Doug: Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to the Doug show. My name’s Doug Cunnington. And today I’m excited to chat with a new friend, Heather Ferris. How are you doing today?
Heather: Good Doug. How are you doing? Really?
Doug: Well, and just before we started recording, my dog, Georgie was like really aggressively like poking me. She gives me like 10 minutes at a time.
And then she’s like, let’s go upstairs. So thanks for your patience. But she’s upstairs now. Like if she was down here, you would hear her like jingling her collar constantly. And she’s a good dog, but she requires a huge amount of attention now. Heather, you sent over this great bio. So you’re a Pinterest educator and marketing strategist.
You have eight years experience in Pinterest marketing, and you transitioned from working in accounting and bookkeeping to blogging and creating a business around marketing on Pinterest, and you’ve been featured all over the place, including. Pinterest, Tailwind, AuthorNation, Buffer, Eat, Blog, Talk, and more.
So welcome to the show. And the way this got set up is like I was doing my live stream and hardly anyone was there. It’s, uh, it’s been quiet out there in the last few weeks or so, but you were in the chat and you were like giving really good comments. And I was like, I don’t know if I know you, but you seemed a little familiar.
And I was like, Hey, do you want to come on live? So you actually joined me live. And that’s how this got hooked up. And I was like, I bet you got stories to tell. So thanks for doing all that. I’m, I’m curious, how long have you been doing YouTube? Cause like I could tell that you are a YouTuber. So how long have you been doing YouTube?
Heather: I started in a state park in Rhode Island in 2019. Like, that was my first video. I was in a state park when I filmed it. We were traveling on, on the road full time and, , so that was my very first video. And then, yeah, I’ve been pretty consistent since. I took a, a minor break because it’s really hard.
I don’t know if people watching this have ever, Heard about full time living on the road in an RV, but that’s really difficult to stay up with like a recording schedule. So once we got to Tucson in 2020, in January, I started publishing really regularly after that. So really consistent. I built a really strong business off the back of my YouTube channel, and it has been no small feat.
Doug: It’s very hard to do YouTube and I couldn’t imagine on the road. How long were you guys on the road?
Heather: A year.
Doug: Okay. And then
Heather: COVID happened and we kind of got stopped from traveling because of COVID, so. Yeah.
Doug: Gotcha. Interesting. And then tell me a little bit about the RV and like how many people were in there and some details around that.
Heather: Yeah. So there were four of us. My husband was prior military. He actually got out of the service in order for us to travel. He jokes around a lot that he got out of the Air Force in order to travel. Most people get into the Air Force to travel or any other military branch for that matter. But that just wasn’t the case for us.
So I had, at that point, built a pretty sustainable income coming in from my business that we sold everything and traveled for a year. The kids at the time were really young, like four and eight. So, They were not quite baked into their communities where we could actually do it and, and they would be okay.
So yeah, we did that for a year. We traveled across the United States, 35 states in total, and then ended up in Tucson on January 1st of 2020. And then shortly after that, all the campgrounds, everything started closing. Started demanding higher reservation fees that we just like most people cannot afford So we decided to settle back down and buy a house and he rejoined the service.
So here we are five years later Actually getting ready to move again We’re moving across the ocean this time instead of into an RV. So Yeah.
Doug: If I don’t watch it, we’re going to end up talking about everything but Pinterest. So I had no idea this other side of it. So where are you guys moving?
Heather: We’re moving to the Netherlands, hopefully, as long as everything goes right.
Doug: Oh, wow. That’s
Heather: cool. Yeah.
Doug: Crazy.
Heather: So the business though, pivoting back to talking about business, like this. Online world allows us the freedom and flexibility to do that.
Doug: So it’s insane Like people don’t realize like you end up probably earning more but then the big thing is like You’re your own boss, so you could kind of like shape your business how you want and like not do the things you don’t want to do or shift or move or whatever you want to do.
So, okay, we’ll focus back on business. So you did get an accounting I guess, background overall, so you have an accounting degree. So how long did you do that sort of more corporate standard situation before you started doing stuff online?
Heather: I, I worked in banking and finance longer than I worked in accounting and bookkeeping.
I’ve done bookkeeping for a number of years seven or eight years total. I did accounting and that boring work for about a year before I realized this is not like I went 40, 000 into debt for something I hate doing. So we’re not doing this. And that’s when I started the marketing business was very quickly after getting my first accounting job.
Which was very hard to do in the Midwest, by the way, when you live in a tiny, tiny town of 13, 000 people, an hour away from any major city. It’s very difficult to find work in a field like accounting. So, it was actually more beneficial for me to start my own business, because I could make More like you said, and have more control.
Doug: Okay. So what was the first piece of online business that you did?
Heather: Blogging. I started on mom blogs because I was reading at the time, making sense of sense and a few other mom blogs. And I was like, Oh, they make money blogging. Like that doesn’t seem so hard. Not realizing that they had been at it for years and had built.
Years and years of traffic. And that was like the early days of, well, maybe not the early days, but like, maybe like middle of the road timeframe of affiliate marketing. And people were really still buying into all the affiliate offers on blogs and things like that. So yeah, it was a mom blog and it didn’t last very long because I needed to make money and that was not working.
Doug: What year was it when you started it?
Heather: 2016.
Doug: Okay. And yeah, it’s so interesting. Cause like we would see is that blogger named Michelle? Is that right?
Heather: Michelle. Yeah.
Doug: You would see someone’s story on like CNBC or they have like features on YouTube and they’re like, I’m making 800, 000 a month and I’m just a mom.
Like everyone, like I’m just normal. But yeah, like you’re saying they’ve done it for you know, eight years or something. And I’m just making up the details for Michelle, but like, usually they’re very well established and oh, by the way, they also have a writing degree or journalism degree and like, they’re super well qualified to do that, but you only get like this little highlight reel to show you like, Hey, this is possible for you to do it, but so a little tougher than that.
So you started the blog and you were like, ah, this is not going great. How did you then get into Pinterest?
Heather: So I’ve used Pinterest since it was released in 2010. I was a new mom in 2010. I had an infant and I didn’t know how to cook anything except for like boxed meals at the store. And it was like, at this point it was making us ill.
I was very young. I didn’t really know. Anything about anything. I was 20 and I posted on Facebook about like, how, like, does anyone have like a recipes or like websites they could send me to, or like things that they would suggest to help me learn how to cook. My sister in law texted me and she’s like, Hey, you should try this website out.
I just joined. And it was in beta. So you had to request an invitation and wait two weeks and it was Pinterest. And I, I did that. I requested, I joined, I still have that profile. It’s still active. And I just started pinning like all the food things. At that point it was really just food bloggers and home like home decor bloggers on there.
And I started pinning all the things and cooking all the things and I learned. How to cook from, you know, following all these bloggers on Pinterest. And that was in 2010. And then, and I, so I’d built up like this daily use of Pinterest at this point for about six years, I went there for everything first.
So in the realm of search engines, I would use Pinterest first. If I couldn’t find a solution on Pinterest, I would then go to Google. So when I started my blog, I actually searched how to work from home, no phone jobs. On Pinterest because I had actually worked at home doing phone jobs for AT& T during college and it was horrible.
And I found blogging and that’s kind of, that was like 2015. I did all the kind of research and searching. Then I had a child and put it off for a year. And then after my second kid was a year old, I decided, okay, now’s the time. She’s kind of be bopping around with her sister. I can maybe, you know, do some laptop work over here on the side.
So that’s what I did and I started the blog in 2016 and within a short amount of time I had grown the page views to like five to 6, 000 a month, but it still was not enough to drive any surmountable. Um, so I really started talking about Pinterest and Facebook groups because I saw people were doing that.
They were talking about copywriting or web design and they were landing clients that way. So me being curious, I started doing the same thing and really quickly. I found out you could land clients and Facebook groups doing that. And that’s what I did. So by May of 2017, I had a client roster that had surpassed my 12 an hour accounting job income and I quit.
Doug: Okay. Is that all 12 bucks an hour for accounting? I mean, that was like
Heather: 12 an hour, but I worked for a misogynist in the Midwest and he just didn’t. Care to pay his employees any more than that. And yeah, that’s why I didn’t leave. I didn’t last there very long, a year.
Doug: No kidding. When, of course that’s been 10 years ago, inflation, blah, blah, blah.
Now you could work at like Taco Bell or McDonald’s and make like 20 bucks an hour.
Heather: Here in Tucson, they have a sign on the door that says 20 bucks an hour.
Doug: You probably get a shift meal too. It’s not bad, but okay, cool. So you, you were like, I’m, I’m going to try to get clients. So what kind of work were you doing for them?
Heather: I was doing the same thing I do now for my clients. I was creating Pinterest pins and pinning them to Pinterest, linking back to their blogs and just building traffic source for them. Okay.
Doug: Awesome. And what is the business look like now in terms of like number of clients contractors, all that kind of stuff.
And we’ll, we’re going to go wide here. Cause I think you have like other digital products and stuff like that. So what’s the whole thing look like?
Heather: Yeah, so the agency side, I keep small and boutique. I have about, um, at any given time, including like consulting things, I’ve got about 15 to 17 projects going.
I have a small team that supports both sides, like both coins because I know I can’t do it all and I don’t really care to have. You know huge profit margins if it means I can’t pay my people well, so I run about a 30 to 40 profit margin every year within the business as a whole which I think is decent I still pay my people really well.
I pay myself a full salary So i’ve got the like 15 to 17 projects going on between my consulting projects and client work And that’s split between organic management for pinterest and some ads I run some ads for people, although I’m trying to get out of that now. And then I have the digital product kind of like membership side of the business.
So I started the YouTube channel and that kind of sits at the top of everything. So I make YouTube videos, people watch those, they then decide if they want to hire me or learn from me. So it’s kind of forking the road there. If you go the learn from me route, I have the membership where you can come in and watch all the cart, all of my trainings, and then come to our coaching calls.
And I do like monthly sprint days where we’ll do something really specific or I’ll host it and experts come in and talk about like lead magnets or how to. You know, get PR in your business and things like that. That side of the business is growing slowly and steadily, but it, it is, it has almost surpassed like monthly contracts.
I’m about three to 4, 000 and monthly recurring revenue away from surpassing my client. Side the agency side, which is fantastic. That’s like I can’t wait for that to to really go And then I mean aside from that I land contracts here and there with some big companies to do teaching internally for them so i’ll come in and i’ll teach either their teams or their students or You know, whoever and I get paid for those gigs as well.
So it’s well rounded I obviously earn a little bit of money on my display ads on my website. It’s not much I earn a little bit of money on Ads on YouTube that really just pays for my YouTube editor, not much, but at least it pays for that. So yeah, I think that answers your question.
Doug: Great. Yep. And I think you covered the different aspects.
Just curious on running YouTube ads because it hardly pays anything. And I typically turn them off on all my videos cause I don’t want the jackasses having ads on my videos. So I just, I just don’t earn anything. So I’m curious, like your margins are great. You’re earning a large amount of money. Why do you run ads on there?
If it’s just like a nominal piece.
Heather: It just pays for the editor. So bottom line, if I can. You know, save myself around 20 grand a year on editing fees by offsetting that with YouTube ads. Like I’m okay with it. I’ve literally had no one ever complain about YouTube ads.
Doug: Gotcha. And that makes sense. Always curious.
And every now and then I’m like, ah, should I turn them on? But at this point, yeah, like I said,
Heather: it’s a really personal decision for each person that has a YouTube channel. Like how do you. Want to do it when I’m on live. So I have a weekly YouTube live show as well, and I have a co host and we just get on and we chit chat back and forth podcast style and every, like I’m in my YouTube dashboard while the live is going and I’m pausing the ads as they pop up.
I’m just like pausing because there’s like a timer. If you have them turned on, on your channel, it’s like on everything. So I’m stopping ads on YouTube lives. So they might play on the, on the videos once they publish evergreen after it’s over. But during the live, I don’t do any ads on that one.
Doug: Gotcha. Makes sense. Okay. Very good. And it sounded like you will be very happy when you have more like a membership in digital product stuff versus clients. For me, clients, um, well, I didn’t like working with them. Yeah. So. Yeah. I’m not saying that you don’t like working with them, but it’s a little bit easier. So is that where you want to shift where you’re like, this is a more hands off, right?
Heather: Yeah, and it’s a lot less risk as well. So when you’re looking at paying someone between 800 a month, you really need to be seeing bottom line ROI coming in, right? So, I mean even me as someone looking to hire other people to help me work in my business, that’s, I’m thinking about bottom dollar. So when you’re thinking about working with clients, the way that I look at it is what has the biggest return on For me, income wise and the like lower risk, sure.
There’s more bang for the buck immediately when I get clients with big contracts, but I also have turnover clients turn over. It’s just a normal part of doing business. Whereas when you’re teaching someone in a low dollar membership, if you can go for volume and I can scale volume with the audience that I’ve grown over the years and I’m scaling volume now, it just seems like a little bit less of a risk.
People are. A little less risk averse when they’re looking at a 37 a month membership price or 370 a year versus Thousands of dollars on a contract to hire me. So that’s kind of the The sword I’m I’m trying to balance on is like, how do I grow this membership, especially, you know We don’t know what’s going going on with the economy at any given day Like it feels like we’re just on like a Rollercoaster or something.
So, you know, I had a really good 2022 and then a not so great 2023. Like, I just, you just never know in this digital world what people are going to want to do. And so that’s the. That’s a balancing act. I’m trying to play
Doug: very interesting. I just interviewed Virginia Elder who has a Podcast production agency and hers was flipped.
So she had a very good 2022 I think is that when you were you said you were down in the
Heather: great 22 mediocre 23 and then 24 Was fantastic. 25 is on track to beat 22. So like we’re, we’re climbing back. We’re going back up.
Doug: Right. Well, and I think, well, maybe there is an alignment, like, again, like you said, the economy is up and down and like, there was more free flowing, cheaper money with like lower interest rates a couple of years ago.
However, I think maybe you’re benefiting from like people not. targeting like Google organic traffic. So they’re looking for other sources. Can you comment on that? Have you seen like an uptick where people are looking for other traffic sources now?
Heather: Oh, for sure. For sure. Especially after a lot of the Google helpful content updates in the last two years, I’ve had an influx of OG bloggers that have been around 15, 20 years coming around again.
I think one of the things that people don’t recognize and they discount a lot when it comes to Pinterest is the longevity of the traffic source. If you have pins that build up steam on this platform and drive traffic for years. Like, why are you complaining that your numbers are slightly down when you’re still getting 30, 40, 50, 000 page views a month from this platform?
Like Instagram is never going to do that for you. Meta, no meta platforms are going to do that for you unless you’re running some ads and that’s a lot of money you’re spending. You know, Google doesn’t owe you anything at the end of the day. So. It’s, it’s going to do what’s best for its business. So when they, when they come to me and they’re like, Oh, I want to drive traffic again with Pinterest.
Like where was this energy four years ago? Yes. Come and join me. I will. I’m super happy to help you, but like, I need you to keep this energy for the next 90 days. Okay.
Doug: Yeah. Well, let’s get into some of the nuts and bolts. Like if someone is. Thinking, Hey, I want to try to reclaim some traffic. I want to get started, but I really haven’t done much on Pinterest.
So where, where do they even start? And actually let’s frame it. I’ll give you a choice. Yeah. So I, I hate Pinterest. I like whenever I see a result that has Pinterest in there, I’m like, I don’t even. This sucks. I’m not going to download your app, but like I’m, I’m out. So if, if I’m thinking, if I have that closed mind, like I do how, how should someone like me approach it?
Or you can go the easier route where someone’s a casual user. So I’ll give you a choice.
Heather: Okay. Closed mind is never going to work for anything. So if you’re, if you got a closed mind, then I don’t know, I’m going to be able to convince you. So that’s fine. Let’s go with casual. Let’s pretend you’re a casual user, Doug.
Okay. You maybe don’t even have an account, but you have opened up search results that are Pinterest and you see a really cool like Toolshed or something like I built this office. I’m sitting in based on inspiration from Pinterest I actually built it like me and my husband physically strapped on the tools and built it ourselves.
So You know, casual user opens up Pinterest. Occasionally they understand that it’s like an image platform, kind of like if you’re just browsing Google images and you’ve never seen the all tab with the 10 blue links. It’s very similar to that. It’s very similar to the Google Images tab. It’s just a little better organized.
And in fact, Google is starting to introduce some of the Pinterest features that have been on Pinterest for 10 plus years. The bubbles at the top of the search results that people are starting to see on Google have been on Pinterest since 2011. The bubble guided searches. I just started noticing them in the last year.
But it acts like Pinterest in that people are still using the same style of searches. They’re looking for awareness keywords. They’re searching consideration. They’re searching purchase. They are looking full funnel for options to fill their life. Whatever it is, whether it’s food like what I started on, whether it’s learning how to build a shed so you can put a studio in it, whether it’s Laying marble tile, which I have done in the last year.
Like I’ve learned so many skills just by searching on Pinterest and finding really, really cool creators who are teaching these skills on their blogs or their YouTube channels or their podcasts. And then it just basically is like a connection service between. You know, the platform and the creator. And at the end of the day, that’s really what Pinterest wants to do is they want to help you connect with your audience and take them off their platform.
Not many other platforms can say that they do that.
Doug: Okay. So that sounds good. Where do we go from like, what sort of approach do we take?
Heather: Yeah. So we’re going to create a keyword plan to start. So you, if you are listening to Doug’s channel, there is a high probability you understand Google SEO. So I’m going to talk about this from that perspective, because I think your listeners are going to understand that.
So from like that Google SEO perspective of like, we’re going to go find keywords that are going to help us rank these blog posts. They’re going to help us rank these podcast episodes that are going to help us to build categories on our blog that. Drive, you know, trust within the Google algorithms, we’re going to do the same thing on Pinterest.
So I want you to quite literally just take a pen and a pencil and write down your blog categories to start. You can do this on paper, you can do this on your notes app, on your computer, whatever. And I want you to start with just like your big overarching categories on your website. Okay. Now. I’m speaking a lot from the blog perspective, but if you’re e commerce, it’s the same thing.
So what are your e commerce product categories? And let’s start with those. And we’re going to go to Pinterest and we’re going to start searching for keywords. Now, there’s three keyword tools for Pinterest and they’re all within the Pinterest ecosystem. So there’s the search bar. So it’s the same as the Google search bar with autofill.
And then they have the guided search bubbles underneath, then within the search results are a bunch of related searches. So at the very bottom of Google pages, it says people have also searched for same deal on Pinterest within the search results. You’re going to find those related searches. And then another surface is trends on Pinterest.
This is not like trends on Instagram where we’re looking for trending audio. Take that out of your mind. This is like Google trends where you can go and see what terms people are searching for and their interest over time. It’s just trends. pinterest. com. That’s the site. You need a business account to access it.
So sign up for a free Pinterest business account. You’re gonna be establishing your Pinterest account anyway, so you might as well just do it now. And then you open the Trends website and you start searching. There’s two search bars in there. You can use either or and they’re gonna give you interest over time.
So you’re gonna see that interest graph just like Google Trends and then there’s even some search volume in there. It’s not It doesn’t give you like 3. 5 million searches this month. It’s going to be a weird kind of graph on a scale of zero to 100. So zero is really low. A hundred is really high. Now the one that gives you search volume per month is the ads manager search tool, keyword tool.
You can also go into ads. pinterest. com, create a dummy ad, go into the ad group where you’re going to find the keyword search tool, and you can search for keywords in there as well. And you’re going to match these keywords that you’re finding to those topics that you cover. On your website, and then you’re going to use the main keywords that you decide are the best to create your Pinterest boards.
Now, if anyone’s watching, they’re not super familiar because they’re casual users of Pinterest. A board is where you put all your pins. Your pins are your images. So a pin is like a blog post on your website, right? But the blog post then goes into a category. So you assign a category to the blog. So on Pinterest, that equates to your Pinterest board is like your category.
And your pin is like your blog post. From there, you’re going to also use those keywords in the pins that you make. So if you are creating Pinterest pins that are showcasing how to create a shed, you know, the shed plans that you sell on your store, then you’re going to use text, like how to build. A shed, and you’re going to put that text on your Pinterest pin, and then you’re also going to put it in the pin title and the pin description.
So this is like your blog title and your meta description on your blog posts, same thing, and then you’re going to post that on Pinterest and you’re going to put it on your how to build a shed board. That’s the synopsis. Do you understand?
Doug: As well as I need to. Yes.
Heather: Okay. You’re not going to be a regular user Doug, so it doesn’t matter for you.
Doug: So I, it’s funny cause I, like I tried a few years ago and kind of like I was familiar with some of the setup. So some of the things that you mentioned, I was like, Oh yeah, I remember that. And I mean, one key thing. Here is I’m not closed minded completely, but, but I also know like I
was just, I was trying to be honest, but it came off weird, but basically, basically I think someone will do better if they’re actually a user.
Of, like, wherever they’re trying to, like, do their work. So, you said, you used Pinterest for six years or whatever, and you were like, I like this. You knew, like, the mechanics and vocabulary. That kind of thing. It’s just obvious, right?
Heather: What makes you an expert in your craft right if you’ve been like podcast editing like Virginia for a decade she probably knows all the tricks of the trade in order to get a podcast show on the air.
And land sponsors, whereas I have no idea what I’m doing in that realm, which is why I stick with my platform of Pinterest. I can talk to you all day long about how to do this, how to do that. People will send me questions and I’ll ask them things back of like things I know I’ve seen on the platform or that are in my mind, but I don’t have to see it in order to tell them what to do.
Doug: Right.
Heather: Because I’m like an expert on this platform.
Doug: It’s interesting because I, I, um, I haven’t been learning as much in the last few years. Just been lazy. But one thing I noticed as you were saying this and I was spacing out to be honest with you, but no, I’m just kidding. You were giving great information, but I was watching you and I could tell that you’ve Described.
The answer that you gave in the last five minutes so many times that you literally could have been thinking about like what you’re gonna pick Up at the grocery store the next couple days Like because you know, it’s so well and I would think of myself like with like you said keyword research in the past where I’m like do this or do that and I’m like I’m gonna go to the gym later and other stuff and it’s kind of it’s interesting.
So it’s it’s cool how You’ve internalized all that stuff and you could just like you were such a pure expert at this thing and I, I know I wasn’t gonna have to like Create my own board. So I was like, I don’t need to pay too much attention here. But the thing is on your channel, you go through all this stuff.
I mean, there’s so much educational stuff there. So, okay. So how long should someone expect to spend if they are, you know, they’re, they want to go from casual user to like proficient and have things set up and, you know, follow along with the plan. How long should they commit before seeing some results?
Heather: There were two questions there. I’m going to answer them both. How long should someone commit before completely quitting, putting it on the back burner? At least a year. At least a year. A Pinterest platform, a Pinterest growth strategy is very similar to Google SEO. You’re not creating a niche. affiliate site today and expecting to make six figures from it tomorrow.
It’s going to take a good solid amount of time, write articles that are going to rank and that Google is going to want to show people, and you’re going to get traffic too, right? So There’s this kind of level of proficiency over time that you’re going to gain where you’re going to start off and it’s going to be really slow and clunky.
You’re not going to know how to do your keyword research very proficiently at the start. You’re not going to know how to make pins very proficiently at the start. So when you start doing Pinterest marketing for your business, it’s probably going to take you a few hours a week in order to really put out the effort that you’re going to need to see in the results over time.
Whereas I can spend an hour a week per client now. You’re probably going to spend two to three hours a week, just on your own, learning the skills, implementing the skills, putting the content on the platform, and then you have all this other work that you have to do as well. So, theoretically, you’re looking at probably, I would say, two to three hours a week when you get started, just because it is new, it’s fresh, it’s something you’re going to have to learn.
You’re going to get faster. You’re going to be more proficient. You’re going to learn what’s working for you and you’ll be able to kind of get rid of some of the things that you were trying to do and really hone in on what’s working and really cut amount, cut down the amount of investment that you’re putting in every week.
Ideally, I’d love for everyone to get down to about an hour a week. That’s it. I don’t think people need to be spending a ton of time. Now there are a couple times a year where I would say maybe spend a few more hours at a time doing some more additional trends research. Doing some deeper research depending on your niche and your market.
If you’re a really seasonal business and you have a lot of ups and downs and like holidays and things. Around those holidays and prior to them, you’re going to be spending a little bit more time doing some research to figure out what topics you need to be focusing on. This is a platform where if you have a blog that’s five years old and you have 175 blog posts, you could probably not write another new blog post.
And just start with what you have and drive traffic to your blog that way, which a lot of people do. They focus their energy on updating content and not creating a lot of new content once they have this library. And that’s great. You can just continue to make pins for your posts that are driving the most traffic that are bringing you the most sales, whether it’s.
Things you sell because you have a store or things that you rep because you’re an affiliate. But yeah, I think it’s a good, I think it’s a good frame of mind for you to get into that this is something that we’re doing on the back end of the business. We’re not having to turn on our camera and put our makeup on and put some dry shampoo on our hair and get some trending audio because we want to go viral on Instagram.
Like this is a very background task where you can look like a troll. And you can turn on your favorite Netflix show and you can just be working and it’s going to work over time as long as you do the right things. Wow, that was a lot. Sorry, Doug. You probably spaced out again. No,
Doug: you don’t look like a troll, Heather.
Heather: Well, I do look like a troll a lot of days. Thank you.
Doug: Okay, so that was great though. Very thorough answer. Spend about a year. It’s not like you have to put in the reps basically. Okay. So one thing that I’ve observed in email lists that I’m subscribed to, although I’m dropping off so many of these marketing ones because well, I’m just not interested.
So I’m interested in the impact on Pinterest with AI content both the written word and the images as well. So what kind of impact has that had? Has Pinterest had to take some action? Just tell me about how that is going.
Heather: Yes, yes and yes. Okay, so Let’s take imagery first. So AI images are starting to crop up a lot on the platform.
I was on a call with someone last week and they actually showed me a Pinterest account that has like 10 million monthly views. Or more, because 10 is the cap on the front end of a profile. So it could be more than that. And it was a complete AI profile, like everything on it, the recipes, the images, everything was AI.
I don’t trust AI recipes to save my life. Like I’m not spending my time or money on recipes that were written by AI. Um, it’s, they’re just unrealistic to me. So yes, they are cropping up on the platform. Now I, in my. Membership and on YouTube have talked about using some AI to write your copy, and I think that’s okay.
Everything I teach, I teach people they need to rewrite what comes out of AI anyways. You need to make it sound like you now it is getting better. I have a bot that I have created where you can train it and it sounds so similar to you, but it’s the training that matters and we’re still editing it.
Before we put it on our pens and stuff. So to that extent, I would prefer the written word on Pinterest from AI versus the images. Now, Pinterest is actively working on it because they do recognize that AI images. It’s not what everyone wants to see. I was just working on a home remodel last year, searching for like moody English living room designs and everything that was popping up was AI.
And I, it’s not realistic. It’s not what I’m looking for. I hate it. I don’t want to see it. So what I’ve been doing is actually advocating through the Verified Educator Program, which I’m in, to get some sort of flags, some sort of like toggles or something that people have to toggle or are automatically toggled when it’s an AI image so consumers know that this is AI.
I think that’s only fair. I have been hearing some rumors from some people in my membership that they are seeing these now. So it seems like Pinterest has taken my suggestions and they’re working on them, which is fantastic. I would also like to have a front end filter on Pinterest. You’re not gonna know about this, Doug, but on Pinterest, if you search for something, you use a filter.
You can filter and see videos. Boards, profiles, things like that. I’d love to have a filter in there where I can actually toggle off AI content. So once the content is uploaded to Pinterest, if it has an AI like metadata on it, it’s toggled to be ai and then I can remove it from my feed. That’s what in an ideal world I would like to see.
Okay,
Doug: interesting. And same with the images for me, i, uh, I don’t spend much time on Facebook, but I’ve had to a little bit more recently. So just scrolling through, I’m seeing like fake. AI images of like, I, I look at like national park stuff. Right. So, I mean, they, they target pretty well, but it’s like, like the wrong kind of animal in the wrong park or whatever.
Or it’s like, I saw an image of like, it was like part elk park moose, like in front of like a, a fake geyser and Yellowstone or something, it’s just like, this is not a real animal. Or it’s just like something physically not possible. Like, cause I know the location and I’m like. There’s this is impossible.
You cannot have that happen. So it looks weird and I’m like, I don’t want to see any of this shit So hopefully something can be done, but it’s really, I mean, it’s interesting in that unfortunately marketers are horrible, so they’ll like see something that kind of works and then they’ll scale it up to like whatever that profile that you mentioned where they’re getting like as many views as they can possibly get.
And hopefully, I mean, that kind of stuff will go away. I don’t think people actually want to see that stuff.
Heather: No, I spent. Probably four to five hours of my time on social media platforms, gathering posts from everyday users and from marketers who are complaining about it. And I compiled it all in a Google doc and I sent it to my POC at Pinterest who then forwarded it directly onto the developer team.
Like they’re listening.
Doug: Yeah.
Heather: They’re seeing the post. I linked the post. I screenshotted the post. And then I even did a video, like a screen video like this, of me going over the document and why these things are not great and why we should be thinking about them differently so they could have some context from someone that uses their platform for marketing every day.
Unfortunately, a lot of Pinterest employees don’t know their platform the way that I know their platform. It’s part of the reason why I’m in their verified educator program now, and they’ve hired me to do some consulting stuff for them. So, like, kudos to me for doing all of the work over the years to get to that, but also, like, I need them to understand.
People do not want to see AI images, so we need to do what Meta has already done. We need, and it, it really pissed off the photographers. And I understand there’s a difference between using Photoshop to remove a person. And that being considered AI, like, that is, I’m A OK with that. That shouldn’t be labeled AI to me.
But like, when you’re generating an entire blog post with AI, and the blog post tool is also then generating your images for that recipe. So it’s a fake recipe that probably hasn’t even been tested in a real kitchen. And the images are completely unreasonable. Like what you were explaining, like, we don’t want to see it.
Doug: It’s crazy. And then side rant. I love cooking. I grew up watching, like, cooking shows and stuff. And I, I don’t even like, I mean, AI recipes. No fucking way. I’m not into it, but even like food bloggers. Cause like there, some of them, they’re not like, they’re hardly testing the recipe and they’re just like riffing on someone else’s they’re awful.
I fuck, sorry. I really don’t like most like recipe sites because their recipes suck. So I have gone back old school. I have, I have a handful. Of Coco. Yeah, a decent number of ’em in like America’s test kitchen. They’re always solid. I love Alton Brown have his books and usually I could find. You know, whatever I need.
I usually use a recipe as like a guideline versus like following it directly. Yeah. Yeah.
Heather: I’m not a follow the recipe. Exactly. It actually really pisses off my husband because I will make something. It’ll be really fire. One time. The next time I make it, it’s like totally different. He’s like, I don’t know what the hell went wrong, but it’s not the same.
I don’t measure anything. Okay. I did not grow up learning how to cook that way. So it’s just a mystery every time.
Doug: Well, I mean. I want you to be consistent. But yeah, my, my wife she can’t, we’re improvising, right? So yeah, she doesn’t improvise. She’s like, I need like this stuff that’s on the list and I’m not going to alter it.
And I’m like, I’ll, I’ll wing it. We’ll figure this out. Usually it’s, it’s pretty good.
Heather: I think we have some red wine vinegar. I can use that, right?
Doug: Yeah, should be fine. Just throw it in. Yeah. Funny enough, like we had, I’m a half Filipino. So I made chicken adobo yesterday and she, she was like, this isn’t as good.
And I was like, Oh, wait, like, what do you think? And she, she actually called it. She was like, there’s not as much vinegar, which I was like, yeah, it was actually, I was going a little lighter on the vinegar, just kind of winging it today. And then later she was like, actually, it’s pretty good. It was just different than what I expected.
So do you know Filipino food pretty well, or
Heather: Filipino food? My husband being in the military was surrounded by so many different. Cultural just foods because everyone comes together in the military and we would have like these burger burns or what they’re often called, but it’s like a potluck where everyone just kind of brings food from their kitchens.
And we all come together on like a Friday afternoon and they crack open beer and then everyone has food and you can try whatever. And the Filipino food was always my favorite.
Doug: Awesome. Yeah. Not very healthy, but it’s some, some good food. It’s like everything’s fried and it’s carbs and so good though.
Heather: There’s vegetables. They’re hiding, but they’re in there
Doug: a little bit. Yeah. We, we didn’t have much of those.
Yeah. Yeah. And the ponzi, yeah. We would have. Carrots and cabbage. That’s the only time I have that stuff. Okay, moving on back on topic. I could do a whole like food podcast if I wanted to. Okay. So, a minute ago you mentioned videos. Is there a video aspect in Pinterest? Talk about that a little bit.
Heather: There is. Yeah. So Pinterest has evolved their video over the years. We’ve actually had video longer than you could even put video on your Instagram feed. So it’s been a long time and a lot of people actually utilize their reels or their TikTok videos on Pinterest because Most of those are actually made in a way that, and I say most, not all creators do it in a way that is actually beneficial for Pinterest.
So pinners are looking to be inspired. They’re looking to solve problems, much like a Google user would be. They’re looking to buy products. They want to see things that kind of fit those categories of need. So if your videos are also filling those holes, they’re probably a good fit for Pinterest. Now it’s, I believe right now it’s four seconds to four minutes.
of length. So you’re not putting hour long podcast video on there. You’re doing clips. So whether you’re a content creator, whether e commerce or anything in between, you can definitely utilize video on Pinterest. Now, one of the great parts about Pinterest, unlike other platforms, is that you can use the video, put a link on it to your long form video.
If you have a long form video, which is what I do, a podcast episode. If you have a podcast, you’re sending. This clip to or let’s say it’s the shop listing for you know, the cups that you sell It’s a UGC video of someone that is reviewing your cups and you put that on Pinterest. You can drive it back to that product So the goal is traffic driving truly.
So that’s one of the benefits of using your video on Pinterest.
Doug: Could someone Just do video on Pinterest and do well. And I’m, I’m thinking of like, I know LinkedIn for example, is like pushing video, like really hard. So is it like that on Pinterest too?
Heather: You can definitely just do video and drive traffic.
It might take you a while to figure out what style of video is going to do the traffic driving, because there are styles of video that are definitely more awareness that will get a lot of saves or engagement, but they won’t garner a lot of clicks. So. If you’re thinking about it, like you’re a YouTuber and you’re like in that mindset, which I’m, I’m always in because that’s all I do.
What video is going to drive the most action or what I want people to do? Now, I don’t want to drive a lot of people off platform on YouTube because I don’t want to get, you know, I don’t want to get YouTube upset with me, but that’s the goal, right, is to get people to the next thing. So how can I do that?
So be thinking about that in your video strategy for Pinterest, if that’s what you’re wanting to do. But sure. Yeah. You could just use video if you wanted to.
Doug: Okay. So I’m, I’m curious if you had any skills from bookkeeping or accounting or the, the old world that helped you either start or grow or anything with your business.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Heather: Not really, no. I was not creating content. I was not writing. I was not making any graphics. I was doing none of the things that I do in my business when I started. I definitely had to learn and I was watching a lot of YouTube. I was watching a lot of or reading a lot of blogs to learn how to do these things.
And it was very much a, like a college course going through and learning how to do what I do now. Which is, in large part, why I built my membership. Because I want, I want to give accessibility to people that are having problems starting their own business. Or having problems with their own marketing.
Because I don’t want them to have to do what I did and scrape and scrap every little thing together. A lot of people don’t realize, but military families don’t make a lot of money. And when you’re making 12 bucks an hour and you have a college loan and daycare, I was making no money at my job. Literally all of my money for my job was going to pay for my college loans and my daycare costs.
So, I had to really bootstrap it. And count pennies when I started. So, yeah. Sorry, I got some ADHD there and forgot what you were asking. But no, I didn’t know.
Doug: That’s important, though. I mean, I think that’s all, all part of it. Now, like a secondary question. Did you have any entrepreneurship interests like growing up?
Did you like sell something when you were a kid or was this just kind of like out of necessity? You were like, all right, I’m going to figure some of this shit out.
Heather: I, okay. So I’ve never. I felt like I fit into a mold when I was growing up. I wanted to go into, like, mathematical engineering and work for NASA when I was little.
And, like, at that point in time I was watching them send, like, rovers to Mars. And that was just, like, cool as hell. And I was like, yes, let’s do that. But when it came down to, like, brass tacks at the end of high school and I was like, Oh, I have to actually choose a degree program. I went with the easiest thing I could get into, which was accounting.
I almost failed my SAT or ACT test because I was out partying the night before. I forgot my pencils. I forgot my calculator. I didn’t take a jacket. I was screwed. So I could not get into any big colleges on that test and I was broke. I literally moved out on my own when I was 17 and I didn’t have Money to spend on another act.
So I had to, from the very beginning of my adult life, be very curious and be like really buckle down and figure shit out. So I took that with me into entrepreneurship and just like, I’ve been so curious about the world. So curious about like building funnels and making products and why do people want to buy my stuff?
And just willing to give things away for free in order for people to tell me, like, Is this good? Um, so no, I am not I didn’t come from entrepreneurship. I didn’t come from Any sort of background like that. Like my parents worked in very predictable jobs. So.
Doug: Very interesting. I see we’re coming up towards the end of time here, so I need to start wrapping it up, but I feel like we keep talking for a lot longer, especially now we’re uncovering, um, your early days, which sound interesting too.
Okay. So hopefully I could have you back on and we could talk about some other, like. specific thing. But what’s coming up for you in 2025, maybe the next 12? Or 18 months like what’s on the horizon? It sounds like you’re trying to move in certain directions But I won’t put words in your mouth. What’s what’s coming up?
Heather: Yeah, it’s really just more of the same for me I literally I love and thrive on predictability. So I am you know in the midst of Testing out launching a new group program at some point this year. I don’t know when that will be Teaching other people how to do what I’ve done for business, but in a very like real way I know a lot of people online are teaching programs of like how to start your six figure business like that’s not it at all that is like on the horizon, but it’s, I can’t even see it.
It’s like not even visible. I have a sales page and I have some emails, but that’s the extent of it. So it’s really, for me, the predictability is just continuing to build the membership, continuing to invite people in. We don’t know the you know, where the economy is going to go. There’s so much going on in the world right now.
So if I can really lean into the low ticket membership and offer people a way Grow their businesses and make some money. That’s where I’m going to be. So that’s what I’ve decided I’m going to do. And then of course, as always, I have, you know, the agency, and I’m doing a lot of consulting work this year.
Cause I, um, through every fault of my own, attracted the attention of Pinterest last year. So, you know, they’re wanting me to do more for them, which is fantastic. I’m always down to do that, so. That’s what I’m doing. It’s very predictable over here.
Doug: That’s awesome. Very good. Well, where should people find you if they want to learn more and check out the stuff you’re working on?
Heather: Just heatherfarris. com. And it’s Farris with an A. F A R R I S. Everything I do is there. So whether you want to work with me, whether you want to consult with me, if you want to pick my brain, if you want to learn from me, it’s all there.
Doug: Very good. Yeah, we’ll link up to that so people can get to it really easy.
And thanks a lot. It’s been fun chatting with you.
Heather: Thanks, Doug.