#012: How to Expand Your Business Using Group Boards on Pinterest with Kim Vij
Welcome to episode 012 of The Blogger Genius Podcast. My guest is Kim Vij from the blog, The Educators’ Spin on It.
The Educators’ Spin on It has close to 1.6 million followers on Pinterest. In this episode, Kim and I discuss how her account grew so fast on Pinterest, and how to expand your business using group boards on Pinterest.
We also go deep into what it’s like to work with a blogging partner, how to use the new Pinterest lens feature, and why it’s a good idea to teach your audience how best to interact with your content.
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Table of Contents
Transcript – How to Expand Your Business Using Group Boards on Pinterest
Intro: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.
Jillian: [00:00:09] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, my guest is Kim Vij from Educators’ Spin On It, which is a blog and also, she has her other online business, kimvij.com. Welcome, Kim.
Kim: [00:00:26] Thank you so much, Jillian, for having me on the podcast.
Jillian: [00:00:29] It’s a pleasure. So we met because you reached out to me about PinChat, to be a guest. Yes. Tell us. Tell everybody first just what PinChat is, and then we’ll launch into your story.
What is PinChat?
Kim: [00:00:42] Sure. PinChat is a Facebook group that’s been around for I think over five years now. Kelly Lieberman started it, and then she pulled me in a couple years ago to start co-hosting it with her.
Kim: [00:00:54] It was a Twitter chat every week which we’ve been doing for almost five years. We did it every week. We dialed it back a little bit now and doing more lives in the Facebook group itself.
Kim: [00:01:05] It’s more engaging there, and it’s all focused on Pinterest marketing for marketers and for bloggers. We pull in awesome experts like you, to see what’s working for you on Pinterest because we all know it’s all different stories. All different tactics can work. It’s really fun highlighting what’s awesome about different businesses on Pinterest and in the PinChat group.
Jillian: [00:01:29] So you’re an educator. You have a blog, the Educators’ Spin On It. How did that start?
Kim: [00:01:36] Our site, the Educators’ Spin On It, started in 2011 when I sent my daughter off to kindergarten and had a little baby at home. Honestly, I was missing teaching. We had been hosting playgroups for quite some time as a stay-at-home mom and realized that we knew a little bit more than the typical parent on how to get your kid ready for school.
Kim: [00:01:58] So that’s why it started. We thought we’ll put all these ideas out there for parents, and the goal was actually to write a book too which we ended up doing which is pretty fun. That’s how the Educators’ Spin On It got started. It was just sharing ideas with moms.
Jillian: [00:02:13] And you work with a partner.
Kim: [00:02:14] I do. Amanda Asanov is my co-blogger. We taught beside one another at school before all of this, way back when, and then had kids two weeks apart from one another. It was really just an organic kind of growth of partnership and just trying to benefit all the moms around us with educational ideas.
What it’s like working with a blogging partner
Jillian: [00:02:34] And what would you say the best things are about working with a partner and the most challenging?
Jillian: [00:02:42] The best things are that you don’t have to be on 24/7 because someone’s always got your back. We’ve found that we floated back and forth for content for her and myself. That’s really nice not to have it to be all on you.
Jillian: [00:02:57] Each of us has our own skill sets. Pinterest is like my obsession but not necessarily hers. And so we kind of delegated tasks in that way. The drawback is no one is a mind reader. It’s always hard to know what the other person is thinking, where they want to go with things and just to organize each other especially when we are managing busy families.
Jillian: [00:03:20] We’re both moms of three with pretty busy husbands at work so it’s us most of the time trying to do everything. Communication is probably really hard. The world of communication online has changed dramatically though, and what tools we can use to manage that element of it so that helps a lot.
Jillian: [00:03:39] And what tools do you guys use?
Kim: [00:03:42] We’re old school. We still use Google Drive because it’s easy to use.
Jillian: [00:03:45] Doesn’t everybody?
Kim: [00:03:48] Well, I don’t know. There’s some fancy ones out there like Asana. I use different ones with different clients because they all seem to want something different.
Jillian: [00:03:59] Interesting.
Kim: [00:04:00] I’m trying to think. There’s one more, Slack. My son uses that one at IBM so he makes me.
Jillian: [00:04:07] We use Slack.
Kim: [00:04:09] So a lot of different things, yeah.
Jillian: [00:04:09] Catch My Party would not survive without Slack. My assistant lives in Portugal, so we are constantly on Slack.
Jillian: [00:04:19] It’s like “Good morning” and it’s like the end of her day. My husband and I work together and the good news and the bad news is we share an office. We do that on purpose because it just makes communication that much easier. Somebody is right there. It works for us because we have our own domains. I’m busy doing stuff, and he’s busy doing stuff. We’re not stepping on each other’s toes.
Kim: [00:04:53] It’s one baby. It’s always hard to know who’s doing what. I think communication is just key, right?
Jillian: [00:05:00] Absolutely. So let’s talk about your Pinterest story and how you got into Pinterest because this is really interesting?
How The Educators’ Spin on It got over a million and a half followers on Pinterest
Kim: [00:05:09] It’s an interesting story. So we started our blog before Pinterest existed. Early on, it was – do you remember ‘private only’ and you have to be invited in? I joined because I really thought that this is awesome. I can share with my friends ideas really quickly with teachers, friends that were busy working.
Kim: [00:05:30] I thought this is a great way to get things out to them. We joined, started putting our content on, immediately started getting traffic, which was awesome. It made me spend more time there. And then, it went public and we think, although you can’t confirm it, way back when Pinterest used to recommend users to follow when they were signing up for a new account. Because we were kind of one of the beginning ones in education and kids, we got recommended a lot. People were signing up for those topics.
Jillian: [00:06:00] So what you’re saying – I just want to interrupt for one sec. So when you say they went public, you mean because they haven’t gone public like an IPO that they open the doors to everybody. Anybody could sign up. And of course for their onboarding, what they would do is say, “Here are some boards we recommend you to follow.”
Jillian: [00:06:22] They’ve curated boards from lots of people. They might have even asked what are you interested in. Do you think that your board was one of those recommended boards?
Kim: [00:06:32] It was several of our boards actually. We had four of them take off, and it was overnight. You could see thousands and thousands and thousands would come in and ended just around a million followers that came to those accounts. So if you look at any given Pinterest account, that total number isn’t necessarily that total follower coulnt. It’s all the boards kind of added up. You usually have a much lower baseline.
Jillian: [00:06:58] Wait. Could you go back and explain that?
Kim: [00:07:00] Sure. So if you look at most accounts, when you start a brand new board, you will have a base number when you start it. Usually, that number is a lot lower than the total followers of that account.
Kim: [00:07:14] How many is following them? The total followers also factor in group boards and that kind of stuff. It’s super important especially if you are working with others and pitching to others to know you’re pitching the right numbers of who’s really following you. Ours was at like 30,000 at the time just so you kind of know where we were.
Jillian: [00:07:35] So your overall follower number was at 30,000?
Kim: [00:07:39] When it first started, right.
Jillian: [00:07:41] Then you had these, let’s say, you had how many boards total?
Kim: [00:07:45] At that time, we probably had about 100.
Do all your Pinterest boards have the same number of followers?
Jillian: [00:07:48] Okay, so you have a hundred boards but four of them went viral because Pinterest was saying “Here’s a great board. Follow it.” All these people are following it then. Those boards get a million followers. But when you create a new board, let’s say, it will show a follower number, but it’s not going to show a million followers.
Kim: [00:08:12] No. We’ve worked really hard. I’m up to around 160 thousand followers right now.
Jillian: [00:08:16] Got it. So any board you start automatically has that, but your account, if I look at it, it says you have over a million followers.
Kim: [00:08:28] Just want to point that out because I think people don’t realize that about Pinterest.
Jillian: [00:08:32] And why is that important if you’re making a group board or something?
Kim: [00:08:37] I think it’s important just because to know it’s not necessarily the same reach on every board. If your a brand looking for someone to work with, make sure you’re checking those kind of elements. I also think, like for us, our group boards tend to be our more popular boards.
Kim: [00:08:55] So if I’m a new blogger and I’m trying to look for somewhere to join, I’m looking at those numbers because sometimes, they are higher. Sometimes, they’re lower. You have to peek and see but the more followers, the more engagement, the more impressions your blog posts can potentially have.
How to use group boards on Pinterest to grow your business
Jillian: [00:09:11] Right. And if you and, let’s say, three other people want to start a group board, do you still recommend that the person with the highest following start the board?
Kim: [00:09:23] Yes, I would definitely recommend that.
Jillian: [00:09:24] So that you automatically start off with whatever that larger following number is.
Kim: [00:09:30] Another thing, if you’re doing that, if I’m following a person, I don’t necessarily follow the group boards so you do have to let your community know. “Come, follow me. I’ve joined up with so and so, we’re excited to kick off this great board together to give you the latest blank.”
Kim: [00:09:50] I think it’s important to tell your followers because they won’t automatically see it. Only the person who starts the group board will automatically see it.
Jillian: [00:09:58] Interesting. But if you have your baseline – This is complicated. If I start the board, all of my followers, people who follow all of my boards, will automatically follow this board. But you and I start a group board or I start it, let’s say you join it, your followers aren’t automatically going to follow that board. That’s what you’re saying.
Kim: [00:10:30] Correct. They won’t necessarily see what you’re pinning. They’ll always see what I’m pinning. But they won’t necessarily see what you’re painting on that group board.
Jillian: [00:10:37] Got it. And so what is your strategy with group boards?
Kim: [00:10:42] I adore group boards because it helps me pin content that I was already pinning to begin with. Before we even had Pinterest analytics, I kind of realized who I was tending to pin more content over and over and invited them, reached out through email after connecting on their blogs, and said, “Would you like to focus on this area with me?”
Kim: [00:11:05] I think on group boards, you need to pick a focus. [00:11:09] A curated [0.9] strategy is key on Pinterest. I think you and I have both heard the rumor mill of group boards not being as effective as they used to be.
Jillian: [00:11:19] Can we talk about how if I’m a new blogger, why do I want to get onto group boards?
Kim: [00:11:29] A group board gives you the potential for exposure that you don’t have as a new blogger. It also allows you to perhaps be seen as an expert in that niche that you’re trying to focus in.
Kim: [00:11:43] If you are online on a group board with a whole lot of others that are extremely talented in that area, then all of a sudden, that association can help you move forward in what you’re trying to do on your own site. I think also it can be used as a feeder board to your boards.
Jillian: [00:12:02] What do you mean by that?
Kim: [00:12:03] I look at my group boards. I look at what’s recently been pinned. I use those to schedule to other pins onto my other boards that are just my boards because I’m always looking for good content. If my friends are willing to put it there, then I’m going to schedule it out for them, and we’ll community-build together and that I think is where you see that massive growth together as the tide rises together of a group board.
Jillian: [00:12:31] And you were saying that people, and I’ve heard this too that group boards are aren’t as helpful. What is your take? What is your thought about that?
Kim: [00:12:39] Group boards can be helpful if they’re focused and active. If a group board is a hot mess of everything, Pinterest and any search engine has a hard time figuring out what that board is about. It won’t get served as quickly as a board that’s hyper-specific.
Kim: [00:12:56] For example, one of our popular boards is reading activities. That was one of those that was really popular and went over a million followers, and I wasn’t able to feed it as fast as I wanted to. I invited four reading experts onto that board and have them also pinning reading advice onto that board simply because I knew there was an interest and a high need for it.
Jillian: [00:13:19] Got it. How does it work in terms of for your group boards’ rules about all the people that you have pinning? First of all, how many people do you typically invite to your boards, and then do you set up rules about number of pins in that kind of thing?
Kim: [00:13:39] My group boards are really different than typical group boards. I invite peers that I know, and we have a Facebook group where we communicate. It’s more a mastermind group in essence because it’s not just about Pinterest, because I’m probably tweeting out their content or Facebooking.
Kim: [00:13:58] The rule is you’re pinning on the bigger ones. When I say bigger, it’s only 60 people. I don’t have anything really bigger than that personally. Now, I am on a couple very large ones. Kid Blogger Network is one that comes to mind. It’s one of my favorite kids’ activity boards that has some really good reach on it whenever you pin things there.
Kim: [00:13:59] I think it’s close to a thousand people that are on that board. It’s a lot. So you’re only on that board, pinning your own content. Again, we all work in a whole other Facebook group together. It really is a community of bloggers trying to work together. I tend honestly to stay away from group boards that have policies that are written at the top of it because they’re taking away keyword possibilities. .
Kim: [00:13:59] Why would you waste that space, when you could be writing what that board is about? It’s one of my favorite kids’ activity boards that has some really good reach on it whenever you pin things there.
Jillian: [00:14:56] Can I stop you there so we can catch everybody up on what we’re talking about? So some group boards come together, and people, let’s say, want to ask to join a group board, and you can tell who owns the board by the first person that shows up out of all the people in that board.
Jillian: [00:15:15] You can reach out to that person via Pinterest or if you can find them on other social media platforms to say, “Hey, can I join this board?” Sometimes, if it’s a really big board, they want to write up in the description the rules like one pin per day or that kind of thing.
Jillian: [00:15:38] What you’re saying is Pinterest is a search engine so any place that you can put words on your board descriptions or on your own profile, you want to be putting keywords in because that is how Pinterest finds boards, shares your content.
Jillian: [00:15:55] If you’re putting stuff like only pin one pin a day, Pinterest is reading that going what is this board about, versus let’s say insta-pot recipes. You’re saying that hurts the SEO of that board within Pinterest. You kind of are less inclined to want to participate in a board like that.
Kim: [00:16:17] Yeah, definitely. And it also tells me a little bit that the group board owner doesn’t necessarily have control of the board. I recommend anyone who has a Pinterest account to always work with someone who mirrors the style that you think your readers are attracted to.
Kim: [00:16:37] If you’re on a group board and you wouldn’t naturally be pinning the content that’s on there because you don’t think your readers will love it, it’s probably not a good fit for you anyway. There’s other dynamics that you can use to analyze.
Kim: [00:16:51] You can use your Pinterest analytics and see if that’s one of your top performing boards. I use a tool like Tailwind to look and see which group board is getting the most engagement. If I’m on a group board and it’s not getting any engagement, it’s going to hurt the impressions I’m getting on my account.
Jillian: [00:17:08] And do you mean engagement, meaning your people aren’t pinning to the board or people aren’t repinning the pins?
Kim: [00:17:17] If I see a group board not getting a lot of pins and not getting a lot of new followers, that tells me that board, something about it isn’t working. I would jump in and do a whole email thread or a Facebook thread with that whole group and say, “Okay, guys. Either we’re doing it or we’re not. We’ve got to up our game because it’s not important anymore to anyone because we’re not active there. Active is good.
Why you need to be selective about the group boards you join
Jillian: [00:17:48] Yes, my recommendation is to be selective about the group boards you join, that group boards can be very beneficial, but if there’s a group board that could be open to anybody, then it’s really kind of serving nobody. To look at the content and go, “Does this all feel cohesive? Does it all feel like it’s telling a story, being of service?” Would I want my pins in this board or not, because just dumping your pin somewhere isn’t going to help you. It might hurt you.
Kim: [00:18:18] It might hurt you. I’ve seen people who join many group boards, and they can’t keep track. If you’re not using something, that’s not effective either. You may have to kind of micromanage that in terms of volume too.
Jillian: [00:18:31] Yes, absolutely. When you stumble on Pinterest and the Pinterest gods shined down on you, because that doesn’t happen anymore, anybody who’s looking for the Pinterest gods.
Kim: [00:18:44] Let’s make that really clear. It does not happen. And I don’t even know that followers are as important anymore. Now, it’s categories and interest on Pinterest.
Jillian: [00:18:53] Right. Absolutely. I would say for Catch My Party, we have now close to 700,000 followers. I would say that the follower count is a signal to Pinterest. Again, I don’t know their algorithm but that is a signal to Pinterest that our account matters, that 700,000 people said we like this. We tend to get good engagement because of that, but it becomes more muddled than when all of your pins show to every single person who followed you. It just doesn’t work like that anymore.
Kim: [00:19:26] Right. It doesn’t.
Jillian: [00:19:30] So Pinterest definitely works for you, guys. You’ve doubled down on it. You’ve created a whole consulting business around that. We’ll talk about that in a sec. But then how else are you using other social networks to support Educators’ Spin On It?
Here’s a Pin It For Later strategy
Kim: [00:19:55] I don’t know if I necessarily use other platforms. I know I should be using more Facebook at times. I will share, pin it for later. There was a time where that was kind of not recommended because it was Facebook, and Facebook and Pinterest didn’t get along with one another, but I can tell you, my friend Christina, she share that every single time. She has over a million followers on Facebook. That strategy works for her account on Facebook.
Jillian: [00:20:27] Can you explain what that means?
Kim: [00:20:28] She’ll put a post out on Facebook, and below it, she’ll say pin it for later, or pin it, even with a link to her pin, and it happens every single time. She’s got high engagement of really active community members there on Facebook.
Kim: [00:20:46] I think that’s where it does work for her account. It’s because she’s always done it that way. I think as we train our community that this is what works, then we keep doing that.
Kim: [00:20:58] Every once in a while, tweet out really popular pins to try to get them going a little even more. That strategy works for us in my email. I do include a link to the post but I also tell them they can pin it for later.
Kim: [00:21:14] I link it to the most popular pin I already have with that post on Pinterest and encourage them. “I know you can’t visit right now so just go ahead and pin it, because you know you’re gonna want to do it with the kids this week” kind of thing.
Kim: [00:21:27] That seemed to be helping. I have a friend, Taylor, at Household Management 101, she highlights one a week. She’s got over a million followers on her Facebook account. Her Facebook community, it’s over 100,000 members so I know that strategy is working for her too.
Why you want to teach your community the best way to interact with your content
Kim: [00:21:45] Take a strategy and keep with it. You basically teach your community. I’m on Pinterest, and it’s important to you. I think teaching your community, no matter what topic you pin about, how to use Pinterest for your blog is important.
Jillian: [00:22:01] Explain that.
Kim: [00:22:02] There are different ways to do it. I’ll just use mine, because Educators’ Spin on It is educational activities. Teaching them that if you want to plan out your week with your child, create a board of activities for your child.
Kim: [00:22:19] Every time you see something great, pin them here. We happen to provide a weekly plan for our members so that’s something you could consider doing, and telling them to pin it there and use it in planning vacations with your travel blogger, planning meal plans if you are a food blogger. Obviously, planning a party with the board.
How to use the Pinterest Lens feature
Kim: [00:22:39] If you don’t tell them to do it, sometimes they won’t. It’s kind of give them that prompt of how to use it and the lens feature now on Pinterest because a whole another element of how they can use, if you’re product based, your products.
Jillian: [00:22:54] Okay. You have to talk about that. Explain what that is.
Kim: [00:22:59] The lens, which seems to be Pinterest’s huge push right now, is the ability to take your phone, pull up Pinterest and take a photo of a product anywhere or picture or appliance. Like literally anything, and it will pull up any related pins on Pinterest that relates visually based on the visual search engine of Pinterest to that product.
Kim: [00:23:24] The hope is that the products for sale with a “Buy it Now” pin or a blog post about it, how to use X, Y or Z.
Jillian: [00:23:36] Right. So let’s say we go out for coffee and you’re wearing these awesome shoes. I can take a photo of those shoes, and let’s say you bought them at Nordstrom. Pinterest will recognize those awesome shoes and show me a pin from Nordstrom that could be like a Buy it Now pin.
Kim: [00:23:55] When you look it up, you can buy it there.
Jillian: [00:23:57] Yeah, I could just buy those shoes.
Kim: [00:24:00] Yes, ma’am.
Jillian: [00:24:01] Okay, and how is that working for you? Because to be honest, I’m not really using it.
Kim: [00:24:06] You know, a secret here, I don’t shop online that often. Only you and I know this.
Jillian: [00:24:15] Yes. Nobody else.
Kim: [00:24:16] I’m a hands-on shopper. I haven’t used it in terms of buying things but I have used it secretly on plants. Whenever you see really cool plant when you’re on a walk, I want to know the name so I can have that small garden.
Kim: [00:24:30] I use it for that. It’s probably not what they had in mind for but I love that about Pinterest. You make it work for your lifestyle.
Jillian: [00:24:39] You’ll see a pin with that. Are they good at determining what that plant is?
Kim: [00:24:43] They’re pretty good at it. It’s a visual search engine. Yeah, it gets pretty close to it. I’ve used it like at a friends house if I saw a quote I really loved and I didn’t want to forget it. We all have them in our homes hanging up.
Kim: [00:24:58] I’ll scan her quote, a better photo of it to begin with that it will show me a principal option or a viable option with a frame. I’ve used it that way before. Toys, I think, is another one when I’m at a friend’s house or a book and I see something I love. That’s where in everyday life, it would really work. Again, I’m a teacher by heart. My background is really childhood education so that’s my little world.
Jillian: [00:25:26] But that’s kind of interesting. I hadn’t really thought about it like I’m at somebody’s house. I see a book. I want to buy it. I’d have to go to Amazon and type in the name versus on Pinterest, I could just use that and then hopefully, just buy it off the platform.
Kim: [00:25:40] To bring it back, how would I use that for me? I blogged a lot about books. That’s actually how I make a lot of my money on Amazon. I’m always putting out book lists related to this and that and this season and that topic.
Kim: [00:25:54] And so if you’re writing blog posts on what you think is a high demand for your niche, those review posts, those affiliate link posts, that’s how you’re going to show up when people are using the lens. Do I think everyone’s using it? No, I don’t, but this is what I mean by “if you teach your readers how to do it, they will come.”
Jillian: [00:26:15] I love that.
Kim: [00:26:17] So it’s something to think about because I don’t think they’re giving up on this project. I think they’re going to keep pushing it too, so we really use it. Again, the lens also works in Pinterest itself or on a website. If you’re in Chrome, you can click on an image and then, it will visually scan Pinterest and find related blog posts to that as well.
Jillian: [00:26:38] Wait, say that again.
Kim: [00:26:40] So on any image on Pinterest, there’s a little bracket. That’s the search lens. Also, if you’re on Chrome on any website, it does the same thing on an image. It will then pull any relative pins to those images.
Jillian: [00:26:55] Yes. I always think it’s interesting when you see other related pins and how good they are. Yeah, it’s pretty impressive.
Kim: [00:27:02] Sometimes, I think like the first few like nail it, right on and then, it gets a little watered down. I think it’s the more we learn how it works, the more effective our images will be for that search.
Recommended Pinterest tools to grow and manage your account
Jillian: [00:27:14] Can you recommend some tools that you use that if somebody were starting out, you would recommend they use for their Pinterest marketing?
Kim: [00:27:25] I think we mentioned Tailwind earlier. I think MiloTree would be one of my go-to ones that I do recommend especially if you’re new to Pinterest marketing, and you really want to tell people “I’m here. Come see me on Pinterest.”
Kim: [00:27:40] It’s so easy to integrate into your site, and the way you can choose which options and where it’s popping up from. I love the fact that you have analytics in there, so that a blogger can see the difference it’s making of adding it to their site.
Kim: [00:27:56] It makes a big difference in the fact that you can alter not just from Pinterest but to Facebook, Instagram and even in newsletters. I just think it’s a great tool for beginning bloggers to utilize.
Jillian: [00:28:07] Thank you. I’m going to need to hire you. Do you have one piece of advice that you wished you knew then that you know now?
Advice: Have a plan for people when they come to your site
Kim: [00:28:18] I wish someone would have pressed pause when I started speaking at events and said, “Before you do that, have a plan of what you’re doing when the people come to your site.” I just I wish someone said, “You’re going to actively highlight your talents on your site and you have this unique point of view and design style but how are you going to drive them into a funnel, to a product, to a community, to an email subscriber.”
Kim: [00:28:45] I wish somebody would have said that before I started because I was very busy and active, but I don’t think that I necessarily captured the revenue and the online subscribers that I wish I would have years ago.
Jillian: [00:29:00] Got it. You’ve been talking at conferences for a while about Pinterest.
Kim: [00:29:04] I have. I really enjoy teaching and I think once that happened, I became obsessed with Pinterest and how it really works. I went speaking because I wanted to teach others how it worked. I wish sooner, I would have had a course ready for people and had more of a consistent thing for them to come to.
Jillian: [00:29:24] So now how have you rectified that?
Kim: [00:29:28] Well, I’m working on my course. It’s actually coming out this spring. I’m pretty excited about that. My friends have pushed me enough to make me do it.
Kim: [00:29:39] The hesitation has been there because Pinterest changes a lot. I’ve kind of figured out a way to continually update that element to it. At the end of the day, the foundation is very much the same. I’ve trained enough people over the years to realize that you have to have certain ducks in a row for it to work. It’s really about the ducks in a row kind of thing. I’m working on that.
Pin Smart Academy Pinterest course
Jillian: [00:30:04] And that’s called Pin Smart Academy?
Kim: [00:30:08] Yeah, Pin Smart Academy.
Jillian: [00:30:10] And people could find that at kimvij.com?
Kim: [00:30:13] They can find it at kimvij.com. It’s not live yet but it will be at pinsmartacademy.com too.
Jillian: [00:30:20] Oh, good Okay. And so what is this thing right now in your business that you’re most excited about?
Kim: [00:30:27] This is the thing I’m most excited about right now. It’s long term. I’ve been working on it, changing it, fixing it and making it perfect for everybody. I’m very excited about that right now with the Pinterest element of what I do to monetize my online efforts.
Kim: [00:30:44] And with our Educators’ Spin On It, I’m working on a few e-products coming out. It isn’t something we did a lot of. I have some ebooks coming out which I’m excited about too.
Jillian: [00:30:57] What are some of the topics?
Kim: [00:30:57] Cooking with kids, learning another language, and gardening with your kids. Those are actually the topics. They’re series that were on the blog that did well, and how you never fit that all in on the site because you want to space it out. It’s going to be a nice, little package and a lot of supporting things to do at home with your kids, because there’s just things I’m passionate about that I think our kids learn through everyday moments often with those topics.
Jillian: [00:31:27] One thing again that I really respond to is looking at your blog posts, seeing which blog posts have done well and then seeing if you can turn those into a product that you can sell on your site.
How to use Pinterest to test your book content
Kim: [00:31:43] Even with our book, say our book was done that way too based on Pinterest. We marketed with A/B testing to see which activities got the most engagement. That’s where 100 activities came from. We pulled, I think, only 6 activities from our site that were really popular and then it branched out from that. We use Pinterest a lot for that.
Jillian: [00:32:10] So you put pins up and saw which ones perform the best?
Kim: [00:32:14] Yeah.
Jillian: [00:32:15] That’s terrific. That’s really terrific.
Kim: [00:32:19] It’s a free marketing tool for serving your crowd. You just put different options up. You have to make sure obviously your parameters are similar because time of day matters, the image matters, and all those fun things. That’s the fun of Pinterest. It’s not so permanent that you can’t just take it away if it’s not doing well or move for it, because people don’t follow every pin that you do. You just have to play around over there.
Jillian: [00:32:48] Right. Kim, this has been terrific. Tell people where they can reach you, how they can talk to you that kind of thing.
Kim: [00:32:55] Yeah. If you want to chat with me about Pinterest and all that world that I live in, you can find me at kimvij.com. If you want to talk about educational activities for kids, you can find me at the educatorsspinonit.com and on Twitter, it’s @EducatorsSpin. I love connecting with people on Twitter. I miss doing our Pin Chats every week, so definitely connect with me over there. And that’s about it.
Jillian: [00:33:21] Thank you.
Kim: [00:33:23] Thank you so much for having me on this. It’s been fun.
Jillian: [00:33:25] If you’re trying to grow your social media followers on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest, plus trying to grow your email list, definitely check out MiloTree.
Jillian: [00:33:38] It is the smart pop-up you add to your blog or your site, and it asks your visitors to follow you on social media or subscribe to your list. Just a couple of things: it’s super easy to add to your site. We offer a WordPress plugin or a simple line of code. It’s Google-friendly so you don’t have to worry about showing pop-ups on mobile. It’s lightning fast. It won’t slow your site down, and you can grow multiple platforms at once.
Jillian: [00:34:10] So check it out, milotree.com.
