#159 – Why I Will Never Give You Get Traffic Fast Strategies

There is a lot of marketing speak that will sell you on get traffic fast strategies on Pinterest, but the Simple Pin Podcast will never be the place for that. Find out why I’m drawing a line in the sand and committing to bringing you the best teaching.

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Let’s dig in.

This is not an episode about what people are doing wrong, but one about drawing a line in the sand for me. It’s more behind the scenes as to why I teach the way that I teach and how to hold fast to that, despite what the industry may be doing.

Pinterest Hacks and Quick Success Promises 

Back in June, I had a little bit of a crisis of work ethics. I had just had someone ask me about hacking Pinterest, and someone else ask me about the repin ID working to generate more engagement and again (another Pinterest “hack” strategy). The straw that broke the camel’s back was viewing pin after pin on my Pinterest feed that made promises of Pinterest success in 30 days.

The headlines looked like this:

• The “New” Way to Get More Traffic from Pinterest
• How to Get Your First 1000 Followers in x Steps
• Why you Suck at Pinterest and What You Can Do to Get Thousands of Repins (a favorite!)
• How I Doubled My Traffic in 2 Weeks
• How I got 5 million Pageviews per Month on Pinterest (this one wasn’t clear if they were talking about actual traffic. I can tell you in all my time of managing Pinterest accounts, I have only ever see a few people reach 5 million Pinterest-led sessions per month and that was a few years back in the high-time).

A few others promised doubling, tripling and even quadrupling traffic in a short amount of time. (sigh)

Why I Will Never Give You Get Traffic Fast Strategies

Now, I’m not shaming these people for using the get traffic fast Pinterest marketing strategy, to each business owner their own. But the popularity of this marketing strategy left me questioning myself.

Was I missing something? Was I not teaching the way the community wanted? Were people so determined to find the hack or quick success that they would reject my long-term Pinterest growth mindset of teaching in favor of the quick trick?

Would I soon become irrelevant all because I wasn’t teaching the get traffic fast method?

Seeking Help from Colleagues

I did my usual thing – I recruited Kristie Hill and Alisa Meredith to be my sounding board. Alisa always knows that I get drawn into the weeds and Kristie always shares a helpful data spin on my issue. They are two of my favorite colleagues for asking these (ridiculous but honest) questions to. No judgment has ever been passed by them, so it gives me a safe place to pose my questions.

Even after our level-headed conversation, I was left still wondering.

Am I still missing something? Can an account grow in traffic and email leads, exponentially in 30 days?

What I was seeing in all the data from our clients periodically backed up this claim, but more often than not, it didn’t.

Managing certain accounts has felt like walking through mud. Our account specialists worked so hard. We gave the client content suggestions, shared content in our tribes and network group boards, and even singled out a specific pin to see if we could drive more traffic. At times, the needle just didn’t move for these clients. It was maddening.

Combine the frustration of dealing with these particular accounts with being bombarded by all these headlines, I started to become just a wee bit bitter. I know for a fact that most of the time, what works for one account doesn’t work for another.

How can this Pinterest marketer take what has worked for them and claim with confidence that it will work for someone else?

My conscious just won’t allow me to make that claim. I can’t teach, run an ad, or sell my services that way. I know too much about what the data tells us. If I made those claims, I would be selling a dream where only a fraction of people could actually achieve those kind of results.

I’ve always defined Simple Pin teaching as simple, actionable and will not take you down a rabbit trail. But with what felt like growing pressure from the sales strategies in the Pinterest community, would I cave? Would I cherry pick all the successful clients stories and not share the struggles? Would I make it seem like all accounts could grow in 30 days and experience raving success?

Seeking Help from My Community

I needed more feedback from the people in my community.

I asked them to weigh in on two things.

What words would they use to describe our teaching?

and

What did they think of when they see and ad that says “get ___ in 30 days by using this method”?

I’ll start with the second question. I asked them how they felt about the 30-day (or whatever day) promise of success. Here’s a list of their reactions:

A quick fix

Flushing money down the toilet

Scam

Nice eye catching title that takes me nowhere

Maybe it’s just me lately but I am so over the scammy spammy feel of those types of titles

I figure they want my email but I don’t automatically write off someone as spam for that

We’re all looking for more efficient ways of working (I appreciated this honesty)

They want leads

I agree with the others with the marketing terms but if it’s something realistic, like 30 days to more leads, vs a reach for the stars promise, I would click on it. (also good perspective)

Click Bait

What surfaced as well in this discussion was that there was a place for the 30 days/quick tips type of thing, IF it was helping them complete a specific task or jumpstart their marketing. If it didn’t make a promise then it was worth exploring. But if the promise felt too far-fetched they were skeptical.

Their responses confirmed what I was feeling as well. Going through this process gave me some good ideas for how we can take what we’ve learned from managing so many client accounts and showcase the different experiences — and how that can jumpstart people just getting into the game.

Here are some of the words that our students used to describe our teaching:

Trustworthy
Reliable
Practical 
Honest
Simple
Actionable
Reasonable
The real deal, cut through the fluff
Up-to-date
Professional
Current
No. B.S, Straightforward
Authentic

Not only were their words encouraging to me, but the process of reading them shook me out of my identity crisis, cured my self-doubt, and gave me fuel to keep using the teaching methods that I’ve used throughout the years. This process reinforced the importance of not chasing someone else’s success, and to keep my eyes on the community I’m leading.

I’m now re-energized to keep bringing you real examples of people hustling on Pinterest, to give you honest replies instead of the flashy answer. To admit when I don’t know something but I’ll work to figure it out. To keep my head in Pinterest education and bring you the latest at all times. And most important, a commitment to give you real stories of success and the grit it took to get them to that place, even when it’s not the sexy answer.

My Commitment To You

Simple Pin Media will remain committed to sharing the best Pinterest information that will help you reach your business goals (which, in turn, helps you reach your personal goals). My hope is that each business will find success on Pinterest through best practices, long-term mindset and knowing the metrics that best measure business growth.

In short, I commit to sharing with you the awesome success stories as well as the hard fought ones. I’ll serve up the case studies, examples and tips for success but I won’t tell you it’s going to happen quickly. Because as most of you know, Pinterest is a slow-burn and it takes time to cultivate results. I’ll be walking with you along that road and cheering you on to success, however long it takes.

Thanks for listening to this episode. I know it’s a little different than the norm, but felt like I had to share the state of my teaching and how I’ll continue to be committed to you, the listener, our clients and the members of our community.

For Further Reading/Listening:

• How to Create a Pinterest Marketing Strategy that Works for You
• Long-Term Results on Pinterest: Why Patience Is Vital
• What to Do When Your Pinterest Marketing is Not Working