How to Master Pinterest for Long-Term Business Growth

This week, we're talking about using Pinterest for the long game. The PopUp Social Media Success Series is a special seven-week podcast and Instagram Live series hosted by Peg Fitzpatrick, author of The Art of Small Business Social Media: A Blueprint for Marketing Success. Each week, Peg is joined by a new guest—industry experts and social media pros—sharing actionable tips, strategies, and insights designed to help small businesses elevate their social media game. From mastering AI to engaging your community and leveraging platforms like Pinterest, this series offers a fresh perspective on the tools and tactics small businesses can use to grow their online presence and connect with their ideal audience.

In this conversation, Peg Fitzpatrick and Amy Locurto of Living Locurto discuss the evolution of Pinterest, its potential for small businesses, and the importance of strategic use for marketing. They emphasize that Pinterest is not just for DIY enthusiasts but can be a powerful tool for various industries. The discussion also covers how to create effective pins, the timing for posting content, and the unique environment of Pinterest as a platform for inspiration without the drama found on other social media sites. In this conversation, Amy Locurto and Peg Fitzpatrick delve into the intricacies of using Pinterest effectively for marketing. They discuss the importance of user education, the basics of Pinterest SEO, and the value of evergreen content over fleeting trends. The conversation also highlights the significance of utilizing Pinterest analytics to track success, reviving old content with fresh pins, and strategies for new users to gain traction. Additionally, they debunk common myths surrounding Pinterest usage and share resources for further learning and community engagement.

Make sure to follow Amy's wildly popular Pinterest account for Living Locurto!

Takeaways from How to Master Pinterest for Long-Term Business Growth

• Pinterest has evolved from a DIY platform to a shopping and inspiration hub.
• Small businesses often overlook Pinterest's potential for marketing.
• Pinterest users are looking for inspiration and ideas, not just products.
• Creating a strategy for Pinterest is essential for business success.
• Timing is crucial; pins should be created well in advance of trends.
• Visual appeal is key to creating engaging pins that drive traffic.
• Pinterest allows links to various platforms, enhancing its utility for businesses.
• Monitoring comments and engagement is important for brand reputation.
• Pinners are planners; they start looking for ideas early.
• Pinterest is a quieter, more positive space compared to other social media. Educating users is crucial for platform success.
• Pinterest SEO is similar to Google but has its nuances.
• Evergreen content tends to perform better than trends.
• Utilizing Pinterest analytics is essential for tracking success.
• Reviving old content with fresh pins can drive traffic.
• New users should focus on their top-selling products.
• Quality over quantity: pinning fewer, well-thought-out pins is effective.
• Using your own images is a best practice on Pinterest.
• Community engagement and resources can enhance learning.
• It's never too late to start using Pinterest effectively.

TRANSCRIPT: How to Master Pinterest for Long-Term Business Growth

Peg Fitzpatrick (00:01.262)
Hi, I'm Peg Fitzpatrick and welcome to the Social Success Series. Today we have Amy Lucurdo of Living Lucurdo and she is a huge Pinterest aficionado and she's done a ton of great stuff with Pinterest so I cannot wait for you guys to meet her if you don't already know her. Thank you for coming and chatting with me Amy.

Amy Locurto (00:22.519)
Thank you for having me. It's good to see you. Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (00:25.504)
It is, it's been a while since we've seen our faces face to face unless you count like on Instagram, right?

Amy Locurto (00:32.045)
Right. counts.

Peg Fitzpatrick (00:34.624)
It does count and thank you for the, you know, I have to say though, sometimes I have to go find you because the algorithm is just so bad these days, don't you think? You have to go look for people and that's hard to remember.

Amy Locurto (00:42.084)
I it stinks. Yep.

Amy Locurto (00:47.029)
It is, definitely.

Peg Fitzpatrick (00:49.046)
So, you have been a Pinterest ambassador and you are also, you're a Pinterest influencer too because you have a really fantastic account. Can you talk a little bit about how you feel like Pinterest has changed over the years? Because I mean, you and I, were you in during beta? Because I've been in during beta. Like I've been on it forever. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Locurto (01:09.175)
Yeah, where you had to have an invite to get in. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I mean, we've been there from the beginning and yeah, I've been, I've been, I've been doing Living La Carta, which is a DIY lifestyle blog. It's all about cute food and entertaining ideas and crafts. Been doing it for 16 years. So of course I was around before Pinterest even came out. And then when Pinterest came out, you know, everybody was getting the invite to be on it and

Peg Fitzpatrick (01:16.513)
Yep.

Peg Fitzpatrick (01:29.047)
Wow.

Amy Locurto (01:38.017)
So yeah, it's evolved a lot since then. think that, but what I love about it is it's stayed with its traditional thing of just everything is creative. It's about learning, it's about inspiration, it's about, and now they've moved on to, it's also about shopping. So I love that.

Peg Fitzpatrick (02:00.896)
Right.

Amy Locurto (02:03.107)
But it's always been about just how to find really cool inspiration and creative ideas. So I think they've done well to stay with that.

Peg Fitzpatrick (02:07.553)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (02:12.821)
Yeah, I forgot we're both in the Pinterest creator program too. We're currently Pinterest creators. Although all of you are Pinterest creators too, but we just have a little teeny bit of behind the scenes Pinterest stuff right now. I wish they would tell us a little more to be honest than they do in that group.

Amy Locurto (02:19.426)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (02:31.127)
Yeah, it's, yeah, but if people don't know what it is, it's, they have a, like an invite only for specific people and they have little talks with us and meetups and that kind of thing. So it's just a way, which is how I got started working with them as they reached out to me years ago to be their Pinterest ambassador. And they wanted me to help build that team of people.

And we would go out and just tell our influencer friends and our community and our local community about Pinterest. so now it's they're doing that themselves online, but we did that back in the day. then it turned into, I did a lot. then, then they hired me to be their official speaker at conferences. And that's how I met you. I, well, I met you in a group.

Peg Fitzpatrick (03:12.842)
Yeah, you did an in-person event with them, right? Didn't you? Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (03:23.853)
Mm.

Amy Locurto (03:28.311)
Like online.

Peg Fitzpatrick (03:29.132)
Probably with Holly Homer.

Amy Locurto (03:31.873)
Yeah, and then we and then I met you on like Google.

Peg Fitzpatrick (03:34.06)
You know what it was? It was Google+. I met all of you mom bloggers on Google. It's true. I met a whole big group of crafty mom bloggers that I still have connected with, even though, I mean, I'm a mom, but I'm not in that do-it-yourself space. But it was such a great connection because everybody does things a little bit differently. I'm a social media marketer. I work in marketing. But we're all using Pinterest, and we have websites.

Amy Locurto (03:50.539)
And yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (04:03.701)
So it's always great to see a little bit like behind the scenes of what other people are doing.

Amy Locurto (04:08.985)
Right, and that's how I ended up getting to know you, because I was somewhere and talking about Pinterest for them, because they didn't have anybody in-house to do it at the time, so I was it.

Peg Fitzpatrick (04:10.868)
I think it was Google Plus though.

Peg Fitzpatrick (04:18.176)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (04:22.24)
That's awesome. Yeah, I did, I would say my biggest like, did Pinterest launches with Canva. When I worked at Canva, I did product launches with them, which was fun. So that's like the, you didn't know I worked at Canva? I was the first head of social strategy at Canva.

Amy Locurto (04:23.811)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (04:33.715)
Wow!

Amy Locurto (04:41.901)
How did I not know that? That's crazy.

Peg Fitzpatrick (04:43.276)
because it was a long time ago. But I mean, I talk about Canva all the time, but who doesn't now? But before anybody knew about it, I kind of helped make Canva a thing initially. yeah, back in the day. And now who knows even what they're doing now. I think they just passed 200 million users today. When I was there, we had a little ticker thing that would show you when people were, like new people were joining. And it was like, yay, new people.

Amy Locurto (04:48.249)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (04:54.787)
Thank you.

Amy Locurto (05:02.925)
Wow, that's crazy.

Peg Fitzpatrick (05:12.428)
It was crazy. That's how small they were then. So back to Pinterest, even though I just love talking to you about all stuff. A lot of people think Pinterest is just about recipes and do it yourself projects, which it is a lot of, and we love that. But how do you think small businesses often overlook Pinterest's potential? So like, what can they do to not overlook that? How could they use it? I really made that really hardliest word it is possible for you. Sorry.

Amy Locurto (05:42.125)
mean, it's not just DIY crafty people. I was just on there and I saw something for fidelity and investing into your 401k. mean, it's a place to market your business basically, but in a pretty way, it's visual. And that's what people need to realize is let's say you're a band and you want to promote your band.

Peg Fitzpatrick (05:51.294)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (06:09.709)
that's the perfect place to do it because there's gonna be, what I like about it is I think there's like, gosh, 500 million people or something on it right now and 90 million of those are in the US. At one point, my, per month, I was reaching 60 million people. So I was reaching almost all the people in.

Peg Fitzpatrick (06:22.186)
lot of people.

Peg Fitzpatrick (06:32.532)
Wow.

like two thirds, you are reaching like two thirds of all Pinterest users in the US.

Amy Locurto (06:39.583)
Everybody in United States. Isn't that crazy? That is on Pinterest. for you, anybody can have that. I'm not special. I just ended up, I had a strategy. I did my thing and it worked and I was able to reach that many people and I had a lot of sales. I had a lot of traffic to my website. So I mean, if.

Peg Fitzpatrick (06:42.461)
It is, yeah.

Amy Locurto (07:02.105)
If people just, and that's what I used to talk about when I would be, when I was speaking on Pinterest behalf at social media conferences, there would be standing room sitting on the floor only for Facebook people. And then I was in the Pinterest room and there would be like 10 people in there and it could have 500 people. And I was like, why is nobody in here? This is nuts. But

Peg Fitzpatrick (07:17.406)
Yep.

Peg Fitzpatrick (07:22.067)
have done this. Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (07:30.206)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (07:30.209)
More traffic for me, you know, at the time I was just like, great. If people don't want to utilize this, that's their problem. But it didn't make any sense to me. So I think that people really do just think, that's just for those crafty people and artsy people. Fashion, you know, people selling clothes. No, it's for financial advice. It's for your band to promote it. It's for party planners, photographers. mean,

Peg Fitzpatrick (07:45.446)
Right.

Amy Locurto (07:57.195)
Anybody that does anything creative or you can turn whatever you do into something creative because people are there to get inspiration and to learn.

Peg Fitzpatrick (08:07.434)
Yeah, I have also been the Pinterest speaker at many a conference where people were like Pinterest really? What you know, why should, Hey kitty, I just saw your little kitty go by. Your little visitor behind you. Yeah, it's crazy. And I still feel like people now even today are like, they just have let it fall off of their social things. And what people are missing is that every single thing that you create can have a link to it.

every single video. Like you can create all the reels that you want, but those are not going to link, not one click link back to your website. Hello people.

Amy Locurto (08:44.153)
Right. you can link, even if you don't have a website, you can link into your YouTube channel or your Instagram or your TikTok. I it's hard to do it all. But I think for me, I will focus on that because that is tried and true. It brings me most of my income. So I'm going to focus on that. I'm very into it.

Peg Fitzpatrick (08:50.302)
Right.

Peg Fitzpatrick (08:54.11)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (09:06.311)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (09:12.7)
I'm also into it. I love it. I do love it. So when using Pinterest for business, what are the key differences between using it for casual inspiration versus a real marketing strategy?

Amy Locurto (09:26.531)
Well, when you're on it for casual reasons, the things you start pinning to your boards will be what Pinterest starts showing you. it's hard to, you kind of need to separate it. So get on there and just realize that when you're pinning your content for business, let's say you're a bank or you're, I don't know, you're in real estate or bank, whatever you're doing.

Peg Fitzpatrick (09:51.666)
Just pick a bank, just let's stick with financial services. Yeah.

Amy Locurto (09:56.665)
you're gonna start seeing that content all the time and know that that's not the stuff that Pinterest is showing you because it's the algorithm. It's gonna show you that stuff. Doesn't mean that's super popular. It's just what you are seeing. And if you go look at your grandma's account, you're gonna see something totally different. So everything's personalized to you. So if you're kinda thinking that way, you have to really do research like incognito or…

Peg Fitzpatrick (10:18.952)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (10:24.641)
or in another browser or on another computer if you want to really kind of dive into the data and everything on what you're pinning. So you need to have a strategy and don't, so when you're doing it personal, like for a while I was pinning swimming pool ideas for my backyard and then that's all I would see. was like, I wanna see the cake because that's what I do for a living. So just remember that. So it's just a little different.

Peg Fitzpatrick (10:49.052)
Right.

Amy Locurto (10:53.495)
But yeah, you can get…

you know, and you get stuck. It's just like any, it's like any social media platform. You can like TikTok, I could be on that all day long. Just focus, do, you know, you don't need to spend a lot of time doing Pinterest. You just need.

Peg Fitzpatrick (11:04.509)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (11:10.257)
which is another thing I love about it.

Amy Locurto (11:12.769)
Yeah, I mean you could spend an hour a week and do just as well as somebody that's spending eight hours a day on it. You really don't need to think that hard. That's why I like it.

Peg Fitzpatrick (11:24.573)
Yeah, which is great for small business owners because they don't have eight hours, you know, they really don't.

Amy Locurto (11:30.021)
Yeah. I would think if you're a small business owner, you need to just look at like whatever, what's your top five products or services and really focus on those and, and think of a strategy in a way that would work for Pinterest users, because you're have to remember Pinterest users are there for inspiration and ideas. So give them the ideas and then get that hook to get them to click through.

Peg Fitzpatrick (11:42.269)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (11:57.073)
And it could even be to get something free, like a freebie, free advice or something, just to get them to sign up for your email list or something. It doesn't have to be sell, sell, sell. It's just how can we capture the people's attention over on Pinterest?

Peg Fitzpatrick (12:07.974)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (12:14.759)
Right, and make things that are so interesting that other people pin them. If you're a business, make it something that people want to save because that's the whole thing. Sometimes you just look at something, but if I like it, I always pin it. And then I go look at it. Sometimes I'll go read it first, but almost always I pin it because I don't want to lose it.

Amy Locurto (12:19.447)
Yes, I'm sorry.

Amy Locurto (12:31.406)
Thank

Amy Locurto (12:37.025)
Right, and then, but then people, you know, you need to repent it again because people will save it, but then they forget they saved it. So it's okay to it again six months down the road or three months, you know, just keep it, keep it in their, you know, little eyes because I can't even forget where it is, you know, like.

Peg Fitzpatrick (12:55.995)
Yeah, keep it in the remix. Yeah. And they definitely would not be like, I saw that pin three months ago. Never. Sometimes I see my own pin. I'm like, that's a great pin. I made it. You don't even remember, you know? Yeah, so good. How can businesses create pins that keep driving traffic even that will last for months or even show up?

Amy Locurto (13:04.673)
No, you're not going to remember.

Peg Fitzpatrick (13:23.034)
different and next year again, because I know you probably have a lot of great holiday content that comes up certain times of the year, right?

Amy Locurto (13:30.787)
yeah, I think the secret is to pin way in advance, okay? So like, I will be doing, like I have these ideas for Halloween. Let's say I'm gonna do them today. I can put them on TikTok or Instagram and they'll be fine, but they're not gonna get in the search feed over on Pinterest because it's way too late. So I will just schedule those for next year, right? I might put one now.

Peg Fitzpatrick (13:53.293)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (13:58.19)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (14:00.439)
Just maybe it'll still get in the feed, but I'm gonna do it a little closer to next Halloween. So I might pin it in July of next, of 2025. You see what I'm saying? So I'm not even gonna bother putting any effort into it for this year because this is too late. You have to do things way in advance to get into the search. So.

Peg Fitzpatrick (14:12.643)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (14:18.896)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (14:22.872)
I started seeing Christmas stuff in July for sure. That was when people started with Christmas and they were hard into fall. Like back to school was already done. Pinners are planners and they do things really early. And Pinterest does give you a lot of great trends that you can look up on trends.pinterest.com to just look things up when things are going on. So just if you guys are just listening on a podcast or watching, it's like October 23rd now. So it's like two weeks is not enough.

Amy Locurto (14:26.88)
yeah.

Amy Locurto (14:40.194)
I'm going to.

Peg Fitzpatrick (14:51.044)
So it's Amy saying months in advance.

Amy Locurto (14:53.913)
Yeah, I would think minimum one month in advance.

The best is about between three and two months before something is going to trend. So whether it's a holiday or cucumbers or asparagus, if you're a food blogger, mean, pumpkin season, fall, I mean, there's all that. you really, even, so even if you have, if you are a financial advisor or something like that, you need to be thinking of those trends. so somehow tie that into your marketing campaign on Pinterest.

Peg Fitzpatrick (15:02.01)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (15:28.103)
in the black season.

Peg Fitzpatrick (15:28.281)
with images, you could use images and colors, know, still your brand colors, but.

Amy Locurto (15:33.247)
yeah, or just have like somebody in a Halloween costume and saying plan for the future and you've got a little ghost with you. I mean, it's, it's just, it's simple. Like it just, to me, it seems so simple, but because it's visual and I'm a graphic designer.

Peg Fitzpatrick (15:39.973)
you

Peg Fitzpatrick (15:46.074)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (15:50.905)
Right. It's a great, it's a it's so visual there.

Amy Locurto (15:55.065)
Thank you so much. It's easy for me, but it's not if you're not a visual person. So I get why it's of confusing to some people.

Peg Fitzpatrick (16:02.532)
Right, I'm also visual.

Yeah, but it's really not. mean, compared to like other like TikTok or Instagram where there's just all this other stuff going on, Pinterest is very quiet. And I do like that you can just go on and do your thing. You do get into the rabbit hole if you start looking at different things, but you know, you can really just go on and do your thing, check things, check your analytics, do whatever.

Amy Locurto (16:23.267)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (16:30.179)
Yeah, and they're promoting it as the happy place. what's happening from that is they're getting the Gen Zers. They're getting the young kids who love it over there because it is. There's not a lot of drama. It's a happy thing. Well, I think there is some, but yeah, it's not like people are arguing. Well, it's your feed. It's showing you what you like.

Peg Fitzpatrick (16:39.279)
you

Peg Fitzpatrick (16:45.935)
Zero politics.

Peg Fitzpatrick (16:50.821)
I haven't seen anything goodness, I would hope it stays on.

Hahaha

Amy Locurto (16:57.293)
So there could be somebody out there doing some political stuff and that's what they're seeing. So it's there. It's there.

Peg Fitzpatrick (17:01.399)
Okay, you're right. I never even see it in the home feed or anywhere. Anywhere I look, I have never seen it.

Amy Locurto (17:05.817)
And some of the comments can get pretty heated. I have gotten a lot of hate over there. And so that's the other thing. You still have to monitor comments. And even though they say it's not a social media platform, it is. People can say bad reviews about your company. People can do all kinds of things. So you do need to monitor it. It's not just like, put it up there and forget about it. So make sure that you do check.

Peg Fitzpatrick (17:10.86)
yeah, yeah.

Mm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (17:19.353)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (17:24.229)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (17:30.638)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (17:33.995)
you know, what's going on. And there is a button, you can check engagements and you can see what people are commenting and all that, all that.

Peg Fitzpatrick (17:41.477)
have had a couple weird comments. If they're almost more weird because it's like, know, the people don't really know you. Like they're not really connected. They're like, they just say something like, someone just left a rude one. Like I need every, I need this step by step, but they said it in a really like jerky way. It's like, dude, just all you have to do is click on the pin and go with, you know, 98 % of pins will lead you to the whole step by step when you click through, but you can't always fit it all in the graphic.

Amy Locurto (18:05.817)
And that's why I did a lot of many years of just educating the users over there on how to use it. sometimes I already, when they came out with video, it was different where you would click. had to click on the title of the pin instead of, there was no button. So you had to tell people, the title to get the information because people were commenting, I don't know how to, you shared this video, but there's no instructions. And I'm like, my gosh.

Peg Fitzpatrick (18:11.683)
Mm-mm.

Amy Locurto (18:36.633)
I wish Pinterest would do more of educating their users, but they don't. So it's kind of.

Peg Fitzpatrick (18:41.369)
Well, they didn't really want the videos to link anywhere, but they gave in finally. SEO can be a bit of a mystery. What are some of the must-know basics to make sure your pins will show up in search?

Amy Locurto (18:58.903)
Cool.

The Must Know Basics are basically kind of similar to Google. You're just gonna find keywords that people are searching and it's a little different on Pinterest than Google, but not much. mean, you might have more detailed descriptions of, and it might be, what I've noticed is,

The, when it says, you know, you mentioned trends, you can go and search the trends, trending topics on Pinterest. They're always about a month behind of what's really trending. So, you know, do those for next year. Like they're not here now and going, lasagna soup's trending. You know why it's trending? Cause it was trending on TikTok four months ago. Pinterest has it trending, but it's.

Peg Fitzpatrick (19:50.788)
You

Peg Fitzpatrick (19:55.011)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (19:55.809)
Done. It's done. can try and get in on it, it's so that might not ever trend again. I don't know. It's so because it was going nuts over on TikTok.

Peg Fitzpatrick (20:05.145)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (20:09.045)
It's funny how that happens. The baked feta went viral and then the cucumber salads went viral and now I'm like obsessed with those. Have you tried those?

Amy Locurto (20:12.888)
Mm.

Amy Locurto (20:19.531)
of course, because I have an 18 year old daughter and daughter that was like, I need to make this. I'm like, my gosh. Yeah, that guy, I mean, he made everything go viral with that. And that was from TikTok. So that's the other thing. Like, I wouldn't dive too much into the trends because if it's more evergreen, you're just going to do better the next year because I guarantee you that lasagna soup or the cucumbers are not going to be a thing next year.

Peg Fitzpatrick (20:30.104)
Yep.

Peg Fitzpatrick (20:42.381)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (20:47.373)
and you're gonna spend all that time. And it's four months ago over on TikTok. So it's not even a thing, like those kids are on there making it trending, but it's not, don't care. They're not gonna care. So you have to think more evergreen, generic, let's just do soup or let's just do lasagna. And maybe those words that you have in there, if it does trend again next year, you'll get in the feed. But I tried to tell,

Peg Fitzpatrick (21:01.986)
Right.

Amy Locurto (21:16.829)
my students and people that I coach just, you know, let's just do evergreen because I've been caught up in the trends before. And then it just sucks. spend all that time creating pins and content. And then the next year it's just gone forever and you never see it again. So let's.

Peg Fitzpatrick (21:28.642)
Thank

Peg Fitzpatrick (21:32.003)
Excuse me.

Peg Fitzpatrick (21:35.531)
Yeah, so you basically, sorry about that. So you basically skip the trends. Really? As they show them. Yeah. Yeah, that's…

Amy Locurto (21:42.937)
for sure. I'm pinching because they're not trending. They're only showing what has trend. It's not ahead of the time.

Peg Fitzpatrick (21:55.446)
Right. So do you think a better plan for a small business owner is to make your own schedule for the year? Like know that you're going to have these things and then plan it a couple of months ahead. But then also for the most of the time you're doing evergreen content because it's not timely things like this is this thing is happening this Friday. Like those kinds of things will never. Yeah.

Amy Locurto (22:15.117)
There's always trends that are going to be like pumpkin season. That is always a thing, but I'm just saying like a certain type of soup. It's not like if you are, if you're, let's say you, make those little season that you're selling those little seasonings for soup and you're like, and you go to Pinterest and you see that lasagna soups trending and you're going to go and sell it. Well,

Peg Fitzpatrick (22:19.308)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (22:34.429)
Hahaha

Amy Locurto (22:44.887)
That's cool, but is it gonna work next year like you just spent all that time? I don't know. So yeah, it's like try and find something that you know everybody's gonna love because that's just a certain little, I would just, yeah, to be safe. And then once you get all of those, your content plan, then you can think more trending items. If you can get in there quick. The best is if you can do it before it trends on Pinterest, but that's just luck. And that's where I have.

Peg Fitzpatrick (22:50.486)
Right.

Peg Fitzpatrick (23:00.257)
you

Peg Fitzpatrick (23:10.302)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (23:14.881)
really been successful is, you know, we create the trends. So I'm in that crowd that will like, I'll just come up with something and then it goes viral and now it's trending on Pinterest, but I did it six months before it trended.

Peg Fitzpatrick (23:20.737)
Right.

Peg Fitzpatrick (23:30.496)
Right, and that's your planning, because you knew that October was going to come around and that you wanted to have Halloween snacks and treats, but you started them in the summer and got them going.

Amy Locurto (23:43.555)
Well, we see what's, you know, like I'm in the business of doing that. So yeah, you see, okay, I think blue is going to be really popular.

Peg Fitzpatrick (23:47.702)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (23:52.119)
when it comes to let's say Christmas decor or whatever, that's gonna be the thing. We all know that in February. It's hard, and so if you are a small business, you'll know those things because that should be something you're looking at. So I do think that the trends help you come up, and you can go back and look at what did I do last year? Sorry, there's somebody doing lawn workout.

So what did I do last year? And then you can kind of see if it stayed high, like during that month, every year in a row. It's pretty cool. So there is a lot of really cool data on the trends area of Pinterest for sure.

Peg Fitzpatrick (24:37.313)
Do you use mostly Pinterest analytics or do you also use Google analytics even though I don't like GA4? I don't know about you, but it's not my favorite. Me too.

Amy Locurto (24:44.993)
my gosh, I hate it so much. Yeah, I did. I used just analytics, Google.

analytics forever and now it's just more of a crap shoot like it's really hard to find the data I mean I figured it out but because that's you know what I do for a living I have to figure it out but yeah I think for the most part you can look at your Pinterest analytics it's just really hard to so what you need to do this is a great tip is download your data every quarter every month

Peg Fitzpatrick (24:56.512)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (25:04.673)
you

Amy Locurto (25:20.773)
whatever you can do because you can't go back further than what a hundred and something days, hundred eighty days on your Pinterest analytics. So you need to download that data because and then you to store it somewhere that you'll remember where it is and and so it's it's very important because I think that's you have to have the data to see what was successful so you can see what you can do next year.

Peg Fitzpatrick (25:26.368)

80. Yeah, I think 180.

Peg Fitzpatrick (25:45.844)
That's true. Have you ever taken that and put it into like chat GBT and asked it to analyze it for you?

Amy Locurto (25:52.899)
Yeah, I mean…

Peg Fitzpatrick (25:55.008)
because it could give you trends and spat things.

Amy Locurto (25:56.045)
You know, it's hard to answer. For somebody like me that has so much different content and so much content, that doesn't ever really work for me. But you could. Like if you're very niche and you're just trying to figure out which should I talk about, this or this, then that would be great alternative. Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (26:25.154)
If someone has older content and they haven't really been pinning lately and then they want it, they're like, okay, I love this conversation. I'm definitely going to go back to Pinterest. How can they like breathe new life into that and get it working for them?

Amy Locurto (26:39.735)
I'm glad you asked me because that's…

I've been designing Pinterest templates with Canva for the past four or five years and most of the influencers I know use them. They're very popular and people get tons of traffic. So what they do is they'll use one of my templates or their own templates, their own design, and they will just create a whole new pin. We call that a fresh pin and that just means it's a new image. It has new colors.

new text, maybe it's got a new title, and that just can really revive something old that's already out there. And so that's a really easy way to do that. It takes seconds if you have a template. You can just drag and drop and boom, add it to Pinterest and schedule it, duplicate it, schedule it for several months out, and you're good for the whole year, which is life.

Peg Fitzpatrick (27:27.411)
Yeah.

Yep.

Peg Fitzpatrick (27:37.725)
Yeah, I like to make one and then schedule. I like to use plan for Pinterest and then you can just schedule it to different boards out over different months. Like Tailwind used to be where everybody, we used to repin a whole bunch of stuff a lot, but I just do them out over longer periods now just to, you you make a graphic and you put it out like once a month for three months or something like that. So just keep it rotating.

Amy Locurto (28:02.137)
Exactly. so doing, thinking ahead, rotating and having some fresh, you know, fresh colors and designs and make it look holidayish if it's a holiday time of the year. It doesn't even need to be holiday related as long as you could put a snowman on there and people will be like, snowman, because it's Christmas time.

Peg Fitzpatrick (28:18.271)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (28:27.161)
It's something to catch people's eye. It's all in how you design your pin.

Peg Fitzpatrick (28:32.699)
Yeah, and I was gonna and it's really Christmas like six months of the year on So you're pretty good with it. For somebody who's just getting started, what's one thing they should focus on? Do you think to get to get some traction?

Amy Locurto (28:46.977)
Well, I think I kind of mentioned it. Just basically focus on your top content, your top selling products, your top services that bring you your income and or plan how you want to use Pinterest. So focus on maybe I want to get leads for my newsletter. Maybe I want to get people to come to my event. Maybe I want them to book me, book my band. So

Peg Fitzpatrick (28:59.103)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (29:13.377)
you know, gotta really think of a marketing strategy and then how is that gonna work? So I would just, yeah, focus on the marketing strategy and then focus on just a few items and really make those pens look amazing and have the great keywords in there that can get found in search and put a lot of them in there. So I think it's just simple is good and…

Just focus on what is already working for you. You know what that is if you have a business and just put it on there. But put it on there in a way that Pinterest users will like it. So that's where it gets a little, it's where you wanna work with somebody like us who we're creatives, we're on there all the time. If you need help, just, you know, you can always call us.

Peg Fitzpatrick (29:47.666)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (30:05.123)
Find someone. Yep. So what's one Pinterest myth that you would want to clear up that you think you hear and just makes you crazy?

Amy Locurto (30:14.201)
when people say that you have to pin like 85 pins a day or something like that, that's crazy. Or people will say, I was told that, what is, there's something that people are saying for a long time. like, where are you hearing this? just, no, I would just pin like five things. That's all, I mean, you don't need to pin a hundred things a day, you know?

Peg Fitzpatrick (30:19.95)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (30:43.217)
No.

Amy Locurto (30:44.577)
If you can, if you can pin one thing a week is better than none. Like, because it gets in, if it gets in search your gold and, but if it doesn't, then you go back and pin it again or change up the design of the pin or change your text or do something. If you don't start seeing any traction, but I, you know, I don't think you have to pin a ton to see results on Pinterest. just has to be really thought out content and.

Peg Fitzpatrick (30:49.032)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (31:04.573)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (31:14.745)
I think that that's one of the myths that I think is kind of crazy. Also, you don't have to do what everybody else is doing.

Peg Fitzpatrick (31:21.159)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (31:26.718)
That's good advice for life, right?

Amy Locurto (31:31.034)
It is. mean, test things out and get your own data before or talk to somebody that has the data before listening.

Peg Fitzpatrick (31:34.428)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (31:39.622)
Yeah, that's good. Very good. And Amy, where can people keep up with you and find out more about what you're doing?

Amy Locurto (31:48.261)
okay, glad you asked. have a website called amyscircle.com and you can visit there. I've got courses and all kinds of Pinterest templates for everyone. have some new ones that I just launched. are for lifestyle and food influencers and creators. And I was, I'm just going to give you a discount for anybody watching this. You can go to amyscircle.com and if you want to

I have nine tips, nine secrets to Pinterest success. If you're a newbie and you just really want those nine tips, it's use peg 15 and you can get 15 % off that and you can use the same code peg 15 for those new templates. It says new on Amy's Circle and you can get 15 % off it. They're really inexpensive. I think they're like a dollar each. It's like,

Peg Fitzpatrick (32:39.702)
Awesome. Awesome.

Peg Fitzpatrick (32:45.223)
So time-saving. When you have good templates, you can just reuse them forever. You just rebrand them with your own colors. You can change the fonts if you want a little to match your stuff. New images and then your, you know, and also they're not templates that are already on Canva. So they would be unique.

Amy Locurto (32:50.168)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (33:03.449)
Mine are very, and I don't like Canvas at all. Like they don't work. So all of mine have been tested by influencers and creators and they work really well. And I changed them out a lot, but I use, I do have samples of content that you can pin in my templates. So I do a lot of research on that and you could just make a pin with whatever I have in there.

Peg Fitzpatrick (33:07.345)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (33:31.321)
because that's keywords, it's optimized, it's ready for you. You can just slap new pictures in there and put it up. here to help you. So I've been teaching and coaching since 2019 about Pinterest. And I worked with Pinterest back in 2016, I think. So, 2016 through 18.

Peg Fitzpatrick (33:45.766)
time.

Peg Fitzpatrick (33:53.644)
Mm-hmm been doing it for a long time. It is your Amy circle. Also. Is that like a community that people can join?

Amy Locurto (34:01.505)
I do, have a small mastermind right now. It's closed, but there is a wait list if you would like to join, sign up, and then when I'm ready to open it, will, and I'm working on a course as well. I had a mastermind course, but things just change. then I, so I'm actually doing everything I'm teaching. Like I'm not just coaching and making money from the coaching. I'm making money from my business.

Peg Fitzpatrick (34:06.32)
Mm-hmm.

Amy Locurto (34:30.285)
And then I'm just sharing what I'm doing because I've been doing this so long. I'm sort of like semi-retired in that sense of it. So I just, love helping people. And I found my passion in teaching and helping other people. Cause I've been doing this so long. I'm like, you know, I'm just sort of, cause I've figured it out. I'm not, I don't want to be like some famous person. I'm just here to help. And I just love my community and I love meeting people and getting together. So.

Peg Fitzpatrick (34:39.366)
Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (34:54.204)
You

Amy Locurto (34:59.681)
I created a course and then people loved it so much. That's how I ended up having a small mastermind. Well, it was a big mastermind and it's getting smaller and smaller just because people move on, you know, but.

Peg Fitzpatrick (35:14.466)
You know what, the goal is always to have people learn stuff and then fly on their own. That's what I feel like that with my blog.

Amy Locurto (35:20.057)
We're friends now. Now I do events and we travel and it's just really, we're just a tight-knit group of people and I love it so much. so I've been really focused on that and then I need to get back into, I've done about a year of research on Pinterest. And so I'm working on the new course. It's just, I'm kind of waiting to see if they're going to drop anything new. Cause you never know. And I'm like, as soon as I tell you.

Peg Fitzpatrick (35:23.942)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (35:48.569)
there's some secrets, then they'll have all new things. I think they're at a good place. I'm like, maybe I can start my new mastermind course.

Peg Fitzpatrick (35:50.031)
Yep.

Peg Fitzpatrick (35:57.285)
They're going to wait until you're done filming and then they'll update something crucial.

Amy Locurto (36:02.521)
Yeah, I've just been sort of like, wait and see what happens. But I think it's good. I think they're kind of back to where they used to be and focused on the creators and content and the user experience is a lot better. So I think that, yeah, that's really good. yeah, anybody and then I do consulting. So if anybody wants to call and have a one-on-one with me, I'm happy to look at your Pinterest account, do an evaluation and kind of give you some tips on.

Peg Fitzpatrick (36:11.258)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (36:18.629)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (36:32.247)
What to do? work with brands a lot when it comes to that. Like, yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (36:35.225)
Yeah, that's awesome. We didn't even talk about that. That's a whole other show is all your brand work and brand collabs that you've done.

Amy Locurto (36:42.765)
Yeah, the coolest thing I did was with Coca-Cola. I got to do, yeah, we were trying to help them grow on Pinterest, but our pins did better than Coca-Cola. So a lot of times you want to work with the, we call ourselves power pinners. Like we do better than the big brands. It's pretty crazy. Yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (36:46.555)
I actually remember your Coca-Cola stuff.

Peg Fitzpatrick (37:00.602)
You

Peg Fitzpatrick (37:05.002)
Mm-hmm. It is. Well, Pinterest likes what they like. I feel like they know when people have been on there a long time and that you already have successful content and your website is trustworthy and they love it. You know, people don't get bad experiences when they go there. They kind of look at all these different things, you know.

Amy Locurto (37:22.967)
Yeah. Well, that's the other thing I wanted to say. Just one of the best practices is use your own images, use your own photos, use your own content. It's not good to just take other people's and just try and make a buck off of it. You know, I've seen that a lot over there, but they're doing really well about stopping that, you know, with all the AI and all the stuff that's happening. So.

Peg Fitzpatrick (37:40.174)
Mm-hmm.

Peg Fitzpatrick (37:45.464)
Yeah. instantly all the hair things were AI photos, like hairstyles. I don't trust AI hairstyles. I want to see it on someone's actual hair. AI hair could be anything. I have curly, I straightened up, but I have naturally curly hair. I need to see someone else with really curly hair, not AI hair. Right?

Amy Locurto (37:56.116)
you

Amy Locurto (38:08.697)
Exactly, it's too perfect. You can tell now. But yeah, if you see any of that, you can report it and get that off of there because we want to have our Pinterest be nice and perfect.

Peg Fitzpatrick (38:11.544)
Yeah, yeah.

Peg Fitzpatrick (38:20.674)
Yeah. Just peaceful, calm with lots of great things to inspire us. Well, I appreciate you coming and sharing your Pinterest expertise. I'm sure people are going to love it. I will have the links to Amy's stuff down in the, and there'll be a blog post that will have all this on there with all the links so you guys can check it all out and grab Amy's templates. So thank you. I hope you guys are inspired to, I hope everybody's inspired.

Amy Locurto (38:26.593)
Yeah.

Amy Locurto (38:43.555)
Yeah. Thanks for having

Peg Fitzpatrick (38:48.877)
to go actually pin some things and just get started with your Pinterest again. If you gave it a little break, it's not too late. Hop in. Thank you. thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, I'm gonna end. I'm gonna stop recording.

Amy Locurto (38:55.929)
Yeah, I'm excited for the book. Thanks for having me.