Nicole Laino  

Hello, and welcome to the Limitless Entrepreneur Podcast. I’m your host, Nicole Laino. And I’m here with a special guest today, my friend, Linda Barutha is here with me. And she is, well, she’s a lot of things. Linda, you are and you are an expert and an authority in a lot of areas. But in particular, we’re here to talk about your Pin To Win strategy. And I’m going to kick it over to you, you can introduce yourself to the audience, say hello, let them know what you want them to know about you. And then I’m dying to get into this conversation about Pinterest.

Linda Barutha  

Well, first of all, Nicole, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Um, yeah, I am basically a lead generation strategist. Although, yes, my prior life in the entrepreneur space has covered things like direct marketing of beauty sale, beauty products, I owned my own brick and mortar in the arts and crafts industry. And then I also have been a website freelance designer. So yeah, I have a lot of tools in my belt, but, these days, I focus on lead generation marketing, because first of all, the reason that I chose Pin To Win to be my number one strategy is that I see too many people relying on social media, and thinking that that’s their marketing plan. That goes against, that’s not working smarter, you’re working harder, because you’re not capturing their emails. And, you know, building up that audience that you can always email to. So that’s number one. Number two, your, you know, things like try and find a post on Facebook or Instagram that you saw, and you wanted to share with somebody and you forgot. And as soon as you scroll by it, you know, practically you can’t find it again, because the content on those platforms doesn’t last very long. Everything’s constantly scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, right. So I prefer the power of utilizing platforms that improve your SEO, search engine optimization. And the reason that I prefer that is because I am improving my Google rankings, which means the the odds of somebody finding me when they just go to Google and type in for what they’re, you know, something that I do, my odds are getting better and better all the time if I have great SEO. And so what people don’t realize is that the top three search engines are Google, of course, is number one, YouTube is number two, which is also owned by Google. And the third largest is Pinterest. And so some people don’t even realize that they think it’s just another social media platform, but it’s really not.

Nicole Laino  

I know. And that is, that is one of the things that I think is so interesting, because you don’t really think about Pinterest, or YouTube as a search engine. But that is absolutely how they function, which is super cool. And if you understand SEO, and you understand the power of search, like your mind should be exploding right now. It should be kind of like, we obviously, and I think also one of the things that’s so great about this is–and for anybody who’s you know, for the listener out there who feels like social media is just not their jam. And it could feel a bit like it to me, I liken social media to high school a lot of times and you know, there’s some days where you feel like you know, you’re having a really great day and then other days, you’re just looking around, you’re like, I don’t belong here. And to feel like that’s the only way that you can get clients can be really disempowering. If you don’t feel like one of the cool kids. If you don’t feel like you’re running at the front of the pack.

Linda Barutha

Exactly. Because the cool kids are saying you better have a Facebook group. That’s the way you’re gonna grow your audience. There is more than one way to run a business. What people don’t realize like referral networking is you know, my favorite and that’s how I met you. Right? And so what people don’t realize is there’s like all these other professionals that are making all that great six figure money that, you know, people brag about on social media lately, that’s the latest trend brag, brag brag, because they’re trying to, you know, give you FOMO. But there’s a whole nother group of professionals that have an online business, but they’re not active on social media in order to find their clients, they actually value establishing a rapport with their clients and getting to know them. Right, and just provide stellar services. So people forget that, because it’s the online space, we think you have to be on Facebook and Instagram.

Nicole Laino  

Yeah. And I want people to feel how empowering it could be like, what if you could, it doesn’t mean, there’s still content, we have to–content is still what we are talking about. We’re just talking about a different delivery mechanism. We’re talking about a different way of connecting with people to your content. And I do think that these strategies, your content needs to be pretty great to put it on there. But if you have a great keyword strategy and Pinterest strategy, or somewhat of a SEO strategy, you could have clients coming to you while you sleep. Quite literally. So let’s talk about your–tell us what Pin To Win is.

Linda Barutha

Okay. So Pin To Win is a Pinterest strategy, where we utilize your existing content. And this is what people don’t really think about when they create content, they feel like they constantly have to be on that hamster wheel of creating new content. But okay, every blog post, every lead magnet, you know, that’s your opt-in freebie to get on your email list, right? Um, every video, every piece of content, pretty much can all be repurposed on Pinterest. And so what you want to do is, I’m going to give you an example the way it works. Let’s say I have a lead magnet, it’s my free Pin To Win mini course that is delivered via private podcast, okay. So, I have that opt in on a page on my website, right? And I apply, you know, the keywords to that on my website as well. But then my Pin To Win strategist, she takes it, she creates up to four graphics, different graphics for the same thing that are going to point to that URL for that page on your web site. And she’s also going to apply the keywords that people would put in searching for this type of information. Right? And then she also, and this is where, you know, we we also opt, you know, it’s a business Pinterest account, you don’t pay extra for that, we optimize the account, meaning we do things like we claim through Pinterest we claim your website, so it recognizes it, we apply the keywords that you want people to find you for, we make sure and optimize what your title and description is of your account, things like that, right? That’s all optimization. And then what happens is, that person finds you on Pinterest, they see this beautiful graphic, and it’s saying things they want more info. Oh, Pin to Win mini course that’s free. I want to check that out. So they click the link, and they get to your website. And then they can choose if they want to opt in. Here’s the thing, you’ve just went through and used the power of SEO. And every time you do that, it improves your Google rankings. Okay, so the more stuff when we run our Pin To Win on average, we are creating 35 new pins a month for you and pointing to all of this stuff. We also utilize the power of Tailwind communities. Tailwind is a scheduler, but it’s much more than that. Tailwind has a very tight relationship with Pinterest, and so they’re the ones that are going to keep us current. So we only want to be utilizing, like our strategist only uses what’s current going on for Pinterest, you know, like, let’s say, you know how sites make algorithm changes, right? We stay up to date and current all the time for our clients, so we know what’s going on. So we are going to utilize whatever Pinterest is saying is a best practice for utilizing their platform. But by participating with Tailwind communities, and this is what we do on the client’s behalf, is we find communities that are highly engaging, and on Pinterest, and that are similar, that they would be happy to reshare your pins. So now, your reach has grown exponentially. Okay, it’s not just about who your followers are, like, let’s say, in my account, right now, I’ll use real life numbers, okay. Like, you know, I probably have like, 700 some followers, right? But my reach because of the communities is, last week, it was 272,000. So they are, it’s like having these little ambassadors out there that are helping grow your audience and get in the front, you know, of your audience, who you really want to attract. And, with analytics that you get within Pinterest, you can see and measure who’s actually clicking over to your site, and things like that. So, it’s very powerful, it increases your email list, in addition to improving your SEO.

Nicole Laino  

And so talk to me about if someone hasn’t used Pinterest before, what can they put on Pinterest? How could somebody get Pinterest wrong? Because I think it gets very simplified where it just, you know, like I, I think a lot of people when they think of Pinterest, they think of like, I’m redecorating my house, and I take all of the ideas for great looking kitchens and put them in a board. Isn’t that what Pinterest is? Talk to us about, like, how that is overly simplified and how this can really be applied to someone who’s looking to get started with this if they were looking to get started on their own? What would they most likely get wrong?

Linda Barutha

Um, usually it’s things like the optimization of their account. Keyword searches. You know, it’s one thing you can go onto Pinterest and pin, like you said, one of the first things that I usually have to educate the business owner on is that the majority of people think that Pinterest is just for foodies. I go there for recipes, go there for you know, home decor items, you know, inspiration, DIY stuff, crafters, things like that. And that is a myth. The reality is online businesses do very well on Pinterest, because, again, we have lots of valuable content. So we need to be sharing it. And it is, you know, as long as you make beautiful graphics, that’s part of it, too. That’s something that they could get wrong. If you’re not really good at design, that’s where you’ll go wrong. I’ve seen quite a few things where you just cringe, you know. And that’s the other thing you want to be somewhat branded. But you also want to stay current with what’s really appealing to people. That’s why we make like four different graphics we want to test and see which one is resonating, which style is resonating the most with our audience.

Nicole Laino  

So when you say creating four different graphics, you’re creating them for the same thing. You’re saying like okay, I have this lead magnet, I have my Pin To Win lead magnet. It’s a mini course I’m going to make a, using my brand colors. I’m going to mix them around and make one mostly text. I’m going to use a graphic and one I’m going to, you know, if you’d have four different versions, which is basically like if you were running ads, you’d have A/B testing. Let’s test the different creative in different ways with the same copy, and then we’ll change the copy with the same images. And that’s how you start to understand what your audience is responding to. And also recognizing that that changes over time too. There’s certain trends in the market. So I would think that staying up on those things, is that something that your team does? And is it something that people should pay attention to or maybe overlook?

Linda Barutha

Oh, definitely. It’s always overlooked. I’ll give you a perfect example. A couple weeks ago, in a Facebook group, there was an online business manager who said that she uses a Pinterest strategy, right? So somebody asked her very specifically, how do I get started? Right? And the answer that she gave them was one year old. The way Pinterest you ran a year ago. She is not an Pinterest strategist. I believe that if you’re a Pinterest strategist, you are saying on top of the changes today, every day, right? And I’m like, I have an agency. I have a contracted Pinterest strategist that works for us. And so and that’s all she does. This is the other huge mistake, people think they go well, you know, I don’t want to pay you for my services. So what if I just have my VA do it, you know, my virtual assistant do it for me, your virtual assistant is not knowledgeable. You know, I had a VA agency before I kind of migrated over to just a marketing agency. And I can tell you from working with VAs, VAs are strictly task oriented. Okay? I mean, there are different levels. There’s some tech VAs, and then there’s admin VAs, but even a tech VA, unless they work with Pinterest every day, and are, you know, dedicated to that, they are not going to be aware of what’s currently working there. They’re not going to be aware of the changes. And so you’re going to be, you could be doing more harm than good to your accounts. 

Nicole Laino  

And how could they do harm to their account? Is it just that it wouldn’t be…?

Linda Barutha

I wouldn’t perform as well. It wouldn’t perform as well as it could.

Nicole Laino  

And putting, you know, throwing money at it through your VA and paying for it when you could pay a little bit more and have someone set you up? Is it, so when you’re talking about–I’m curious, is it, what’s the difference in something that can you give an example of something that changed that a year ago was working and isn’t now? Or something with the algorithm? Like because I think maybe we just need to expand on that idea? Because I think we think that search is search and keywords are keywords. So what could be changing that would have a huge effect on whether our pins get found or not?

Linda Barutha

Well, perfect example is the algorithm. Every platform has a unique algorithm. And the algorithm is what kind of, kind of the brains of the way it’s going to respond to what you put into it. Okay, so on Facebook, on Instagram, we see this all the time, perfect example. Instagram, used to always be, we use always be told to use 30 different hashtags, right? All of a sudden, I saw my Instagram strategist say, “oh, now they’re down to five.” Right? And that just was announced like a week ago, or whatever I saw her say that. And that’s just it, that’s a perfect example that changes how you work the system. And if you don’t follow what that platform has changed their algorithm to you, you know, unknowingly, your stuff’s not going to perform as well.

Nicole Laino  

Right. And what can people see happening with the right Pinterest strategy? So what are the type of what’s, what is their world of content on Pinterest? What does it look like? Does it look like they are, are they repurposing social media posts? Are they pointing to social media posts? How does it work? Like what can they be taking that they’ve already created? Because I think that the repurposing aspect of this is huge, because we’re all these content machines and we’re creating stuff all the time. So can I put my YouTube videos on Pinterest? Is this just a mechanism to be pointing to all the things I’ve created? Or do I have to take them all and put them someplace?

Linda Barutha

Well, here’s the thing. Good question. First of all, I love it that it’s a repurposing. Okay, I love anytime you can make that content more valuable, and get longevity out of it. And this was the other unique thing before I forget it. Is that your content, let’s say you say, oh, I just wrote this new blog post. Let me share the link and talk a little bit about it on a Facebook post or Instagram, right? Okay, that’s hunky dory. But then what? Right, it just dies. Whereas when you pin it on Pinterest, it lasts forever. I have pins. I’ve been on Pinterest since it pretty much started. And I used to be in the craft and hobby industry. And I had a product based business. So I relied heavily on Pinterest back then. And so I have plenty of boards that are full of that stuff from that industry to this day. And I’ve been out of that industry for years now. But five years to this day, I still keep getting pins repinned, they don’t care. They don’t care that that information’s been there a while. They still want to see it, they still want to see that blog post, you know, because it’s still valuable. 

Nicole Laino  

So when they’re finding it, let’s talk a little bit about how people find it. So you’ve just mentioned boards, which is an important piece of Pinterest. So how does that work? So okay, so I got 800 repins? How does that help me?

Linda Barutha

Oh, well, that helps you a lot. Because basically, anytime somebody repins what you shared, um, they are basically getting it in front of their audience for you. So and then if their audience likes it now, and you know, pins it. Now, you know, you’ve gotten a new audience, right, a new follower. Because basically, the likelihood then of Pinterest showing them more things from you is going to happen. And if they keep pinning your stuff it’s just going to keep happening.

Nicole Laino  

And is that from things like where people are following boards by certain people, or they’re following that person so they get notified of everything that they repin and that they pin? Is that how it it kind of, I’m just trying to paint the picture for everybody about how the reach actually, how do you get to 200,000 plus reach?

Linda Barutha 

Right? Well, um, it’s the reshares, right? The communities that are helping boost you. But also, so, boards are basically just a way for you to categorize, and find your pins that you’ve saved more easily. Okay? So you’re helping when you have just nice descriptive boards. First of all, Pinterest likes that. They want a clear description. And of course, when it’s optimized, it also has your keywords in it, in the title of the board. That’s another thing. So you have these boards, right? And it’s basically a way for you to categorize things. So I clearly keep my craft and hobby stuff, separate from my online service based business, right? Um, you know, I’ve got information out there that helps the online entrepreneur, so I have very distinct boards for that information. It might be something about lead gen, it might be something about, you know, how to get started on something, right? Anyways, it just, it helps. And so yes, it’s gives the potential audience more than one way to find you, when they do a search. Because it’s not just a matter of finding a person, but when what happens a lot of times is a pinner, they’ll pin and save something that they liked. And then all of a sudden, they see a couple other things they like, and they start noticing who the author is. And that’s typically when they’ll say, oh, I want to follow this person because I definitely like more than one thing that they put out there. It’s kind of how you gain a follower.

Nicole Laino  

Gotcha. And is there a particular type of content that tends to do better than others that you see, or does it depend completely on the audience on the person?

Linda Barutha

Completely on the audience, yeah. And that’s why I mean, okay, like, I have one person I just talked to the other day, and she has a yarn company. And so she’s selling a physical product. And that’s very visual. And it’s in the arts and crafts space, right? It’s gonna do very well on Pinterest. But surprisingly, I also see, I was just capturing a picture. I did a search for online business coaches on Pinterest. That’s all I typed in. And it’s super interesting, because first of all, there’s a lot of them out there. And second of all, when it comes up with their name and their title, and it’ll say, how many followers they have, you can tell that the ones that have followers in the 1000s, they’re using a Pinterest strategy. And what was interesting to me is that, um, I recognized a couple of the coaches that were listed, and I know them to be highly successful, but I also know that I never see them on social media. You know what I mean? And I was like, ah, so they are utilizing the power of Pinterest to do the work for them, to get them in front of potential new clients. That’s one other thing people need to understand. This is lead generation, it is the top of your funnel, which means it’s the beginning stage of making people aware of the fact that you exist. So when people go, well, how many sales can I get out of this? I can’t tell you that. Because this is a strategy for leads, but that’s the beginning. Right? So you know, it’s like saying, well, this person’s walking through the door of Walmart, as soon as they walk through the door, how much money can I expect them to spend today? Well, I don’t know that yet. Do I? I’m just I’m just getting you through the door. And that’s what this strategy does.

Nicole Laino  

And do you see this have success with like evergreen funnels, where you’re driving traffic to Evergreen, because that’s, that’s sort of where my mind goes to right away is, you know, where they’re searching, they find you. And then it’s plugging you into some sort of nurture sequence instantly, where you’re capitalizing on the fact that you got them in with something, you hooked them enough to say, yeah, I want more info, I’m gonna click this link, I’m going to follow through, and then you’re like, hey, watch these three videos or something, and, you know, go through this course go through this, and something that nurtures them instantly. Do you see that having success?

Linda Barutha

Very, very much so. And I’ll give you another example. One of my favorite things to get on Pinterest is every podcast episode. Because if you’re doing a podcast, you have all your own podcasts, you should have show notes and everything on a page on your website. And me that is so powerful, because again, you’re going to open the possibility of more people finding you. And you know, to increase your audience, your listeners, because they’re out on Pinterest, and they see the topic of what you know, they see the graphic and they like it and they click it, it takes them to your website, they can see the description, the show notes, and they can press play. Right there, they don’t have to leave. Now, let’s not forget about that awesome SEO that you just used. And so you’re beefing up your Google rankings every single time.

Nicole Laino  

Yeah, and for anybody who’s listening that doesn’t believe in the power of it, I want you to pay attention to your own behavior. Like, when you want to know how to do something. Where you start is outside of like, outside of unless I want a haircut or something in a new city. And I’m like, I’m going to look on Instagram for this because I want to know like, I want to search #austinhaircolor and I want to look at their work and I want to book with somebody. Outside of that it’s Google. Outside of that, it’s some form of a search engine that is always pointing me to the top ranking things are usually some sort of YouTube video or a Pinterest pin. And pay attention to that. Pay attention to how much you click through. Pay attention to you know, the blogs and how they are set up, where those blogs, they lead you somewhere. They’re either an affiliate commission or, or something. And that’s where I think it takes you out of that, you know, when you start out in entrepreneurship, usually social media is the first place that you start, because it’s free, it’s available, there’s a million people on it. And you can start making things happen on social. And you can start to find your voice and test things, and it’s very immediate. Not necessarily gratification, sometimes it is, but it’s immediate feedback. And then, you know, if you don’t get too caught up in that, you can use that to your advantage. The next step, I really feel like, unless people start there, but most people will start with social media, is to take some of your profits and put it into something like a Pinterest strategy. Into something where you can stop, even outside of ads, because ads takes a lot of testing. And it’s very expensive.

Linda Barutha

This is definitely before ads. But that’s the thing, depending on then how your account does, which I always see them improve, okay with anybody’s account that we have done. But they might get to a point then that they might want to start doing ads, and even sell a $7, $27 small item, right? Just to recoup what they’re testing in the ads. And Pinterest ads are a lot less expensive, and more reliable than Facebook, because of the way it’s set up. Because this isn’t social media. So you’re getting–it is just more value all the way around.

Nicole Laino  

Right. And people searched for it. So if you’re coming up in the search, your chances of somebody clicking on it, the higher up in the search you are, I mean, again, notice, do you really page through the Google pages when you search for something? Or do you hit the things that are in the first rankings, the highest rankings that it delivers you? Usually you start there at least and if those aren’t hitting the mark you keep looking. But the power of being high ranking in any of that stuff, and that is where that, you know, because the question that always comes up, you get started, you start making a little bit of money. And then it’s like, to me, it’s like, how can I make this much and work less? How can I make this less labor intensive for me? How can I–what’s a weak link, what’s, you know, more leads means more opportunities. So it’s never a bad investment to invest in leads, what is a bad investment is doing something like diving into ads before your messaging is tigh. Diving into ads before you really have a handle on your product and what’s working. Because that’s just a quick way to just, you know, you might as well go, you can go burn 1000s of dollars in your backyard. I’ve done that.

Linda Barutha

Yeah, me too. 

Nicole Laino  

That’s what’s so great, because you stop the ads, they stop, they’ll never run again, nobody will see them until you start paying again. And with something like Pinterest, and with something like YouTube, where you have the search engines working for you, they’re literally out there until you take them down.

Linda Barutha

Yeah.

Nicole Laino  

You know, you’re paying your hosting fees on your website, they’re still there. So it’s so powerful. And it’s a true investment.

Linda Barutha

And it is a long game. And, you know, we offer it right now as a full concierge service. And the reason that we do that is because I want that client to have less work, right? Because when you get to the point that you’ve got, you’re making some money and you need to keep your momentum going. You can’t be everywhere all the time. Second of all, by that point, you should have a decent amount of content that can be repurposed, because that is something else that people will do wrong. They will be very inconsistent if they’re doing their pinning for themselves. Even if they apply all the stuff that I talked about, they might be inconsistent with it. And that will affect their numbers on Pinterest. And again, when you’ve got a full concierge service taking care of it for you, you don’t have to worry about it. And like, I work with my clients, if they are struggling and don’t have enough content, trust me, I work with them to get really creative and come up with some content ideas for them, so that we can help them have something that they’re continually providing us, right? So we can keep the machine going. We don’t just take the attitude of, well, they didn’t give us anything. So we didn’t do anything for them, I would never do that. I want them all to excel.

Nicole Laino  

Well, and we want the machine to keep going without you being the machine. And that should be every entrepreneur’s goal. Because when you start to see how things can happen without you, that’s when we get into my manifesting mindset side of things. What holds a lot of people back from believing that their success is inevitable, that things will happen, that what they want will come to them, is they think they have to do at all. And they look at that. And they say I’m only capable of doing so much. I’m already burnt out. How could I possibly call in more? Well, the answer to that is you do less. And that doesn’t necessarily mean hiring a huge team of employees. It’s picking certain service providers so that you can have a steady influx of leads. That’s the lifeblood of your company, are the people coming in and potentially saying yes, I’d like to hear more of what you have to say. 

Linda Barutha

So be very focused and strategic on how you spend your time. That’s really what you need to do at that stage. 

Nicole Laino  

Exactly. Well, I love this. And I love that we just opened up the Pinterest world to this audience, because I know that everybody, the question we get all the time, what do you need more? You know, what would change your business? <ore leads, more leads, more leads, more leads, more leads, more leads. Now there’s that’s a pretty, you know, that’s an easy answer to give to a more complicated problem. That’s what everybody thinks they need. But you need targeted leads, and you need quality leads, and you need leads that are not super labor intensive or expensive. And I think that’s what Pinterest delivers for you. This is a very cheap form of lead generation. Overall, when you consider all of the other ways that you get leads. And it doesn’t require, like you can actually take things that you’ve already created and generate leads with them, which is just, you know, if your mind isn’t exploding right now, I don’t know. I don’t know what else I can tell you.

Linda Barutha

Super excited, you know, the whole repurposing and making your content be basically evergreen. 

Nicole Laino  

Yep. All of it. It’s pretty amazing. Well, Linda, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your Pinterest genius with everybody. Um, tell everybody where they can stay in touch with you, where they can learn more about you, Pin To Win, and anything else that you want to promote while you’re on here.

Linda Barutha

Yeah, well, my website is my name, LindaBarutha.com. And I’m sure you will have that in the show notes. And you can just go there to my website, and check it out. There is listed in there the free mini course, that also is dropped audio to you. There’s four different audio sessions that just give you more information about the process. Or just book a call with me. You know, let’s talk about where you’re at.

Nicole Laino  

Or do that. I highly recommend it. Linda is wonderful. And we will absolutely link all of that up in the show notes. You do not have to worry if you don’t get to write that down. Don’t worry about remembering it, just hop on over to the page. And we will take you there magically through the interwebs. Linda, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you taking the time and sharing all of this with us. And for you, dear listener, if you made it all the way to the end of this episode, I am forever grateful to you because I just–the fact that you come on this journey with us every single week is something I’m incredibly grateful for. So thank you for that. And remember, you are only limited by the limitations that you accept. And when you stop accepting those limitations, that is when you become limitless and that’s what I want for you. So I will see you on the next episode. Go out there and be limitless everybody. Bye bye.