcast where it's for the creative small business owner where we talk about mindset and branding and you know, customer service and it's really funny because you have like two completely opposite perspectives on business and it's the best thing ever. And then I also have a small business community called The Fresh Perspective where it's usually anywhere from chapter one to chapter you know five, business owner where we can all connect and share our stories. We do monthly zoom calls with topic focus that will educate you on things that you need to know we just had accounting Clubhouse, branding, we had our lawyer come in and make sure you're doing guidelines, right and advertising. So it just all of these, you know, questions that business owners have that we can go ahead and shorten the path between, you know, where you need to go and where you are now. So that's kind of what we do. And then it's also a monthly short subscription. So when you join The Fresh Perspective, you get a monthly shirt delivered to your door every month that I designed, and they're all motivational boss babe theme tees.

Lauren Tilden  

Oh, my gosh, fun. 

Renee Dick  

It's so fun to see. That's kind of how it started was I had the shirts and people were tagging each other on the shirts because they'd be like wearing them in their content. So that's how the community was born. It's so fun. It's so so fun.

Lauren Tilden  

And I love that I love when people kind of mix the digital and physical product worlds. Like I feel like, often they live really separately, but when people are able to kind of mix them effectively. That's really fun. Yep.

Renee Dick  

That's where the magic happens. It's the hardest, but it's definitely it's so fun.

Lauren Tilden  

Yeah. Well, Rene, thank you so much for this one, like actionable tips, strategy packed episode. This is gonna be, I'm super excited to share this with people. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for your generosity of knowledge and not holding things back. I think you're really practicing what you preach in terms of community over competition. So, so grateful.

Renee Dick  

Yes, my hope is to always just inspire people just to get out of their own way. You know, I mean, we're in this together. So I'm so glad you found value. I'm so happy if anybody has any questions reach out, there's no question that's a dumb question. I mean, it's hard for everybody out here so just reach out. I'm happy to help in any way I can.

Lauren Tilden  

Well, it would have been hard to pack much more valuable take action right now content into one episode. Wow, thank you so much, Renee for so freely sharing your Pinterest and small business expertise with us. This is an awesome episode. 

Everything mentioned in the episode can be found at the show notes page at makinggoodpodcast.com/62 I know that Renee and I would both love to connect with you on Instagram. Take a screenshot while you're listening to this episode and tag Renee and I both you can find Renee at @mygirlfriendrenee on Instagram, and you can find me at @LaurenTilden. Thank you so much for being here and for focusing on making a difference with your small business. Talk to you next time.

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