Episode 1 Julie Crawford on Pinterest and Poetry

[3:34] Julie was blogging before Ravelry—the dark ages to some listeners!

[4:26] Modification Monday’s Origin: I saw people tweaking patterns and I wanted to promote bravery and risk-taking when it comes to knitting. We don’t have to slavishly follow the pattern.

[5:34] What was the struggle with building an audience? Julie was a late adopter. She learned and was inspired to improve her Instagram channel and to build up her account and promote it outside of Instagram.

[6:52] Pinterest is becoming overwhelming at this stage. It’s built around preferences; it can be for any niche demographic.

[7:20] Separate the personal pins from the pins you make for your audience. If I had personal pins I wanted, I’d make a secret board. With over 2 million daily users pinning, it’s easy to see how it becomes a blur of white noise.

[8:00] When you pull the lens back on the landscape of social media we’re still in the pioneering days of social media.

Practical Tips on Pinterest: 

[8:44] Julie shares the top 3 things to do to improve your basic account. 

[10:08] Create your own personal Pinterest account for your own interests. Create boards on your business only for your customers. It has to be relevant. What are your customers’ problems and how are you offering solutions?

[11:00] Multiple posts that help your target audience solve their problems builds trust with your brand.

[12:00] Second thing that is important is to post “Pinterest –worthy” content. The power of photography means how important it is to have the best photos possible to drive traffic to your site. It helps when the models look like real people and not just like Gisele Bundchen.

[13:10] Studies show that when people view photos in a natural setting they have better cognition and recognition of that photo later on. 

[13:45] Combine natural elements with a real person allows the viewer to build a better relationship with that product.

Photography:

[14:15] Heads vs. No Heads controversy concerning photographing people. Julie says the viewers perspective depends on the emotional baggage that person brings to the table. Disembodied knits can be harder to envision on yourself.  For Pinterest- include some face. 

[17:00] Be mindful of proper image dimensions and text. NO HORIZONTAL PHOTOS.  Remember people are using mobile devices. Create a vertical collage of images. Remember the power of keywords with descriptions.

Keywords and Pinning Strategies on Pinterest:

[19:45] Type into Pinterest similar products to uncover good keywords for your effort. Keywords are critical to getting found by people who are not already followers.

[20:28] Keywords vs. Hashtags in Pinterest.

[23:15] Pin looping and repinning. People tend to pin only one time and then never again. The more repins something has, the most popular pins with those keywords come up first.

[25:49] Look at your pin indicator. You want to get that number as high as possible.

[26:18] This is really important: Pin the pin you already had. You’re repinning that.

[27:16] Repin to parallel boards.

[28: 25] Too many pins on the board? If there are pins only have low repins, maybe that content is not relevant or are there old pins? Feel free to loop those older pins. If you just have general boards, it’s not specific enough. Separate pins out. Do you have fall and winter categories or hat patterns? If you’ve changed your website, I’m willing to bet your links don’t work anymore. Go back and update those links on Pinterest. 

[31:04] Boardboosterand Tailwind. These platforms can help you schedule pins. Staying on top of social media is a huge job. You want your Pinterest boards to be useful but let’s face it, you don’t have time to scroll through Pinterest every day. We just get desperate or tired and we start pinning everything. 

Poetry:

[34:52] Julie is a published author of two books of poems: “Tangle” and “Lady Crawford”. Poetry really fits into a busy schedule. Poetry can have a huge impact on how you view the world and calming you down and taking time for yourself. 

[37:12] Bite size snippets of poetry can reignite a creative passion. Julie expands on her new writing project of a novel. One of the reasons she likes working for Stitchcraft work because it gives her flexibility in time.

[39:00] Creative life can be demanding to combine passion and making a living.