Marketing Strategy Academy with Jen Vazquez

Every year, service providers tell me they'll start Pinterest in January. That one decision can cost you three months of content that could have been working for you all along.

In this episode, I explain why Q4 is a smart time to start on Pinterest, a search engine where your future clients are researching who to hire next year. I also walk you through a simple four-week plan you can start this week.

In this episode:

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Why waiting until January pushes your results back

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How Pinterest timing actually works, and why slow pins are an advantage

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What your future clients are searching for in Q4

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What to pin if you're a coach, photographer, wedding pro, or Pinterest strategist

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The four-week Q4 quick start, from profile setup to your first pins

Why an account started in October is in a different spot by January

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ALL LINKS MENTIONED

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $47? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow Sign up for the Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• FREE Pinterest + Marketing Tools
• FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

You're showing up, pitching, posting, and following up, and you're still chasing every client. What if the right clients came to you already sold?

I'm chatting with Emily Grace, a filmmaker and Sundance Award-winning actor turned visibility coach. She takes the Hollywood playbook and turns it into simple, low-effort ways for service providers to be remembered, not just seen.

In this episode:

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Why a single spotlight moment changes how people see you

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Two small habits that make women dim their light on podcasts and panels

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What Hollywood knows about building demand before a launch

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How stories (even stories about a tool) make people want to work with you

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Vanity visibility vs. strategic visibility, and how to tell which one you're doing

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The funnel mistake that wastes a great podcast interview

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The one thing you can do today to pitch yourself to five podcasts

ALL LINKS MENTIONED

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $47? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow ⁠Pinterest Visibility Sprint ⁠

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• ⁠Free Pinterest + marketing tools.⁠
• ⁠Want your account audited? ⁠FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

Support the show!

You paid for the brand photos, and most of them are sitting in a folder doing nothing. What if one photo shoot could feed your Pinterest account for the next 90 days?

In this episode, I walk through the exact system I use to turn one brand shoot into months of pins that keep finding your ideal clients while you're busy doing literally anything else. Pinterest is a visual search engine, and brand photos are exactly what it was built for.

In this episode:

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Why brand photos often outperform polished graphic pins

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The four types of brand photos that work best on Pinterest

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How to turn one photo into five pins with five different keywords

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How to map a full brand shoot to 90 days of content

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Why you only need a handful of blog posts, not 50

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The 10 minute keyword step to do before your next shoot

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How board names tell Pinterest who should see your pins

ALL RESOURCES MENTIONED

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $47? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow

Pinterest Visibility Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• Dear Pinterest Girl: Get your Pinterest questions answered
• Want your account audited? FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.
• FREE Pinterest Resources

• ⁠Support the show⁠

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

You dropped an affiliate link into a pin and nobody clicked. If that sounds familiar, you're in good company. Most service providers try Pinterest affiliate marketing one way, pin the product, add the link, wait, and it barely works. There's a smarter way, and it's hiding in something you're probably already doing.

In this episode, I break down:

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Why direct affiliate pins reach such a small slice of Pinterest

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The blog post bridge that reaches two types of buyers at once

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How coaches, photographers, and wellness pros can start with Amazon

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Niche affiliate programs that fit your ideal client

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How to write a before and after post people actually trust

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The one rule that keeps Pinterest from getting confused about who you serve

ALL THE LINKS MENTIONED

You don't have a marketing problem. You have an operational problem. If you're bringing in leads but feeling overwhelmed, behind or stressed trying to deliver what you promised, this episode is going to feel very real.

I'm chatting with Kasandra Murray, marketing + operations consultant and founder of Unlucky Umbrella Studio. She bridges two areas that are often treated completely separately and helps businesses line up lead generation with the systems, sales process and customer experience needed to support sustainable growth.

In this episode, you'll learn:

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Where the loop between marketing promises and delivery most often breaks

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Why every business, big or small, struggles with documentation (and how to start without perfectionism)

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What effective training looks like, and how to combine visual, audio + hands-on learning

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How misalignment quietly hurts repeat business and referrals

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• The first operational system to hand off when you feel overwhelmed

• Kasandra's three growth tips: inbox zero, a negotiation lesson from Never Split the Difference, and documenting everything

ALL LINKS MENTIONED

You're pinning your best photography work, you're being consistent, and you still aren't getting found on Pinterest. In this episode, I explain why the problem is almost never your photos. It's the words around them.

I walk you through how Pinterest search really works for photographers, and how to use the specificity of your business (your services, your city, your venues, your style) as your biggest advantage.

In this episode, you'll learn:

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How Pinterest reads your titles, descriptions, board names and bio to decide who sees your pins

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My 4-question keyword interview for photographers

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Why "wedding photographer San Jose" can beat "San Jose wedding photographer"

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The 5 places your keywords need to live

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The board structure that works (and why "My Faves" is hurting you)

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How to turn one photo session into 5 weeks of pins

Grab the free Keyword Interview cheat sheet, the Pinterest Foundations checklist and the Organic Pins checklist inside my Visibility Vault at learn.jenvazquez.com/resources.

Next week: the Pinterest strategy most service providers overlook that brings in a completely different type of buyer.

ALL LINKS MENTIONED

I used to be that photographer, grinding Instagram every single day, posting reels, doing stories, engaging in comments. My bookings were fine, but fine isn't why I started a photography business. In this episode, I'm sharing exactly how photographers can use Pinterest to book more clients without being on it every single day, because the way most photographers are using Pinterest is the reason it's not working for them.

In this episode:

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The 2021 deep dive that showed me 80% of my clients actually found me through Pinterest and Google, not Instagram

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Why Pinterest is a completely different buyer pool than social media

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The two biggest mistakes photographers make on Pinterest (hint: one is about keywords, not hashtags)

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How one wedding session can become 40 to 80 pins

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The exact keyword strategy for location-based photography businesses

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A real client case study where outbound clicks jumped 315% in six months

Shownotes right here

Sponsered by Aftershoot: ⁠Grab six months of Aftershoot Select for $49! ⁠#cullsmarter

The number one reason service providers tell me they're not on Pinterest is this: "I don't have a blog. I don't have a ton of content. What would I even pin?" Here's what they don't realize. You do not need a blog to succeed on Pinterest. In this episode, I'm walking through exactly what Pinterest accepts as a destination when you don't have one, and why your brand photos might be some of the highest performing Pinterest content you're not using yet.

In this episode:

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What Pinterest actually accepts as a pin destination (service pages, booking links, freebies, videos, and podcast episodes)

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Why brand photos, especially behind-the-scenes shots, outperform polished headshots on Pinterest

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How to turn one brand photo into five pins targeting five different keywords

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Simple content ideas that don't require a blog: FAQ pages, process pages, and testimonial pages

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Why a Pinterest pin can keep driving traffic years after a feed post disappears

ALL LINKS MENTIONED

If you've been using a personal Pinterest account for years and wondering whether to convert it to a business account or just start over, this is for you. Good news, you don't have to start from scratch. You can convert your existing account and keep everything you've built, but there are a few things you need to do correctly to make sure your account actually works as a marketing tool.

In this episode:

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Why a business account is non-negotiable if you're marketing on Pinterest

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The exact step-by-step process for converting your existing account

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What actually happens to your old personal boards (nothing gets deleted)

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How to set up your profile name, bio, and cover photo to attract your ideal client

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Why claiming your website is a step most people skip, and why it matters

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How to set up your first keyword-rich business boards

ALL THE LINKS

The number one reason people tell me their Pinterest strategy falls apart isn't keywords, boards, or even consistency. It's the design step. They sit down to make pins, two hours later they're still adjusting fonts and colors, and they've made exactly one pin. In this episode, I'm walking through how to build a Pinterest pin template in Canva that you create once and reuse forever.

In this episode:

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• What makes a strong Pinterest pin template (size, background, text zone, URL, and CTA)
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• The 5-step process for setting up your template in Canva
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• How to duplicate one template into a five-pin set targeting five different keywords

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• How to save your template so you never start from scratch again
• How many template styles you actually need (hint, it's not many)

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ALL THE LINKS

I recently polled over 100 marketing professionals and asked a simple question: do you think of Pinterest as social media or a search engine? 51% said social media, 41% said search engine, 8% had no idea. That one answer explains why so many business owners feel completely burnt out by marketing.

In this episode:

• Why social media platforms are engineered to need you every single day
• The search engine difference, and why Pinterest works nothing like Instagram or Facebook
• A pin I made in 2014 that's still in my top 10 performing pins today
• What "calm marketing" actually looks like in practice
• Who gets the best results from this approach, and who it's not for
• The honest caveat about how long Pinterest actually takes to work

ALL LINKS MENTIONED

You invested in brand photos. You've got them. Maybe a few made it onto your website or Instagram, and the rest are sitting in a folder doing absolutely nothing for your business. In this episode, I'm breaking down why the photos that perform best on Pinterest are never the polished headshots, and exactly how to turn one brand photo into five pins that can drive traffic for months, even years. In this episode:

• Why brand photos outperform graphic-only pins on Pinterest

• The specific types of shots that drive the most outbound clicks (behind-the-scenes, varied emotion, lifestyle, and tool shots)

• How to turn one photo into five pins targeting five different keywords

• Why the text overlay matters as much as the photo itself
• Where to pin your brand photo content for maximum reach
• Why a Pinterest pin can outlast an Instagram post by months, even years

ALL THE LINKS MENTIONED

Send us Fan Mail

Most service providers who try Pinterest either post randomly and quit when nothing happens, or post consistently without ever understanding how the full strategy connects. This episode is the full picture, the complete Pinterest strategy that works as a system, so Pinterest keeps sending you the right clients even on the weeks you barely touch it.

In this episode:

• Why Pinterest is a search engine, not social media, and why that changes everything about your strategy
• How to set up boards that act as amplifiers for every pin you post
• The 5 places keywords matter most on Pinterest
• What to actually pin, and why you're never creating brand new content just for Pinterest
• Why consistency beats volume, and the pace that actually works long term
• How long it really takes to see traction, and why the first few months feel quiet
• The one metric worth tracking (hint, it's not impressions or saves)

ALL THE LINKS MENTIONED

Support the show

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $37? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow Pinterest Visibility Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• Want your account audited? FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.
• Free Pinterest Masterclass

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

If your SEO strategy still lives only on Google, you're missing where your clients are actually searching. Georgie Kemp, who leads organic search at Veed, joins me to break down why traditional SEO isn't dying (the data says search is actually growing) and how AI search is opening up a whole new playing field for small businesses and service providers.

In this episode we cover:

• Why heavy Google search actually increased even as AI search exploded
• Whether you still need SEO fundamentals in the age of ChatGPT and AI overviews
• What "multi-surface optimization" means and how to do it without a huge team
• Why video is the most underestimated part of your marketing strategy
• How to turn one 60 to 90 second video into five pieces of content
• Why you need to ask a second clarifying question when clients tell you how they found you
• A simple, free test and learn approach to AI search you can start this week

Grab Georgie's free guide on optimizing video for AI search plus Veed's Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing report

ALL LINKED MENTIONED

⁠Support the show⁠

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $47? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow ⁠Pinterest Visibility Sprint ⁠

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• ⁠Free Pinterest + marketing tools.⁠
• ⁠Want your account audited? ⁠FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

Send us Fan Mail

Your Pinterest business account is set up. You've got boards going. You're even posting here and there. So why isn't any of it turning into real traffic to your website? In this episode, I'm breaking down the exact posting system I use with my own clients to get consistent outbound clicks without living on Pinterest every day.

In this episode:

• What to actually pin, and the 3 types of pins that work best for service providers
• How to build a pin that actually stops the scroll (image, title, description, and CTA)
• The 5 Pins System, and why it multiplies your reach from a single piece of content
• How often you really need to post, and why volume spikes hurt more than they help
• The 7 day rule for spacing your pins, and the one exception I make to it
• How to batch and schedule so your pins go out daily without you touching Pinterest every day
• The 30 second step almost nobody does that earns 123% more outbound clicks

Free Organic Pins Checklist

Tailwind's Free Plan

Pin Copy Pro

Tailwind Market Research 1

Tailwind Market Research 2

Tailwind Market Research 3

Wanna read or watch the video?

Support the show

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $37? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow Pinterest Visibility Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• Want your account audited? FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.
• Free Pinterest Masterclass

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

Send us Fan Mail

If you've been marketing on a personal Pinterest account, or you're starting from scratch and not sure where to begin, this episode is your foundation. Setting up your Pinterest business account correctly determines whether Pinterest actually works for you or just quietly sits there doing nothing. I'm walking through every step, including the details most tutorials skip entirely.

In this episode:

• Why a business account isn't optional if you're marketing your business on Pinterest
• The two ways to get set up, whether you're starting new or converting a personal account
• How to fill out your profile so Pinterest knows exactly who to show your content to
• Writing a profile name and bio that work as SEO, not just introductions
• Why claiming your website matters more than most people realize
• How to set up your first boards with the right names and descriptions
• A full setup checklist to make sure you didn't miss a thing

ALL THE LINKS MENTIONED

Support the show

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $37? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow Pinterest Visibility Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• Want your account audited? FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.
• Free Pinterest Masterclass

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

Send us Fan Mail

You paid for a brand shoot, you love the photos, and they're sitting in a folder on your computer not booking a single client. Here's the truth: the photos that fill your calendar are not about how you look. They're about what your future client needs to see to feel ready to hire you. That's a completely different brief.

In this episode, I'm giving you the 5 questions to answer before your next brand shoot so every photo pulls its weight in your marketing.

In this episode, I cover:

• Why brands using original photos see a 35% increase in customer trust
• The most overlooked shot in every brand session (not one photographer I've worked with planned for it)
• What to wear when you don't have a uniform, and the 4 colors that work with any brand palette
• How your client's before-and-after emotions become a visual brief for your expressions
• Varied looks: how one shoot can fuel a year of scroll-stopping content
• Why your tools, your workspace, and even your pets belong in your photos
• How these photos become Pinterest pins, reel covers, and thumbnails that stop the scroll

Support the show

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $47? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow Pinterest Visibility Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• Free Pinterest + marketing tools.
• Want your account audited?FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

Send us Fan Mail

If you are posting on Pinterest and still not getting found, the problem is not your design, it is your keywords. In this episode I break down the biggest Pinterest keyword mistake service providers make and the exact four question interview I run with every client before we touch anything else.

In this episode:

• Why the biggest, highest volume keywords are usually the hardest ones to win
• Why keyword stuffing in your pin description kills your clicks
• The 4 question interview to find your best keywords, straight from your own business
• The keyword walk down, taking a broad term all the way to a specific, winnable one
• Why a zero volume keyword can still be the one that books your ideal client
• The 3 free tools I use to validate every keyword before it goes on a pin

ALL THE LINKS MENTIONED: https://jenvazquez.com/pinterest-keyword-research/

Support the show

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $37? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow Pinterest Visibility Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• Want your account audited? FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.
• Free Pinterest Masterclass

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

Send us Fan Mail

You're pinning consistently, your impressions look great, and your calendar is still empty. Here's the problem: you've been watching the wrong number. Pinterest shows you 5 metrics, and only one of them is actually connected to whether you book a client

In this episode I'm breaking down:

• What impressions, saves, pin clicks, and outbound clicks each actually mean for your business
• Why saves feel like a win but rarely turn into a client
• A real client story where outbound clicks jumped 315% after we fixed her titles and descriptions
• What a good Pinterest click through rate actually looks like in 2026
• The exact words that move outbound clicks (and the keyword mistake that tanks them)
• Two things you can do this week, starting today, to move your number

ALL THE LINKS: https://jenvazquez.com/pinterest-outbound-clicks/

Support the show

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $37? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow Pinterest Visibility Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• Want your account audited? FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.
• Free Pinterest Masterclass

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.

Send us Fan Mail

If you feel like you have to be online every single day just to keep up, you're not imagining it. 94% of social media practitioners feel that exact pressure. But that's not a you problem, it's a system problem, and this episode hands you the off-ramp.

I'm walking you through my complete 6-step content batching workflow, where one piece of core content each week becomes everything: your email, your Pinterest pins, your carousels, your short-form video, all of it, in about an hour.

In this episode, I cover:

• What content batching actually means (hint: it's NOT a month of posts in one day)
• How to pick your core content: blog, YouTube, or podcast
• The 10-minute weekly email that comes straight from your core content
• Why five Pinterest pins from one piece of content keeps you visible for five weeks
• The Canva resize trick that turns pins into Instagram carousels in two extra clicks
• How lead magnet pins grow your email list on repeat
• The tools you need (and the ones that are totally free)

ALL THE LINKS HERE: https://jenvazquez.com/content-batching-in-one-hour/

Support the show

Wanna learn Pinterest with an expert there to help for only $37? Pinterest Visibility Sprint is a 2-hour sprint with me live to optimize your Pinterest and create a marketing workflow Pinterest Visibility Sprint

Here are some free things I've got coming up:

• Want your account audited? FREE Pinterest Audits LIVE on YouTube.
• Free Pinterest Masterclass

🔔 Subscribe to the Marketing Strategy Academy Podcast for a treasure trove of insights from industry experts and visionaries in the marketing industry, all hosted by Jen Vazquez.