Reach Ideal Clients Earlier Through Pinterest with Faye Strange | 032

What if I told you there's a powerful online

platform, that's often overlooked.

That could be a game changer for your architecture business.

Join us as faze strange reveals, how you can use Pinterest to reach ideal

clients earlier than ever before.

On this episode of architecture business club.

The weekly podcast for solo and small firm architecture practice owners,

just like you who want to build a profitable future proof architecture

business that fits around their life.

I'm the host John Clayton.

And if you want a business in architecture that gives you more

freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment.

Then go to architecture, business club.com forward slash blueprint.

And download the architecture business blueprint.

It's the step-by-step formula to freedom for architects, architecture,

technologists, and architecture designers.

And it's absolutely free as a gift from me.

Now let's discuss Pinterest.

Faye Strange is a Pinterest expert who helps inspiring service-based

businesses reach more of their target audience and increase their

revenue through Pinterest marketing.

You can connect with Faye and grab some free Pinterest

resources@strangesocial.com.

Faye, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

Hello, thank you for having me.

It's lovely to be here.

Oh brilliant, yeah, it's a pleasure to to have you on the show.

Fay, before we get into talking about Pinterest, you like to do a

bit of crochet in your free time.

This is one of my, um, daughter's big passions as well, actually.

So can you you tell me about some of this, the stuff that you've made?

Yes, yes, so I taught myself to crochet when, um, I can't

remember which baby it was, when I had one of my babies anyway.

And yeah, I love crochet.

I like to do blankets, that's my, that's my thing.

That's probably the only thing that I managed to get finished.

I'm one of these types of people who Starts lots of projects

and never finishes them.

So I have lots of, lots of balls of wool around the house, you know, and

bags of half finished projects in them.

Um, much to my husband's annoyance.

But yeah, I do love doing crochet and I like making, when the kids are

smaller, I used to make them like, teddies and things like that as well.

So yeah, I, I really like to do it in front of the telly when I'm just

chilling out, maybe not so much in summer when it's hot because

it can get a bit warm under there.

But yeah, it's definitely my autumn slash winter.

wind down activity.

Oh, that sounds cool.

So, so you live in a house of unfinished blankets then?

Yeah, unfinished blankets and cardigans and jumpers.

Yeah.

sounds fun.

My, my daughter, she, uh, she likes to make these little like crochet animals.

And the last thing that she did, she's just like, um,

I'm going to make some socks.

I'm going to crochet some socks.

And I was like, okay, fair enough.

And she just went and watched some video on YouTube.

And then, you know, a couple of hours later, she, she made her

first crochet sock and then another one to match not long after.

It's amazing, isn't it?

Yeah, that's like, I have to use YouTube as well because it's just so much

easier than trying to decipher, like, diagrams and written instructions.

Yeah, Lego's my thing.

My wife loves doing jigsaws, but Lego's my,

like sort of childish, guilty pleasure for winding down.

Um,

as well.

yeah, good fun.

So, um, Faye, we're going to talk about Pinterest.

So we can understand how the platform works and how it can be

used to, to reach more customers.

And I know that not everybody listening is going to be familiar

with it, or they might have heard of it, but perhaps haven't used it.

So could you, could you tell us what, what is Pinterest?

So, Pinterest is a platform that people use to find

ideas, inspiration, solutions to their problems, and then they save

them to their different boards.

So, think of, like, they might have some different boards that are like a notebook.

like a notice board with all of their pins saved to each board.

So one board might be for how they're going to style their living room.

Another board might be for planning their next birthday party.

So they would use Pinterest to search for all of their ideas that they

want to create or buy or make or do.

And then they'd save them to their boards and then they would Either come

back to their boards later to start implementing, or they might click

through to visit your website as they're going along, because quite often, you

know, when we're in this discovery phase, we're just exploring, aren't we?

So Pinterest is, it's very, it's not a social media platform.

I really need to make that clear from the start.

It's not like Instagram or Facebook or anything like that.

It's a very, unique platform that's individual to each person and

everybody like uses it, you know, for themselves to make their lives better.

So in answer to your question, it's a search engine, it's a

visual search engine that people use to save ideas and inspiration.

Yeah.

engine.

I like that.

And the way that you described it, it's very much like a sort

of virtual, literally like a sort of virtual pin board, isn't it?

Those boards that you mentioned where you can pin those ideas.

Interesting.

And you touched upon there that it's not social media.

So I think probably the next question I have is, you know, What are some of

the common myths about Pinterest, some of the common myths and misconceptions?

You've already mentioned one of them there, that it isn't social media.

So could you expand on that a little bit more and then share if

there's any other kind of common misconceptions about the platform?

Yeah, so Pinterest, it really flies under people's radar.

Not a lot of people really understand understand it, especially not

how to use it in their marketing.

And people do assume it is just another social platform, but it isn't.

It's a search engine.

Whatever you post on Instagram or Facebook, you can't expect the same

content to do well on Pinterest.

You need a completely different strategy for it.

So understanding that is the first The first step to, you

know, doing well on Pinterest.

Other myths about Pinterest include that it's only good for finding

recipe ideas or, you know, outfits.

I mean, yeah, it's awesome for those things but it's also really

good for lots of other stuff.

There's basically an audience for anything on Pinterest because people

just, like, Pinterest users, they ask.

They really love the app and it's, it's something that's just

part of their everyday life.

They'll go and look for it on Pinterest and pin it to one of their boards.

You know, if something's going on in their life, they'll head to

Pinterest to find whatever they need.

I'm trying to think, are there misconceptions about Pinterest?

Is that, like, it's not relevant anymore?

Which is really far from the truth.

I mean, And this is where it flies under the radar a little bit because people

just assume nobody's using it, or they only used it like 10 years ago, or people

are only using it like once to plan their wedding, like that kind of thing.

But actually, that's completely wrong.

As I mentioned earlier, when people, Pinterest users, they use it every day

for every single part of their life.

That's really interesting.

As you say, it's something that probably goes under the radar when

there's these other platforms that are coming out, perhaps things like kind

of TikTok, short form video, things like that, the fads that kind of

people are going through, but Pinterest

has kind of been around for a long time now, and it's got no sign of going

away, it's, it's just, it's been there,

And as you say, perhaps under the radar for many people, but, there's a lot of

people that do use it every single day.

So could we dig into that a little bit more about how, how

people use, uh, use Pinterest.

So how the, the users use Pinterest and also how business owners

are currently using Pinterest.

Yeah.

So, The really important thing that you need to think about when you're starting

to market your business on Pinterest is that when people are using Pinterest,

they're just thinking of themselves.

Okay, they're not using it to find out what their friends are doing, or,

you know, keep up to date with, you know, The latest influencer, they're

using it really personally to find and make their own lives better.

So, when you're creating your content for Pinterest, you really want to be speaking

at the same level that they're thinking.

And Pinterest.

It's like, it's the very top of your funnel.

Okay, so people are, they're so open to new ideas and finding, you know,

like they might be starting to think about changes for their home, perhaps.

And.

They don't know what they want.

They don't know what they need.

They don't know, like, the right words.

So they're going to start with very basic terminology, you know, and

that is what you need to understand when you're creating your materials.

So you're creating things that speak to them individually.

And that are using the words that they are using in Pinterest that's gonna,

you know, solve their problems and take them straight to what they need.

So when you're creating your pins, there's something that we call SEO,

which is search engine optimization.

You've probably heard of it for your website, but that's

a thing on Pinterest as well.

It's very, as I mentioned, it's a search engine.

So it's very search engine orientated and you'll hear Well, I'm not sure how

much I'm going to talk about it in this episode, but you'll hear me talk a lot

about keywords and SEO, and it essentially all means the same thing, and that is

just the words that people are using to find what they need to on Pinterest.

And as long as you are doing your research and finding those words, you can include

those in your pins and in your content.

And then when your pins get indexed, they will be more likely

to be shown to that person.

That makes sense.

That makes sense.

Yes.

Yeah.

There's a few, a few interesting points there that just to kind of

recap on the, the thing about the search engine optimization and the

words that people use that giving consideration to the language and words

that your potential customer is using.

But I think in the world of architecture.

architects

and architecture practice owners have a tendency to use

overly technical language and

sort of architect speak.

So there'd need to be some reflection upon what type of language that their

customers are using in order to use the right keywords in those pins, the

content that they put on Pinterest.

The other thing that was interesting, you mentioned, and also a little bit earlier

in the conversation was about when people are in this discovery phase and it's kind

of like the top of your, your funnel.

And that I think in architecture.

That discovery phase is a really long period of time because you think about

the, the time that you, um, you might be thinking about doing a renovation

on your home or extending or building a new home, that sort of thing,

you could be thinking about it for years before you actually decide to.

Employ an architect or an architectural practice.

So it sounds like Pinterest is potentially a huge opportunity

for people in the industry.

If they know how to use the platform, that

absolutely.

And you know, it's, It's so true, like, Pinterest can be a bit of a slow

burn as well, so when you're saying it can take years for someone to make

that decision you know, your pins can take a little while to get going in

the algorithm, but if you are creating content for those people who are mulling

over, deciding, you know, that's such a powerful place to be discovered.

When they are, when they haven't decided who they're going to work

with or what they're going to do yet.

And if your content keeps showing up when they're making those searches

and making those decisions and they recognize you, they recognize the

branding on the pins and they're seeing it again and again and again.

And that's just, you know, reinforces your brands, your positioning, your business.

And you know, it just, it's such a powerful moment because

People are open to anything when they're searching on Pinterest.

97 percent of searches are unbranded on Pinterest.

So they're, they're, they're open to, you know, anything.

Like, if, and if your content speaks directly to them and helps them with

their decisions, then they're going to remember that and, you know, come back.

And, you know, the other thing is, Especially for architects, like, your

goal would be to get them on your email list so you can nurture them on your via

email to upsell one of your services.

You can do that by creating some really valuable content that

helps people with their decisions.

They download your freebie, they get on your email list, they're staying in your

world until they are ready to, you know, as you say, if years later it might be

when they're finally ready to take that step, they know, like, and trust you.

So,

makes sense.

Yeah.

So do you, do you have any specific tips for newbies?

So if there's somebody that's like.

Totally new to the platform like where do we even start?

Remember.

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Now, back to the show.

so very first thing that you need to do is to

set up your business account.

Do not, and I get so many people coming to me with this, that they've

got their personal account and it's like a hodgepodge of all of their

personal stuff and their business stuff and it's all mingled together

and like they don't know what to do.

You need to set up your business account separately from your personal

account and you only want to pin your personal stuff to your personal and

your business stuff to your business.

You need to make those very clear distinctions between the two.

So you set that up, then you want to start by researching your keywords,

so you would do this in the Pinterest search bar, it's so easy, type in,

like, I'm remembering what your customers are going to be searching

for as they're beginning their journey.

Typing in those words into the Pinterest search bar and then literally there's

a drop down menu, um, with other words associated that people are searching for.

So you just make a note of those.

I'd have them in the spreadsheet somewhere so you can just come back and refer to

them as you're creating your content.

So I would spend like maybe an hour doing a bit of keyword research at

the start, save it in a spreadsheet.

And then you can just keep checking back on that and you'll probably find

that it actually opens up some like great opportunities for your content.

It might give you some ideas that you've never even thought of before, um, or give

you some ideas for a different angle that you can take because maybe your messaging

isn't really resonating with somebody.

And this goes for all platforms really, you know, because the insights that

you can get from Pinterest are amazing.

When you look in your analytics and you can, when you look in your analytics,

you can actually see, you know, what the interests of your followers

are, like what other content they're interacting with, and you can use

that to help you create your pins.

But I am getting a bit ahead of the beginner stuff here.

So set up your business, Pinterest account research your keywords and

you also need to claim your website.

You do that in your settings.

It's really, it is really important that you have a website.

I'm assuming most of the people listening to this will But having that website

just adds an extra layer of trust because you're claiming that website

as your own and Pinterest knows that whenever you create links that are linked

to your claimed domain that they're trustworthy and that they belong to you.

And then if anybody re shares any of your pools, you can see all of those analytics.

in your main analytic area as well.

So those are like the three really important things that you need to do.

And then you can get onto the fun stuff like designing your pins.

Oh, yeah the fun bit I was going to ask actually in

terms of like the actual Content that you can share on there.

Is it generally like would you, For example, let's say you were sharing a

photo or a graphic, something like that.

Would you like upload that directly to Pinterest or is that, would you

be linking to like a photo that you've already posted somewhere else?

Like for instance, that's on your website or could it be either?

right.

So as a business, you want to be strategic with your pins.

So you want that pin to link somewhere that is going to

help the person clicking on it.

You don't want to send them to anything that is irrelevant or unexpected.

You want that, so let's say it's, um, an image of, what would it be an image of?

It could be An image of a, a beautiful Kitchen diner extension

something like that or a new home.

That's that's been built a before and after photo something like that.

okay, let's say it's a before and after photo.

Ideally you would want that to go to a blog.

Or an article that really like walks them through step by step, everything went into

that transformation and then at the end you'd have, you know, the call to action.

It could be, it could just be a simple call to action to sign up to your email

list or it could be something like get the step by step checklist to help,

you know, or questions to ask your architects, you know, some, some kind of

thing that they're going to get or value so that they join your email list and

then build that relationship with them.

So always try to add something of value in that link, but make sure it is relevant.

And in terms of the image itself, you know, you can upload the image on its own.

You can get into Canva and do some different designs

or some different headings.

You don't, and you don't just have to print it like one time.

You can create lots of different images that all go back to the same link.

That are all of the same, like, starter image, but they have different

words and different layouts, and they look different, because different

pin designs are going to attract different people as well, so there's no

Okay

There's no, there's no like strict rules that you have to

really adhere to, um, but when you are, well there are a couple of rules

you have to adhere to, but when you are creating your pins, you know, just

try and be as creative as you can.

Okay, that's that's interesting.

So, Let's say, for example, that you've kind of talked through one

particular way that, um, an architect could use the platform there.

You mentioned that if the goal is to connect with new prospects,

potentially new customers that are in the discovery phase of considering.

doing some kind of project and maybe this is a year or two ahead of when

they're actually gonna employ somebody.

But we want to capture their attention really early that the best way for them

to do that is to get them ultimately get them on an email list so that they can

send them a newsletter each month or each week to kind of nurture that relationship

to the point when they're in that readiness period when they're actually

ready to buy, but in order to get them onto the list, they could use Pinterest.

They could use some attractive eye catching images.

Maybe it could be some photos from a project they've been working on,

or it could link to their Website providing something of additional value.

So whether that was a case study or a resource, something to get them to sign

up and exchange an email address for cool.

So that's, that's a really simple way that they could do that.

And they could capture the interest of people very early using Pinterest as the.

The first step in that process.

I love that.

Is there any other kind of specific?

tips or suggestions for Architects in particular or or

architecture practice owners.

do you have any?

thoughts on what might might work well on on pinterest.

If you are, a practice owner and you only work with people

in your local area, then it's really important that you put your local

area in your profile and in your pins, because when people are searching for

that, then they're probably putting, you know, whatever county or region

that they live in into the search bar.

And if you don't, If you don't have that, then you're going to be

missing those people, so that is really important that you do that.

So, for example, I live in Bedford, I would make sure if I was just, you

know, serving Bedfordshire, I would put Bedford or Bedfordshire on my titles.

That's really interesting because that is I mean, that's exactly

What people do, if they were going to say Google, if they were going to go to Google

to do a search to find an architectural

practice.

unless you, you know, you had a personal recommendation that probably the thing

you would do is go onto Google and just put in architects Bedfordshire.

So.

People are using Pinterest in a very similar way to how

they would use Google, which

ties into what you said at the beginning about it being a visual search engine,

rather than it being social media, that this type of keywords and search terms

might actually be very similar to what they would put into to Google, but

they're getting visual search results.

yeah.

And another thing that I just mentioned, as you just said that,

is your images from Pinterest pull through into Google Image Search.

So, I don't know how, if you've ever Googled anything and

clicked on an image and it's just taken you to a Pinterest pin,

Yeah.

Yeah.

so

Yeah, it happens so much, doesn't it?

And that's because one, people aren't optimizing their images and their

blogs properly, you know, for Google.

So Pinterest is filling that space.

And so your optimized pins are showing up in Google image search instead.

And that's a great way to.

get people as well, you know, so it's another reason why Pinterest is really

important to have a presence on there.

And Pinterest and Google, you know, they, they work so well together, um, because as

people see that people are, as Google sees that people are visiting your website,

you know, from Pinterest, they're staying on it to read, they're, your dwell time

is increasing, then that's going to help bump up your Google ranking as well.

So yeah, that's another reason that I love Pinterest so much because

it's a real unexpected benefit.

I think something that I'm, I like about it.

Is that I mean, one thing people are like, Oh, I've got so much to do

already and I've got so little time and but Pinterest is a really good

way where you can repurpose content and you could get more eyes on the

content that you've already created.

So if you've got like a blog or a case study, like from what you've told us,

like, if we've already got that on a website, like, why wouldn't we just.

do it?

Take the extra couple of steps just to get it, you know, on

Pinterest as well to get it shared on there, to get more eyes on it.

Exactly.

And I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but one of the things that is

amazing about Pinterest is that your pins will live and get found for, you

know, forever, until you delete them.

Like, you could pin one now and it will still be getting

traffic in like two years time.

It's not like Instagram where it would just fall off a cliff

after, you know, a couple of days.

You know what it is?

Your pins are actually going to increase in views over time.

And that just makes it totally worth it.

You know, a little bit of effort now to get them on Pinterest and you're

gonna reap the rewards in years to come.

And there's, there's no better feeling than when you start getting

those notifications about people pinning, saving, you know, signing

up to your email list from a pin that you created like two years ago.

And that's absolutely incredible.

Cause I mean the life of a social media post on some of the other plat, the

social platforms like Tik it's like, you know, like it's got a lifespan of

like a couple of hours and that's it.

And then it sort of drops off a cliff.

So with Pinterest, like we could literally have traffic coming to our website.

from a pin that we posted like two, three years ago.

Yeah, yeah, hundred percent.

Yeah, I pinned something in November and I'm only just starting to see

like a bit of a surge in this pin now.

However many months ago that was.

Yeah, it's, it's really, it's, it's really rewarding.

And you can take it one step further as well by creating seasonal content.

So if you've got content, you know, for people who are planning, you know,

an extension, That's for the summer.

I don't know, like a conservatory or a garden room or something, you know,

you can do that and then you can have like winter based content and then

that's going to keep pulling because Pinterest is very seasonal as well.

Like people are always searching for, you know, summer stuff and

autumn stuff, you know, that's just.

Part of how the platform works.

So to add an extra layer of visibility, if you have content that ties in

with the seasons, then you're going to continuously pull in more people

to your website all year round.

Oh, that's awesome.

Fay, this has been brilliant.

I've really loved to learn more about Pinterest today.

What will be the main thing that you'd like, uh, everyone to take

away from the conversation today?

I guess the main thing that I'd like everyone to take away is that

Pinterest

can be a real powerhouse and it's it's like the underdog of, and I know I say

it's not a social platform but it just gets grouped into that, doesn't it?

It's the one platform that is always on the bottom of somebody's to do list

and, you know, I'd love it if people could just bump it up to the top.

If you could just spend a bit of time setting up your business account,

creating an optimized profile with some optimized boards and pins.

And then, you know, you can leave it, you don't have to, obviously it's

better if you are, but you don't have to consistently be pinning stuff,

or, and you don't need to be engaging with anybody, you just need to spend

a bit of effort doing the work, and then that is going to sit there, and,

perform for you if you need to go off and take a break and do something else.

So I would really encourage people to bring it up from the bottom of your

to do list up to maybe the top three.

That sounds brilliant.

Thanks Faye.

Is there anything else you wanted to say that we haven't covered?

Yeah, I think I would just, it would be really good to mention that

there's That when people are thinking about designing, redesigning their home,

like Pinterest is going to be one of their top destinations to go and do that.

I think it's, it's like when people are planning their wedding, you know, it's,

it's one of those go to places where people are going to look for ideas and

visual inspiration for what they want.

And, you know, they might not.

They might not have a clue, like somebody like me, you know, he was

going to go and do it for, I wouldn't have a clue and I would be going

to Pinterest to find some ideas.

And if I found, you know, an amazing architect with these brilliant pins

then that's just gonna like really help me understand what I'm doing.

Yeah.

Trust you that you're the one that's going to provide me with this

amazing experience and completely transform my home and my life.

And when we're talking about keywords, I did a little bit of research just before.

And.

You know, there's over 5 million monthly searches for house design.

There's over 5 million monthly searches for architect.

And that just goes to show, like, how much people use the tool

for those types of searches.

So I really think that it's a great opportunity for any architect to

get, get visible with Pinterest.

So if there's any architects or architecture practice owners that

are listening to this episode, who in particular that are working with

Homeowners doing home renovations, home extensions, those types of projects,

rather than commercial clients building skyscrapers, I'm not sure they, that's the

place that they would go, but anybody that's doing any

works for their home, like.

If you're not, if you don't have some presence on Pinterest, then you

you're missing a huge opportunity.

So they need to go and, uh, they need to bump it up the

to-do list, as you mentioned,

Yeah,

Cool.

Well, that feels like a good place to kind of leave the Pinterest conversation.

What's one of the question I wanted to ask, um, I I love to

travel and discover new places.

I think architecture is about place as well, so could you share one

of your favorite places and what you love about it, near or far?

Oh gosh, you know, this is such a hard question, um, because

I love travel too, and I spent a year traveling around the world, um, so it

was really, really hard to just pick one.

But I've gone with, I'll have to go with, um, Uluru in Australia.

I don't know if you've been

there.

I have, I've been lucky enough to

visit.

It's amazing, isn't it?

it?

Yeah, I did a, um, one of those bus tours in Australia that goes, um,

up the, the red centre, um, and I actually met my husband on that bus.

Oh, wow.

yeah, gosh, that was maybe 20 years ago now, but it was,

yeah, such amazing memories, and it's, there's no place like there

on earth, it's just incredible.

So, yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's a great great destination.

Yeah, utterly spectacular and one of the things I recall maybe not quite

as memorable as your experience of meeting your husband on that trip But

I I lost one of my favorite hats while I was there That's the thing that I

remember I had to go and buy a new sun hat after I visited Cause it, it

Yeah, it blew off the top of my head.

But anyhow, thank you.

Thank you.

Faye.

It's been really good to chat with you today.

Could you just remind everybody where to connect with you online?

Where's the best place to do that?

Yeah, so, um, if you come to my website, which is strangesocial.

com you can drop me a message directly through my website.

You'll find my Pinterest profile there that you can follow me on Pinterest.

I've got some freebies that you can download as well.

On my website and also I'm on Instagram.

My handle is fayestrange underscore social.

I'm not that active on Instagram, but I do always kind of go

on to have a little look.

So that's where you can find me.

Brilliant.

Thanks so much, Faye.

Okay.

Next time I'll be talking about how to write a business plan.

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John Clayton.

The best place to connect with me online, though is on LinkedIn.

You can find a link to my profile in the show notes.

Remember.

Running your architecture business.

Doesn't have to be hard and you don't need to do it alone.

This is architecture business club.