RECAP TRANSCRIPT:
00:00:00:23 - 00:00:11:07
Arnelle Mitchell
Welcome to the show. Go to the executive brief event. You can go ahead and get that over to the next slide.
00:00:11:10 - 00:00:38:22
Duncan Alney
Duncan Well, everyone, I want to tell you, in case you don't know who we are, we are Firebelly. We're a social media marketing agency. That's all we do. We're in Indianapolis with staff members all over the country as well as in some other countries. And our capabilities were full service, social media agency, social content creation, social media management, social influencers, and of course, community management.
00:00:38:22 - 00:01:00:02
Duncan Alney
And we are soon adding a new service. Here are some of the food clients we've worked with here, some beverage clients we work with. We do a lot of work in the food and beverage space, and here's some other sort of general work. We've done a couple of brands that you might recognize there. So which brings us to today's topic, and I know you're all wondering, well, what does Duncan and Firebelly have in store for us?
00:01:00:02 - 00:01:19:04
Duncan Alney
and what's the buzz with Pinterest? And if you're new to Pinterest, let me tell you, this is going to be the best 30 minutes you spend today in terms of your business and social media. Pinterest, as Lauren says who’s on our team. Pinterest is for planners. It's a place for inspiration. It's a place for creativity.
00:01:19:05 - 00:01:44:07
Duncan Alney
It's a place for planners and on the business side of things. It's a place where you can do full-funnel advertising in a very positive environment. So, you know, creativity, getting people inspired. There's all kinds of great things that go on, on, on Pinterest. The other great reason to get on to Pinterest, frankly, for your social media brand is to have your eggs in a basket other than Meta’s
00:01:44:15 - 00:02:09:06
Duncan Alney
So it's a great place to go in and get credibility, to get followers, to get engagement. To get conversions other than Facebook or Instagram. And the other thing is if you're really wondering, like, what is Pinterest? Is it a social media platform? Is it a search engine? I'm going to quote one of our former colleagues, the inimitable Emily Hines.
00:02:09:06 - 00:02:36:22
Duncan Alney
And say, it's a visual search. So it's a place to find imagery. It's a place to interact with people not based on friendship, but based on interests. And so it's sometimes called the interest economy. So it's completely focused on the visual aspect of things. And the other thing is, is that it doesn't ever mind. Pinterest doesn't prohibit you or mind when you send traffic off their site.
00:02:37:05 - 00:03:02:22
Duncan Alney
Unlike Mr. Elon Musk, Facebook, you know, the Google family brands, who care significantly for sending traffic off of their sites. Pinterest actually encourages it. So how does it work? In the old school, for some of us, we used to actually have a poster board in our room and we used to put little pins on it. So if you imagine that poster board getting filled up with pins.
00:03:03:05 - 00:03:28:03
Duncan Alney
That's exactly what Pinterest is on a much larger and digital scale. You've got little pins and little ideas that you have for inspiration or pieces of content that you want to consume later. And then you can put it in a folder which is called the board and allows people to quickly access things that they're working on. And what they're doing. Let me set the tone a little bit here before we jump into the brands part.
00:03:28:08 - 00:03:56:01
Duncan Alney
Let's talk about the fact that 450 million people are actively using Pinterest on a monthly basis. Now, 60% of that is represented by women. But before you get worried or excited about the fact that 60% is women, the fastest growing segments on Pinterest are men. And Generation Z, with both of those individually growing 40% year over year.
00:03:56:18 - 00:04:23:20
Duncan Alney
The other really interesting thing that I'm super excited about is the fact that people on Pinterest are obsessed with video. 800% increase in video usage month over month on Pinterest. 1 million videos watched a day on Pinterest. The other thing that you might want to ask is what about the men? But let's look at what men in the US are doing.
00:04:23:20 - 00:04:45:22
Duncan Alney
13 million words last year by American men, 20 pins per board. They use it for apps that they might be developing their music playlists, looking for tattoos, and even monochromatic outfits. So a little bit about kind of the big picture in terms of the audience there. But what is it? What does it represent for your brand, as I said earlier.
00:04:46:02 - 00:05:09:15
Duncan Alney
It's a wonderful source of qualified traffic. So you can set your ad funnels up to specifically send ad traffic, but you can also get organic traffic from Pinterest. So it's a very useful tool which I think standpoint. The other thing is that it's a place where people feel comfortable. We'll get more into that later. Looking for things, experimenting, and trying new things.
00:05:09:15 - 00:05:34:21
Duncan Alney
In fact, I'm super proud of that picture there of the Haagen-Dazs brand, because I'm pretty sure that that's one of our colleagues, Sara, indulging in potato chips and ice cream, something that's not only safe to do at Firebelly, but very safe to do on Pinterest. And what are the benefits of being on Pinterest since it's a search engine in visual search, engine pins don't expire.
00:05:34:22 - 00:05:48:03
Duncan Alney
So think of it. Those pins are evergreen. And as long as they're relevant, they can be contributing factors in terms of engagement and in terms of traffic on an ongoing basis. That's a huge benefit.
00:05:48:09 - 00:05:48:24
Arnelle Mitchell
Dunkin If you.
00:05:48:24 - 00:05:49:16
Duncan Alney
Can also.
00:05:50:18 - 00:06:21:06
Arnelle Mitchell
If you can actually go back to that slide, I just want to reiterate the fact that, you know, this is really one of the main points of why Pinterest is so important and also separate from other social media platforms, because work that you've done years ago, months ago, can still be just as relevant, bringing in organic traffic to your website versus what Facebook what Instagram is kind of like they don’t inspire.
00:06:21:07 - 00:06:37:08
Arnelle Mitchell
You know, they're still there, but it's a lot more difficult to drive traffic to your website that way the search engine or the social media doesn't really reward you for, you know, using old content like Pinterest does.
00:06:39:05 - 00:06:57:22
Duncan Alney
Thanks Arnelle. And so, as I said earlier, it's a safe space. And why is it a safe space? And we find Pinterest just to be generally, you know, in a better mood. And that's because it has no bullying politics permitted. So it tends to be a place where there's no drama and people tend to just be happier.
00:06:58:11 - 00:07:24:09
Duncan Alney
Look at these stats, you guys. Look, I've been dying to see say to you guys today. Look at these stats then. Pinterest is the 14th largest social network in the world. Yes, seems small, but 450 million active users to a very, very modest browsing and looking around and doing a lot of things. 86% of Pinterest users also use Facebook or Instagram and 82% of those people also use Facebook.
00:07:24:09 - 00:08:00:08
Duncan Alney
So this really, really strong, compelling evidence of why it's an alternative to the Meta empire. 75% of weekly Pinterest users say that they're always shopping. I know for myself, for many members of our team, people in my family, when they get on Pinterest, they're shopping. 97 of the top searches on Pinterest are unbranded, so you really get an opportunity to get in front of people without being sort of bullied by the big players in the space and from an ad standpoint, this is so exciting because it's full funnel capabilities.
00:08:00:08 - 00:08:27:16
Duncan Alney
A lot of people do not realize that Pinterest offers this brand awareness video views. In fact, they've got an entire I'm trying to think of what to call it, a service called Pinterest Premier, which is specifically geared to getting your brand more video views and getting traffic and website and conversion. In fact, some of our clients have moved their entire catalogs on Pinterest, so it's a really, really important reason to be on Pinterest.
00:08:27:24 - 00:08:49:12
Duncan Alney
Now look at this. If you look at this board here, it's very difficult to actually tell that one of those pins is an ad. It's the one on the on the on the top left hand side. It just blends into the copy, into the visual layout. And then some of these like that top ten European honeymoons might also be an ad, but they sort of masquerade and show up organically.
00:08:51:00 - 00:09:20:07
Duncan Alney
So let's let us look at some compelling reasons to why run ads on Facebook. I mean, if you look at this three times more conversions and twice the ROI and we've got a specific case where we'll show that to you later in the presentation. 45% of the audience has a household income, over $100,000. Larger checkouts. There's a lot of a lot of great reasons to be on here, 45, 44%, as we talked about earlier, are women specifically between 25 and 44.
00:09:20:21 - 00:09:54:13
Duncan Alney
US millennial planners are up 35% year over year and it's a great place for brands that are targeting women to find their audience. So some success best practices, if you would. Let's look at these are tips. It's you got to mirror your SEO approach on Pinterest. So you know, for those of you that might need a quick refresher on basic SEO, you want to make sure that the title, the description, the tags, the keywords are all exactly like you're using in your organic SEO approach.
00:09:56:12 - 00:10:19:01
Duncan Alney
The other thing that makes images even more interesting is to add graphics, text, overlays, logos and so on. On top of the photos to bring a little bit more interest to them and help them stand out and a definite no no, no stock imagery, no stock imagery at all. Use high quality images, UGC, there's all kinds of different approaches, but definitely no stock images.
00:10:20:07 - 00:10:49:11
Duncan Alney
Now, here's the thing. If you haven't advertised on Pinterest before, it's not that difficult to get started with 1500 dollars a month. You can have a decent program and you can even do lower spends and that 1500 dollars will get you full funnel capability. So it's a very accessible platform from an ad spend standpoint. There's a lot of opportunities with testing of audiences, which, as you know, is the core and basis of a great ad program is testing, testing, testing.
00:10:49:11 - 00:11:23:16
Duncan Alney
You can you can test based on interests, engagements, active likes, which is which is Pinterest verbiage for a lookalike audience and of course retargeting all possible on Pinterest ad platform. The other thing that's really interesting is this hybrid approach that we talked about an elastic executive briefing where you can promote the top performing organic pins. So you keep the substantiality or get organic, but remove the hollowness of just pure paid by taking this hybrid approach.
00:11:23:16 - 00:11:52:19
Duncan Alney
And what can we expect, you know, for the rest of this year and beyond? I think that one of the things that really separates Pinterest is that it's prediction capabilities. And let's speak just a little bit about what goes into that. They've got an entire cross-functional team that does nothing but focus on predictions. And what makes it makes it particularly interesting is that the predictions are usually ahead of trends, so they are looking at trends as they're emerging.
00:11:53:00 - 00:12:13:17
Duncan Alney
And I was looking at some data this morning. Some of the trends did marginally well. Some of the trends just point blank exploded and so there's, you know, lots of data. They're looking at a couple of years of data at a time. You've got social listening on other platforms, and they've got lots of people that are developing these categories and then looking within the categories to see what's happening.
00:12:14:08 - 00:12:45:21
Duncan Alney
So you're basically got access to what's coming up, you know, specially delivered for you and what you're trying to do on Pinterest and the fact that these trends are being identified so early really gives you the chance to get ahead of what's happening. And I really do think that you can use some of these trends that Pinterest is identifying on other platforms as well, of course, as specific to Pinterest, but you can use them and here's some here's some examples of some of the trends blog specific trends.
00:12:46:03 - 00:13:06:15
Duncan Alney
And, you know, so pool Parties for dogs is one of the one of the trends and basically, you know, doing things to keep your, you know, the most beloved member of your family. As Lauren and our team says, more reliable than most humans, the dogs and puppies of pup cakes, puppy cups and so on. And another one here with barkitecture.
00:13:07:08 - 00:13:29:23
Duncan Alney
In fact, we experienced this with another client, of course, on a different platform where a built in dog feeding station blew up their social media and it's still one of their highest performing posts. And what makes it cool is it's also relevant to dog couches as well. Just a lot to do with dogs. There’s interesting trends with Generation X and boomers.
00:13:29:23 - 00:13:54:14
Duncan Alney
And I'll use this opportunity to talk about the kinds of things that Gen X is doing on Pinterest. In doing them, they're looking at charcuterie boards, they're looking at how to do Michelin star meals at home. And one of the most surprising things for me is the emergence of baby boomers under Pinterest platform looking at how to be digital nomads and how to do more interesting things with their travel.
00:13:54:15 - 00:14:24:00
Duncan Alney
So just really sort of outlier demographic person you wouldn't expect to be on them. Of course, mocktails are blowing up. It's a bummer when you go to a nice bar these days and they don't have as your option they're not with the trend here, lower alcohol by volume options are a big deal on Pinterest. So just a couple of trends there and let's look at some trending options on the beverage side.
00:14:24:06 - 00:14:48:19
Duncan Alney
And you can see fancy ice cubes are up 75%, cocktail garnishes are up. And on the health side, green algae nori recipes, salmon bowls is a lot of interesting things going on. That's a really great place to go to, to plan your content, plan your your creative approach and visual approach. Something on the sweet treat side of things.
00:14:48:19 - 00:15:17:11
Duncan Alney
Wild flower cupcakes. We have seen some of that in our part of the world as well, where wildflowers and herbs are full, herbs are showing up on cakes. You know, as I said before, Pinterest is for planners. And, you know, as again, our colleague Lauren Johnson illustrated a couple of days after her niece was born, she began to plan her niece's first year birthday party on Pinterest.
00:15:17:11 - 00:15:28:23
Duncan Alney
So Pinterest really is for planners and people start looking at things way ahead of time. And the pro tip there is to really get your seasonal content way out ahead of the curve and not wait till the last minute.
00:15:29:13 - 00:16:04:17
Arnelle Mitchell
You know, strapless example. You're broken into just a second on the on the trends. It's really one of the benefits of working with Pinterest and knowing those trends. And sometimes when you're looking at all those trends and different keywords, you know, the pool parties is kind of hard to imagine. How does your brand fit into that? Really, the key with recognizing trends and looking at the Pinterest predicts is that you can kind of think and plan and reimagine how you want to set your brand up to fit inside of the trend.
00:16:05:07 - 00:16:30:01
Arnelle Mitchell
For example, one of our clients, Jazz Apples, they're not an alcohol or a drink per se, but how can they dress up their apples and put it in a cocktail and then show that online where, you know, on a platform where it's trending? And so think really creatively when you're thinking about how to fit your brand and what you're doing and what you're selling into a trend that fits for you.
00:16:30:16 - 00:16:43:11
Arnelle Mitchell
Something I also do is drop in Pinterest predicts link in the chat. So if you're interested, you can go right to it. See all the different trends that Pinterest has going on.
00:16:43:11 - 00:17:15:00
Duncan Alney
Excellent. Excellent. So I'm not sure how many of you familiar with Bon V!v, but the brand that launched yours triggered a spark, the whole seltzer movement. And so they've really wanted in the last couple of years to move up their creative chops and do something on Pinterest. And it teamed up with Mr. Jonas, I mean Priyanka Chopra to align their creative with her and to just move on some particularly interesting spins.
00:17:15:06 - 00:17:55:23
Duncan Alney
And the actual trend that they jumped on was the bubbly trend. And so you really see here they were able to lift their full funnel up by 100%. So basically double it from awareness all the way to consideration and intent. It really did some amazing things there. So some tips for your next campaign. Start with the insights. You know, get on the Pinterest prediction report, identify what's happening and try to see how you can use those upcoming emerging trends and align them with the content that you have, with the content that you're planning so that you're getting ahead of the curve and you're you're jumping on the trend before it happens.
00:17:56:03 - 00:18:21:03
Duncan Alney
I know how important sounds are trending sounds on TikTok, but the half life of trending songs on Tik Tok is minuscule compared to the half life of emerging trends on Pinterest. So let's keep them in mind. It's also a great way to get content on Pinterest out to people every step of their buyer journey. So you know, all the way through from the top to the bottom.
00:18:21:20 - 00:18:46:12
Duncan Alney
Another one just briefly is Boursin. And the reason why we loved this campaign is that they teamed up with one of the stars of Netflix, Queer Eye, Antoni Porowski, and they were able to do some really interesting appetizers and get people to see the brand, you know, in a much more elevated fashion than they'd been used to before.
00:18:46:19 - 00:19:08:06
Duncan Alney
And they had some interesting results there as well. So couple of tips for your next campaign. You know, we talked a lot about a unified approach on the last executive briefing, and I'm going to carry that theme through here, which is a unified approach, organic paid, and get some great content creation in there, and then influencers and creators.
00:19:08:06 - 00:19:30:10
Duncan Alney
So partnering with celebrities or influencers and I like to say micro celebrities and micro-influencers, you know, you might identify someone that's a celebrity at your coffee shop that has a few hundred people that know them, you know, or some micro celebrity in your city that can help get your product. So greater exposure and awareness and then seasonal hooks to make pins more relevant.
00:19:30:18 - 00:19:58:17
Duncan Alney
Most businesses see sports and spikes and seasonal sales. So that's another great idea. There. And let's talk just a little bit about winding up here. 8 minutes to go. We talked last time about the unified approach at Bake Believe had one of our clients had in general. But those of you that don't remember Bake Believe Big was a the highest performer in the sugar free chocolate chocolate category, for example.
00:19:58:17 - 00:20:30:17
Duncan Alney
If you go find it at Walmart, it's the very top of the chocolate section. And one of the reasons we love this campaign is because it's a relatively modest budget. And you can see here that for basically not a whole lot of investment. 3611 clicks 1875 outbound clicks 22 add to cards and for purchases. Now from having to look a little deeper at the number along with the team that manages this one of the purchases was inordinately high.
00:20:30:21 - 00:20:57:07
Duncan Alney
That's still impressive. And here's another Firebelly client Envy apples and these campaigns are focused on the top and the middle of the funnel. So really focused on getting in front of people that already know the brand, getting in front of new people, getting some engagements and sending people off Pinterest directly to the store locator page. And here's another example of Envy Apple recipes.
00:20:57:07 - 00:21:16:11
Duncan Alney
So you really like broadening the appeal of the product, in this case, the Apple and beyond just eating it on its own, which is delicious, but also getting it into recipes. So I know there was a lot of information. Very quickly, let's go to questions. And you are going to moderate questions.
00:21:16:17 - 00:21:25:06
Arnelle Mitchell
Yeah. So you do have any questions. Please go ahead and drop your questions in the chat and then I can read them aloud.
00:21:30:15 - 00:21:39:21
Duncan Alney
Also shout out to Jonathan Jacobs and a great friend of Firebelly for attending today. Thanks for coming, Jonathan.
00:21:39:21 - 00:21:54:00
Arnelle Mitchell
Yes. So here's a question. How do you go about making being creative with fitting into trends?
00:21:55:13 - 00:22:23:12
Duncan Alney
Well, that's a great question and one I've thought up before. So I'll say this, that you've really got to look at what your own brand stands for, the visual approach that you have established, and then combining that with the emerging trends. So I strongly recommend that you own the trend and you execute your, your visual, whatever you're creating visually, you execute that within the broader feel of the trend.
00:22:23:12 - 00:22:35:18
Duncan Alney
However, it needs to be owned by you so that your audience can immediately see the relevance of that. And perhaps you can pick up additional exposure by appealing to other people that don't follow your brand.
00:22:37:20 - 00:22:47:13
Arnelle Mitchell
Angela asks, Is 1500 the minimum spend? Could you start with less? And the answer is yes. Yeah, absolutely.
00:22:47:21 - 00:22:48:02
Duncan Alney
Yeah.
00:22:48:16 - 00:22:49:00
Arnelle Mitchell
Go ahead.
00:22:49:00 - 00:23:15:18
Duncan Alney
The answer is yes. You can start with less than 1500. I mean, you can test tiny spends that be the benefit of tiny spends is that it allows you to get in on the action. The disadvantage of tiny spends is that there are learnings that the Pinterest ad algorithm can make for you and how to get your content in front of the audience most effectively.
00:23:15:18 - 00:23:20:09
Duncan Alney
That will take a bit longer to do those learnings and the recommendations will take longer.
00:23:21:12 - 00:23:51:14
Arnelle Mitchell
That's true. And you know, but don't be afraid to, you know, even start with just like a traffic campaign, especially since Pinterest is really well known for getting, you know, back traffic onto your website. Pinterest also has really great in-app recommendation, so it'll recommend some things for you for you to change once it starts learning. And then Kyle asks when and wouldn't you recommend a brand to use Pinterest?
00:23:51:14 - 00:23:58:05
Arnelle Mitchell
In other words, when would you recommend not for a brand to not use Pinterest in their strategy?
00:23:59:19 - 00:24:25:02
Duncan Alney
That's a really great question. I always love Kyle's questions, insightful and incisive. So I'll say that sort of the key milestones for making sure that your brand is right for Pinterest, other than the fact that you got to have executive buy in for a primarily woman audience that is 60% woman audience, although there is 40% male on there as well.
00:24:25:09 - 00:24:47:22
Duncan Alney
Is the brand visual, is the brand capable of producing or using interesting visuals to get that connection? Because a connection is primarily based on visual. This economy is an interest economy, so it's focused on people's interest, but it's primarily visual. So I would say the first thing is if you can't be visual, the platform is not for you.
00:24:48:05 - 00:25:21:22
Duncan Alney
Look at the audience, you know, the fact that, for example, we've got millennials that are active on Pinterest and they're focused on celebrations, They're apparently on Pinterest, a very celebratory group. They're celebrating birthdays and planning anniversaries. But you might say, well, you know, Duncan, I'm targeting Gen Z. You know, is there a play for me with with with my brand focusing on Gen Z, Will those 15 million boards and 33 pins were bought on average from Gen Z over the last 12 months.
00:25:22:02 - 00:25:51:21
Duncan Alney
They are doing life planning. They're looking at options for their first job, they're looking at stocks, they're looking at travel. And Gen Z is different than a lot of other brands on Pinterest because they're looking at some more serious issues on Pinterest, like gender equality, environmental concerns and even mental health. So really, I think you've got to ask two questions and sorry it took me so long to get to this, but is the brand capable of visuals and can you use visuals to connect people with the same interest?
00:25:51:21 - 00:26:12:00
Duncan Alney
And secondly, what is the second? I forgot the second. It will come to me. Is your is your audience represented on Pinterest? And that's the key part. So. Audience And are you visual?
00:26:22:11 - 00:26:29:18
Arnelle Mitchell
Wait a second for some more questions. If you do, you can also, if you want to unmute yourself, then you can totally do that to.
00:26:36:03 - 00:26:40:13
Duncan Alney
Okay I thought Abby might might tie in a Beatles question to Pinterest but that's not happening today.
00:26:41:19 - 00:26:57:21
Speaker 4
Was going to say. I can't really say that they're too trendy, but I actually want to know the truth. I ran several fan groups in my day and that's where I would find a lot of my really rare photos that people upload. So there's a space for them on there too.
00:26:59:03 - 00:27:13:13
Duncan Alney
Interesting. It is an inclusive space and I wasn't sure when I first when I was first reading that and what exactly that meant. But I think the fact is that it is inclusive in terms of the audience and how people can find it, exactly what it is they're looking for it.
00:27:14:04 - 00:27:40:07
Arnelle Mitchell
Yeah. And it's totally different. Just it being a place for planning and organizing, it's less of that comparison, looking at other people. So it's just overall much more positive space. And then I have one question from Jonathan is that can you talk about some of the methodology behind Pinterest 100, such as it's such a helpful resource, but I love to know more of the science.
00:27:42:00 - 00:28:08:16
Duncan Alney
So as far as I know, Jonathan, that's a great question and I hope that's not above my pay grade in terms of the technicalities, my big picture understanding of the methodology is it's based on social listening that Pinterest is running within its own platform and then off the platform as well. The numbers that I saw were in the hundreds of millions, and that was for the review process.
00:28:08:16 - 00:28:36:07
Duncan Alney
I think it was 500 million pieces of content that were reviewed and then from there they go to this curation committee, which is basically cross-functional and they're sorting things into categories. And within the categories are subcategories, and they're looking at momentum, which is how quickly people are looking or engaging with specific subcategories. And so they're looking at the momentum and they're looking at the momentum versus the other categories.
00:28:36:07 - 00:28:47:12
Duncan Alney
And that's what the the predictions are based on. So that's the best I can do at the moment. I will delve more into that and let's address that on the next. Version next week as well, Arnelle.
00:28:48:12 - 00:29:02:02
Arnelle Mitchell
That sounds like a plan. So awesome. Okay, well, looks like we're wrapping up on time today.
00:29:02:02 - 00:29:17:21
Duncan Alney
All right. Thank you, everyone, for attending. We'll have another version of the same thing next week and then we'll have a new presentation for you in the middle of March. Look forward to seeing you on then. Thank you, everyone, and have a great rest of your day. Thank you very much.
00:29:18:03 - 00:29:21:10
Speaker 4
Thank you. Thank you.