Leaving Your Day Job and Scaling a Food Blog with Pinterest with Sharlene Murrell

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And that's to get 10% off of Yost SEO Premium, WooCommerce SEO for any of the e-commerce folks out there and Yost SEO AI plus plugins. Welcome back to another episode of the FoodBlogger Pro podcast. I'm Ann from the FoodBlogger Pro team and in this episode, Bjork sits down with Charlene Morelle from Good Enough Momming to explore her journey of building a thriving food blog by mastering Pinterest. Charlene shares how adopting a ready fire aim framework and overcoming early struggles with keyword research helped her rapidly scale her traffic and income after leaving her day job. The conversation also dives into actionable Pinterest strategies, including targeting broad keywords, creating multiple pins per post and leveraging tools like Canva. They round out the conversation with practical advice on capitalizing on seasonal trends, maintaining consistency and overcoming in post or syndrome. No matter where you are in your food blogging journey, this episode is packed with inspiration and tactics for creators ready to take action. And now without further ado, I'll let Bjork take it away. Charlene, welcome to the podcast. Hi, Bjork. It's so nice to be here. Yeah, we're going to be talking about Pinterest. We're going to be talking about blogging, believe it or not, building a food site, but we're going to be talking about it in a way that I think we need to do more of on the podcast, which is somebody who is early in their journey. It might not feel like that for you. You've been working hard at this. You've been in the trenches, creating content, building traffic from Pinterest. But a lot of times we'll talk to somebody who's been creating for 10 years, who's been creating for 15 years. And it's easy for anybody. You know, it'd be easy for me if I was on the outside to look at that and say, hey, that's great. But like, what about today? What if I started today? What are the things that I can be doing to realistically get some traction, to get some momentum, to start earning some money from the work that I'm doing? And you have done that. So we're going to talk about that, talk about some of the things that you've learned. But before we do that, talk about when you started and what was your mindset as you were getting started? Yeah. So I started last February. So February of 2025. And a little bit of background, I quit my job when I had my baby, which was unexpected. I just decided I wasn't going back. And I was going to start a business with my mom didn't work out. So I was looking for ways to start making money from home. And I was on Lisa from Farmhouse on Boone. I think you've interviewed her before. And she had like her free blogging masterclass. So I watched it. And I was like, well, this lady has like nine kids. And if she can do it, I can't. And so I literally just had a blog up and running the same day. Like it's like crazy. I just jumped right in. Yeah. The thing that I love about that that we often talk about is this idea of ready fire aim. And sometimes we'll hear from people who are in the ready aim fire stage. And they're in they're in the aim stage. And you can get you can get caught up there for a really long time, where you think you're ready. And then you're going to aim. And you're looking and you're saying, okay, what's my logo going to be? What's my name going to be? And you kind of circle around that for months and months. And you delay that fire stage, which is kind of like doing it. It's pressing publish. It's moving forward. And that's what really matters because the speed of iteration is so much faster once you get into publishing. And once you get into the rhythm of launching. So what did those first few weeks look like for you as you were getting into it? So my name is good enough. Mommy because I thought that I would be like a lifestyle type of mommy blogger. I would talk about like motherhood and a cleaning and like all the things, you know, that moms do. And then like food would be included in that. But then I quickly realized I got on Pinterest and I realized like everything I'm doing is food related or everything that was doing well was food related. So in the first few weeks, it was really just me figuring out like, what should I even write about and talk about? And then from there, food became the primary thing. It's great because that that as well is a really important variable, which is or skill, which is publishing quickly, launching quickly. And then when you are doing that monitoring to see, hey, what's performing? What's sticking well? What's resonating with an audience? And sometimes you'll even see this with, you know, your site is broad enough where you can still talk about food. And it fits under the category of good enough mommy. But sometimes you'll see even on Instagram, people who will have a handle. And it's like, wait, like I think actually the anti example of food content is there's an account and it's called it's grill guy. And I think he started out posting like food and grilling content. And then he did a couple, this is this is my guess. I don't know for sure. Then he did a couple humor videos like comedy videos that did well. And now he's a comedy guy. And I think it probably started as food and grilling, but it involved in to comedy for him because he saw that he was able to create that and people were resonating with it. For you, it sounds like you were creating lots of different type of content. Some of that content was food content. And then one of the things that you were doing was posting that to Pinterest. And then observing how is this doing on Pinterest. And it sounds like some of the food stuff caught on. Yes, yes. And it's because when I first started my Pinterest journey, I wasn't doing it well. Like it took me a little bit of time to understand like the keyword research. And so because food is like the other stuff that I was posting about you really do have to do keyword research properly for it to take off on Pinterest. So I think I was an accident, but a happy accident because the RPMs are primo with food sites. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that? So one of the things that happened within this first year is you're able to grow, get accepted to Medivine and Raptive. With either of those ad networks, you're able to see the RPM. So how much are you earning from a thousand pages that are coming to your site? How much you able to earn? And it might be 25. It might be 50. It could be a hundred dollars. And so man, if you have a thousand pages that are coming and you earn 50 dollars, you can kind of start to do the math on that. And that's where it becomes really fun. The interesting thing is each traffic source earns you a different amount. And so talk about discovering that and what you learned from the process of traffic from Pinterest as you alluded to, Pinterest bringing a more valuable traffic source from an RPM perspective. So I quite frankly, I have no clue. I don't get barely any traffic from Google. So all of my traffic is from Pinterest. So I don't actually don't, I can't really speak on that unfortunately. I mean, my RPMs are good. I can tell you they're, they fluctuate right now. And like this is like the beginning of the year. So it's pretty good from like 30 to 32 dollars. And it's all from Pinterest. I don't know what Google looks like. I think you're talking about that. Sure, sure. But basic idea is in every site will be different depending on the type of ads that you run and where they're running. And you know, so that will always look different. But generally, the order of those earnings is going to look different or look the same. And so if you have within RAPTIV, that's the one that I'm most familiar with. You can see earnings by the source of the traffic. And within that, what you'll be able to see is, like how much is each one of those sources earning? And generally speaking, Pinterest is gonna be the highest. And so, yeah, and, and, you know, in R's, like if I look at pinch of yam earnings, our rank order is direct right now, and this can change. This is for the last week. Direct, then Pinterest, then Instagram, then other, I don't know what's in there, then Google search, then email, and then Facebook. And so, now obviously, if you have a high search traffic site, you're gonna, you might earn more overall because you have more traffic, but with Pinterest traffic, a lot of times it's in that top one, two, or three is what we'll see with sites. And so, it can be a valuable traffic source for people because it pays out a higher RPM. And the other thing that's cool about Pinterest is you're able to get traction with it a little bit earlier than you are with search. So talk about what that was like, as you started to discover the ability to get traffic, not quickly necessarily, but more quick than search. - Yeah, so, I'm trying to think of like the timeline. So, I had a, like, bread recipe, 'cause I mostly do sourdough. And I think with Pinterest, like, a rising tide raises all ships. So, once that bread recipe did really, really well, I just noticed that Pinterest are just trust me more and I just started getting more and more and more page views. It was, like, pretty quick, because I was accepted to journey by Mediavine at like six months and I had like 10,000 page views around then and then I just kept going, but I got better at it. So, like, I understood that you need to do keyword research to actually like get your pins seen more broadly. And so, every time that I would like learn something, you talk about getting a tiny bit better, I would just learn and then it just kind of kept building on itself. And that's the major thing with Pinterest is like, it's gonna be really slow at first and then all at once, you'll be like, whoa! And so, it's just patience, I think. Like, I think that's the most important thing with Pinterest. It's just like kind of putting the pins out and then waiting for hopefully one of them to go through because then all of your pins start to do in bed, start to do better after it. - Yeah, there is kind of that trickle-down effect of potentially, we don't know exactly how that algorithm works, but similar to Google, if you have a site that has authority as well known, the probability of a piece of content that you publish showing up in a search result is gonna be higher than a site that was started. A month ago. And can look similar across other social platforms, Pinterest being one of them. One of the things that's interesting with you talking about your story and getting started on Pinterest is it ties into something that Kate all, I'm guessing you're familiar with Kate, or have you listened to any of the podcasts Kate has done? Okay. So Kate has, yeah, great. So she has a podcast, she's a food blogger expert, so occasionally shows up in the forums because people have Pinterest questions, and she has a deep expertise, a decade plus of Pinterest experience. And one of the things she's talked about is, there is kind of this divide where, for people who have been creating for, let's say, 10 years, and they've been able to get really great traffic from Pinterest, it's been super reliable, and that has diminished over the years. There's this sentiment of, like, gosh, this kind of stinks. Like I was having traction with Pinterest. I had 200,000 pages from Pinterest, and now I have 120, or 80 or whatever it is. And it's like, I'm not saying that's actually true for us. I'm just saying, like, as an example, that's what's happening is, those are made up numbers, but you had a lot of traffic, and then it's kind of going down. But what Kate was saying is, there's an entire batch of new creators who have a new site, and they are starting to use Pinterest strategically, and for them, it's like, wow, this is really cool. I'm creating content on my blog. I'm publishing it to Pinterest, and then I'm getting traffic from that. And because you aren't anchored at some point of what your expectation would be, you're able to be more excited about it, and invest the time into it, and go from zero to 10,000. And then my guess is that has continued to grow 20,000, that you're getting more and more traffic, and creating substantial income from that, while being able to stay at home with your kids. So talk about, to the degree that you're comfortable sharing, kind of how that growth has looked over the past year. And then I want to talk to you a little bit about your process and the things that you've learned along the way. - Yeah, so Pinterest, actually, like what you're talking about, I'm kind of experiencing right now. It's like up and down and up and down and up and down. So I have never just been like on a steady, like it's going up. Like there have been times where it's going up and it's going up and right now we're on a down. And I think you have to realize with Pinterest that, first of all, it's like really seasonal. So when you're coming out of like Q4, you're gonna have like a little bit of a dip. If you can have like some pins there that are for the next thing, like I had some football stuff, like Super Bowl pins and things are not Thanksgiving, excuse me, Valentine's Day, ready at the helm. Like it kind of helped me stay consistent. So like the seasonality is a really big thing for Pinterest and understanding that. And you just have to have the mindset of like, I'm going to go down. Like I'm going to have and like it never stays up. It goes down and then it comes back up. But I have found that by just staying consistent with my Pinterest and pinning, I recover. And every time I recover, I end up higher than I was when I started going down. So I think just staying consistent and understanding that with Pinterest, you're gonna have like down turns is the biggest thing I think. I don't, I really hope that in five years for now, I'm not like I hate Pinterest. I used to get this much traffic. I really hope like in like, you might. But maybe not, hopefully not, hopefully not. Yeah. But in terms of, would you have like, hey, a peak month would have looked like this. It would have been, you know, 30,000 pages from Pinterest or, you know, 40,000 or whatever it might be. Any kind of rough numbers that you can kind of give to quantify what that looks like. 42,000, I hit that this month. And we're going back down. We're at 30, okay. Sure. But also it's like shorter month. And it's pretty similar just in terms of numbers. Yeah. And I think one of the things that's important to think about is let's say you were only focused on search, you would have had to have some kind of unique breakthroughs in order for content to be consistently giving you, you know, a thousand to two thousand pages a day. And you can start to play the numbers game with that a little bit and you can say, okay, if I can get, you know, 2000 pages a day and maybe I can get to, you know, 40 RPM as I kind of tweak my ads and stuff. Oh, well, what if I get to 3000? That could be like the equivalent of 30,000 to 40,000 a year. And you can start to see how within a year you have created a substantial income from one of the most flexible jobs that you could have. It's not easy. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of effort. But it's extremely flexible. And I think that autonomy is one of the things that people are especially interested in in this type of work. So talk to me about how you fit this work in while you have also been momming and doing all the other things that you need to do. What has that looked like? And what have been the tools that have been most helpful? So I started my blog and I just worked during my baby sleeping hours. So when I first started, my son was still nursing and he would wake up for his last night, night, feet at like 5 a.m. And I never could fall back asleep. So I would work from like 5 to 8. And then he would take an nap. My son's a really good sleeper, but then he would take a three hour nap. So what a blessing. (laughing) I'm praying the next one doesn't ruin it. Yeah. (laughing) But then three hour nap. And then I would work from whenever he would go to bed to his first night feed, which was usually around midnight. So that's what I would do. Now I don't get up at 5 a.m. Like I, I don't know. I was gonna say those are some short nights. Like it's five hours of sleep. I yeah, but I had a goal. Like my goal was I'm going to be on Mediavine. I ended up choosing RAPID. But my goal was to be on Mediavine in a year. And so I was like, I can do this for a year. Like I was a tax consultant before this. And like I would have 200 clients at a time. I was like going to work at 6 a.m. coming home at like nine o'clock anyways. So it was used to the grind. Like I was, you know, this was nothing new for me. So that's kind of crazy. I know. But I also did have a very like supportive husband. So if like the house was messy, you would help me like, you know, or if I was tired one day, I'm taking a nap. Like, but that is, it is crazy. Like I looking back, I'm like, you were insane. (laughing) But it does what it takes. I think especially in the season like that, where Lindsay and I started. and pre-kids, we didn't have many commitments, and it's like, we were working our jobs, and we had to fit it in early mornings, lunch hours, nights, and we had jobs that had more flexible summers, and so that was part of it. But everybody's in a different life season, everybody has different commitments, and I think the takeaway is, you fit it in when you can fit it in, and you can only do as much as you can do, but what you wanna be doing in those stretches that you do have is work that is like, maximally impactful. And my guess is that you're pretty strategic in figuring out what it is that you'll actually do in those time slots where you did have time available, and in this last year of growing your business and getting it off the ground, and getting it to the point where it's making consistent income, what did that look like for you to figure out and optimize how to optimize those windows of time that you had to work? What was most helpful in those kind of work stretches? - So I think that part of the reason it took me so long is because I was learning. So I had to stop and ask, "Shot you BT, how do I do this?" Or how do I do that? But I did have, every single week and I still do this, I look at my husband's schedule and I have a planner, and I write down, okay, he has worked from this time to this time, these are my working hours, I can get this, this, this, this, and this done. And then I just sit down and I do what I have planned for the day. That's it. I don't really worry about, I don't have a logo, I don't have a nice blog, it's not pretty, it's just a blog. And because I haven't worried about any of those things, I get in and I get out. That's it, I just have things to get done, and that's it. - What, so I love that. What are some of those things? When you say, get the things done, get in and get out, what is that? - I guess I could walk through a weekly schedule. So, I know that cooking to me is not work. So I will shoot the stuff on the weekends. In the morning, when the sun is nice, I will mix everything up and I'm just having my sun there with me. He's with me, I don't mix everything up, I'll get the positive. - Sorry, you're at the computer, you probably would be doing similar stuff otherwise. - Yeah, I would be cooking anyway. So I will get everything shot, and then I will edit them at night. I usually get in the bath, edit them, edit the photos, 'cause I take everything on my phone. I don't even have a camera. - Sure. - I give nothing. And then so I edit them on my, when I'm in the bath and a Sunday night. And then Monday are blog writing days, so I just knock out all of my blog writing. I have decided that I don't want to please the Google Gods anymore. I just write for human beings. And if Google doesn't like that, then so be it. Maybe that's a mistake, but whatever. And then Tuesdays, I usually start getting the blog posts up. So, oh, also I do some YouTube. So I will also film YouTube videos on the weekend too, just because I like to get all the content done on the weekends so that I can just spread it out through the week doing the work. And then some blog writing on Monday, and then I start getting the blog posts up on Tuesday. So I do Pinterest, I do Pinterest keyword research, and I make the pins, then I write the blog post, and then I put it up on the website, and then I pin the pin after that. And usually I can do, I do three blog posts a week right now. And then Wednesday, or in Wednesday? Yeah, Wednesday I edit YouTube videos. Thursday I usually voice over the YouTube video, and then it goes up on Friday. And that is what that looks like. - And repeat. - Yeah, and repeat. It's just very easy. - Yeah, it's the combination of finding the opportunities, doing something you alluded to this idea of getting a tiny bit better every day, finding kind of the areas to tweak and enhance. The combination of that, plus the boring, methodical, get up, repeat, do the same thing. I feel like is such an unlock in the pursuit of growth? Whatever that might be. Growth in a relationship, growth in a business, growth in a blog. What about tools that you've been using? So let's talk about Pinterest specifically. You've been able to find kind of a cool way to access some level, I know you said it's kind of up and down, but some of a predictable traffic from a platform and within the first year, to the point where it's like you're earning consistent income from that, are you using tools to help with your Pinterest scheduling? Are you doing it all within Pinterest natively? How many pins are you doing a day? Talk a little bit about your Pinterest strategy on a day-to-day week-to-week basis. - Yeah, so I just do everything like in the Pinterest native scheduler. I don't use any outside thing, 'cause I don't wanna pay for it. So there you go. And then number of pins, I do like five to seven, and I will say I was doing at 1.10 and I was getting very similar results. So I don't think-- - Sure, 10, 10 a day. - Yeah, 10 a day. - Yeah. - I don't think that you need to do high volume. Five to seven to me is very good and you can grow with that. And then in terms of tools, there's this free tool, it's called, it's by Tony Hill. He made pin clicks. I don't necessarily think this is what he means for this tool to do with this how I use it. It's called related pin analyzer. And whenever I'm doing my keyword research, this is how I do the keyword research. I will go to pin, trust, and I'll put in my keyword, and then I'll copy and paste the URL into the related pin analyzer. And then it gives you the annotations, which annotations are what Pinterest considers or what they call keywords. And so I won't get the list of those with my keyword research. I don't know if you want me to go into that, is that okay? - This is great. - And pulling up Tony's site, I haven't heard of Tony before, but looks like somebody who specializes in Pinterest. - Yeah. - And can you say that again? So the pin clicks tool, the ultimate-- - Okay, so pin clicks, I'm looking at it here, the ultimate Pinterest research tool for creators. - That's his pay thing. I don't pay for it. I use his free Pinterest analyzer. Again, I don't know if that's how he's meant, he's meeting people for you to use this. He just wants your email. Like it's just a way for him to get on your email list. So I don't know if you, if I could share, I can show you what I'm talking about if you would like. - Yeah, sure. And we can kind of talk over it for anybody who's listening. So it looks like he has some tools here, pin clicks, pinner analytics, easy pin scheduler, pinner press. These are all different tools that he uses focused on Pinterest. And now you're talking about kind of the Pinterest analytic side of thing. Okay, so talk us through at a high level what that tool does and how you use it. - So I will send you guys the link to this. But when you go into Pinterest, you go to a pin and then you type it in, or you, there'll be like a little search bar and you put the pin in and then you press analyze related pins. So sorry you guys can't see this. And then it'll have the annotations. So these annotations are specifically what Pinterest thinks. People are gonna search for basically. Like what people are actually putting into the Pinterest search bar. If you scroll down, you'll see annotations. These give you the related annotations that are basically, to me, these are how I use my broad keyword. So if my keyword research is like the specific keyword and then I like to target broad keywords as well. So like for example, if I'm doing a sourdough brioche recipe, I don't want to only target sourdough brioche, I want to be targeting sourdough recipes, sourdough recipe with sourdough starter, sourdough homemade sourdough bread. Like you want to be targeting the broad keywords because think about what people on Pinterest are going there for. They're going for ideas. They want to, like they, they don't know what they're making for dinner. So they're gonna type in dinner idea. Well, you want that in your pin description because when someone types in dinner idea, you're more likely to show up there. So that's kind of how I do my keyword research. I don't just target my specific keyword because that's more of a Google thing. Like Google, you need to be targeting just that specific keyword. Sure. But for Pinterest, you want to target broad keywords. And whenever you go in there, you just have to scroll down and it'll have like this little blue bar and then it says annotations. Cool. So that's how I do it. So I get a list of them and then I put it into Gemini because Chagybih is really bad at this, like doing Pinterest titles and descriptions. And I tell it to write me a Pinterest title and description. I believe you can go out to 800 characters that is 800 characters and uses primarily the broad keywords because I really want to be targeting all of the different, like all of the broader things that people are typing in. Sure. So, and then what do you do with that? So you get that response from Gemini, super smart, I think. So the process is you have this recipe. You're excited about it. You haven't done keyword research on that. That's just like a recipe that you're excited to make. Yeah. You're interested in, you want to feed your family. You're going to make on a weekend and so you're already documenting it. You have the photos on your phone that you've taken after you've made the recipe. And then from there, you have the photo that you're putting into this tool. No. just putting in the text. - You're going into Pinterest and you're getting the things that are-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Got it. - Got it. - Got it. - And then, yeah. - And then from there-- - I make a list of all of the annotations and I feed that to Gemini. - Got it. And then Gemini gives you this response. What do you do with that? - So then when I'm going to schedule my pen, I use the title that it gave me and then the description that it gave me. - And then are you also editing the image? Or just putting the image raw? - So the image, sorry, I do make like Pinterest pins. So like, you know, the Pinterest graphics that everyone makes, I use a template for that. Like I bought them on Etsy and I just, like I put in my own pictures and then the text on top. - In using Canva or-- - Canva. - Okay, got it. So Canva, the image is created there. You're using kind of this process that you just described to do the keyword research on Pinterest and then using Gemini to help kind of expand and extrapolate on the initial keyword research that you did, pairing all of that together and then publishing and scheduling to Pinterest using the native Pinterest scheduler. How many, let's say if you have a new post that you're publishing, how many different pins are you pinning off of that singular post? - 10. I agree. - I agree. - You have a very, you knew the number, it was 10. And those are each-- - I forgot. - Okay, Lisa, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. And then each one of those has a different image. - Yes, all have different images. I know that people say, oh, you can just change the background or you can change the color of the font or whatever. Anytime that I've ever done that, the other subsequent pins do terrible. So I don't do that. Every single pin looks different and it needs to look different and they all go to different boards. This is like a really key thing that I learned. If you put it all on one board, you're only targeting that specific group of people that may have typed in that search term. Versus putting it in all of these boards, you're casting a wider net. So my boards are actually on the same thing, the annotations, I find these with high search volume, I wish I could show you what I'm saying. It's so confusing, just like-- - Most people are listening anyways, so yeah, it was okay. - But when you go in there, you'll see the annotations. So this is just a random one. It says, healthy sweet recipes. That would become a board for me because it has 85,000 search volume. Let's see what else. This is a random, I don't even know. This is whatever pops up when you open the thing. - I think maybe the best way is that you could send over some screenshots and then we'll include those in the show notes. - Yeah, I was like-- - When you are seeing that search volume, where is that? - It is on the tool. Like it is, so it'll have the annotation and then it'll have search volume next to it. - By annotation, do you mean like the keyword? - Okay. - Excuse me, I'm sorry. - No, that's all right. It just wanted to make sure I'm tracking. So it'll show the keyword and then the search volume. And then you're using that to inform whether you should create a board from it. If it's like, hey, there's actually a lot of people searching for this, I should probably be creating a board that then you are pinning all of your own content to or your content and other content to. - Most like 99% of the time it's my own content. The only time I'll post pin someone else's is if I like, I'm on the app and I'm like, oh, it looks good and then I'll pin it. But 99% of the time it's just my stuff. - Yep. And will you ever use those high volume search terms that you see in the tool to inform recipes you'll make or do you only create a board if you know that content you've already created could go into those? - I will, if I'm excited about something, I will create a board. I was just creating a board. I don't care if it doesn't necessarily fit into what I have already. It mostly does because I do mostly sourdough stuff. But at this point, but I will create a board. Like, and honestly, I think that is a great strategy because you, like, I will create a new board and be like, oh, now I get to create new pins for all of the things I already have to target this new set of people. So I-- - Do you have an example of what that would be? Like creating a new board that allows you to then create new pins for pre-existing recipes that now fit under a new category that in a Pinterest board? - I have a recipe for a copycat, Chewies, jalapeno ranch dip. I don't know if you've ever had Chewies. It's like incredible. But I just pulled up a-- - Is it a brand, Chewies? - Chewies is like a Mexican restaurant. I don't know if it's only in Texas, but it's just-- - She ate a hotty spellet, CH. - CH, Y, a posh-f-s. - Oh, I don't know Chewies, but it looks great. - She's so good. But I have-- so I have a copycat recipe for that. And I pulled up-- this was like a very similar-- this is a creamy cilantro garlic sauce that I pulled up pin from. Well, one of the annotations is DIY sauce recipe ideas. Okay, that's one of the key words that showed up. Well, I would create a new board so that I can create a new pin for DIY sauce recipes. - Got it. - So I'm saying. - Yep, and then you could create unique pins to put in that board that would match the recipe, but it would be under the umbrella of this keyword category. And so you're strategically-- and this is, I think, the key takeaway. And I've been thinking about this for all of the content that we're producing. We've been talking a lot about it for Pinch of Yam. You're strategically repurposing and looking at your content from different angles and saying, OK, I know that generally, I'm going to approach this whatever it is. Apple Pie recipe from this angle. Hey, it's an Apple Pie recipe. This is the best Apple pie recipe ever. But there's a hundred different ways that people are going to be thinking about that recipe. Some might be thinking about it within the context of Thanksgiving. Others might be thinking about it for really easy recipes or it might be nostalgic recipes. Or in all of those different angles present a marketing opportunity. And what we are doing is we are marketing the recipes that we are creating. And what you're doing in looking for these different boards on Pinterest on that platform is saying, what is the user intent? We think a lot about that in e-commerce or affiliate. People who are really good at affiliate marketing think about this. What is the intent of the user? And they want to really use the example is they want to find somebody whose intent is buying running shoes, not fixing running shoes. That's a really obvious one where they buy or intent. It's like, oh, I'm going to-- somebody who's fixing running shoes isn't in the mindset of spending. But when we have one singular recipe, the intent that people are going to have around that is going to be very different. And we can market it differently depending on what the mindset might be of the different people who would interact with that. And so this on Pinterest, I think, is a really great example. We've also been thinking about it. We did an interview with the Fudels and they talked about how they will create multiple different videos for Facebook that are a little bit different, but it's the same recipe. And I think for me, that was like, oh, yeah, for sure. But we had always approached like, hey, you create one recipe, you post it to Facebook. And then even within the last few years, we've started to think more about, hey, maybe then you post it again three months later or the next year and have every think thought about repurposing that way. But there's also, it's almost like remixing. Like, you have a hit song and you find all the ways to distribute it, but then you also remix. And then you do another version where you feature another artist. And suddenly you get, you know, you have baby by Justin Bieber, but then you have like 13 different versions of baby. It's like acoustic and it's the normal one. And then it's featuring, you know, whoever he wants to feature. That is what it feels like you're doing a little bit, which is so smart and a good reminder for me and the content that we're creating to think about what are the different ways that we can be remixing the content and then redistributing it on different platforms. And the result of that is, I think a lot of times, doing less work in order to achieve a similar outcome, which is growing your traffic, growing exposure because you're focusing on the marketing piece. Is there anything that you'd add to that in terms of kind of your mindset around how you view a singular post and how you can use it in different ways on Pinterest? - Well, not even just on Pinterest, but on my blog. Like, something that I've been doing lately is, I am a year in, so I'm looking at my old blog posts and I'm like, okay, how can I make a spin on this without having to like fully produce a blog post? So like, I have an oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. Well, I took out the raisins and I filled it and it's an oatmeal cream pie now. And I have a sourdoughs-go-on recipe that I turned into a strawberry shortcake recipe. I'm really trying to like be, instead of like always producing, always, always. I gotta come up with a new recipe. It's like so much work. It really is. And so however I can, And I've also been starting to do this on social media. So I like to you brought up like music people 'cause like music people will literally promote their music for like six months, like the same song for like six months. So on social media what I've started doing is I'll post, like I'll post one video of me, like showing how soft the texture is. And then I'll post another video of me actually making the recipe. And then I'll post another video of it featured in like a dinner, right? Like if it's a hamburger bun, I'll, you know, so I'm finding different ways to always be marketing the content without having, 'cause I feel like you just get burnt out of just like always producing, always, always, always. So not only just on Pinterest, I'm doing this across the business to make my life as possible. - That's great. Yeah, it's not only in the recipe itself, but then also the promotion of the recipe, all these different ways that you can be doing that. Are there, you know, let's say somebody's hasn't really spent much time on Pinterest. They've heard people talk about it. They've also heard people say like, hey, Pinterest is changing. There's a lot of AI on there. It's hard to get discovered. What would your advice be for somebody who is kind of hesitant or maybe cautious around investing too much time on Pinterest? Because some of the conversations that have been happening around it as a platform. - Is this person like established or are they? - Let's say it's somebody new. Okay, new. New, I would say you have to do it. You don't have a choice. Okay, because if you want to grow quickly, I think Pinterest is the way to do it. I think your mindset becomes who you are. So like before, I was like not in Pinterest, or I wasn't in Facebook groups or anything like that. And I had no clue like things were going on in the blogging world. I had no clue that I had-- - Yeah, for the better. - Yeah, I had no clue. And I was taking over. I had literally no clue. And because I just put my head down and I did the work and I shut out the noise, or there wasn't no noise. Ignorance is bliss, the old saying goes, then all of a sudden I grew and it wasn't that big of a deal. Like I think yes, there is AI, but also people can tell and like they avoid it. I actually was on TikTok the other day and people like she was showing a video and she was like, "Hey, this is AI." Like people can tell. So like they're gonna know that your stuff is from a real human being, especially when they click. Like the girl clicked and she was like, it was like a grandma, but you could tell. It was not an actual grandma. Like it was like an AI person. When they click, they're gonna know. So like I don't worry about-- - I mean, your point is maybe that the image itself is going to be-- - It'll know. They're gonna know that it's AI. - I also think it's getting really good. At the same time, I think it's-- I do. - I think-- - Maybe it's because I'm Gen Z. - But we can tell. I can look and not be like, "This so shiny." Like-- - Sure. - I think here's my theory on it. I think that you can tell. I also think you don't know if you can't tell. Like-- - Okay. - I think that there are more and more instances where I think you're right. I think as things stand right now, there is an internet savvy group of people who have the nuance around video, it's easier. But then, you know, photos is getting a lot harder. But even then, maybe you can kind of tell. But I think that there is the vast majority of people, 98% of people who are interacting, especially with photos, and wouldn't be able to tell. I think that you can tell a little bit easier if you get to a site. And then you're like, "Wait a minute, "this feels a little bit weird." But I do think that that gap is closing and we will more and more not be able to tell. And I do think the other piece is like, we don't know if we know when we know and we see it. And we don't know if we have been duped because we just assume it's real. And so-- - Wow. - But I think the proof is in food analogy, the pudding for you, which is you've been able to get traffic. And I think that is the piece to me that we should shine a light on. And it doesn't mean that AI content doesn't exist on Pinterest. It doesn't mean that it's not getting better and better. It does mean that you are having auto deposit into your account every month from Raptive from the content that you're creating. And that to me is the piece that I think is important to point out. I will say I have been doing some things to make sure that people know that I am a human. So yeah. - Yeah, tell us about them. Tell us about them. 'Cause I think that's also important. I think not only is there the consideration do people know or not, but also how do we go above and beyond in showing our humanness? - Yeah, so I put video like with my face and like fingers, like if you can show like your fingers that they're not decrepit. That's a good one. Video of me making it in my own kitchen action shots. So like the process shots, I usually am filming. So I'll screenshot me like rolling like cinnamon rolls or whatever. Lots of things like that. And I actually commented on that video I mentioned and they were like, that's amazing. Like keep doing that because then they know it's human content. So if you could just put your face in there. I was, I did a care at cake recipe a few weeks back and you could see my face. And so I just screenshoted the video of me decorating the cake. And that it's doing pretty okay on Pinterest. So I think video is helpful on Pinterest as well. I will do like the collage style. So I'll do like the video and then the still image to show like the final results. I have done like, yeah. - Can you talk about the different types of Pinterest pins that like for those who aren't familiar, what are the different types and what are the ones that you're doing? - Okay, so there are like the static images, which is what we all know. Usually like a collage or you can do like one photo with like the text over it. You can also do no text, which does not perform well for me. So I don't do that. You can do video pins. They have to be at least four seconds long. And I don't know, they can be like 15 minutes or something. Don't quote me on that, but they can be pretty long which I don't see people watching video on Pinterest but who knows, maybe. My video actually I have a hamburger help recipe that is doing really well and it's a video. So if you're already producing content like on social media, just throw on Pinterest. And then you can do like collages, but I don't do that. And you can also, there's something else. I don't, I only do static in video. That's what I do. - Sure. And then you are, but you said you also are doing a video and then the still like your. - So on Canva, you can add a video, like you can do like a grid. So if you type in grid and it'll be like the top and the bottom grid, you want you, I bet if you make Pinterest images, you know what I'm talking about. And then you can put a video on top or on the bottom, whichever one. And then you can do like the still image that's just like your beautiful hero shot. - Oh cool. So you're uploading that as a video, but in the video is a still image. - Yep. - Got it. Oh, that's, yep, that's great. - Because it downloads as an MP4. So yeah. - Sure, yeah. And then you upload it and you pin it as a video. - Yep. - Yeah, cool. So tools that you're primarily using, you're using this tool from Tony, which we can link to, you get that from signing up for the email list. It's a free tool, the Pinterest scheduler. I think more and more, there is something about just using the native scheduler within platforms. I don't know if this universal or if it's some conspiracy theory, but we've felt like that's been true for Facebook. We've made that switch. So scheduling within, they're using Pinterest to do the keyword research where you're just typing it in and seeing what the auto fill is. Are you doing that at all? - I don't do that. I did. - Okay, so you're not doing that. - And I just feel like my reach is better because when you're typing in the words, you're only typing in that specific keyword. You're not able to see what's. - See what's. - Is the broader keywords. Like I think once I started targeting broader keywords is really when I saw more traffic. So I don't do that. - Got it. - So you have these boards that are related to opportunities that you see where there is a high search volume. Creating those and also creating pins that match that focus of those boards. Even if it's from a recipe that might have a different name, you're still positioning it in a way where it'll fit under the umbrella of whatever that board would be. And then it's the Rinse and Repeat. It's saying, okay, each week, here's how I'm gonna create content. I have these photos documented. I'm gonna be hustling while I'm also unwinding and editing photos in a bath. And the ultimate dichotomy of two worlds coming together. And the result of that is not every month growth but if you look back to last year, you were starting out, you're trying to figure it out. And now you have a business where you are able to create predictable revenue. And you're probably also able to see like that chart of, hey, one month you made $400. And now it's like $600. And what does it feel like when you have, you know, you break that four figure mark. you get $1,000 and you start to build confidence as an entrepreneur and as a content creator because you are now pro. You have started to get paid for the craft of being a creator, which is really exciting. So can you talk about, was there a specific marker along the way where you made your first $25 or first $500, whatever it was that felt like, wow, this is really cool. It was $700. I waited $700. I was still on journey. When was that? October perhaps. And I was like, wait a minute. Like, I could pay a few things around here, sir. Like, I could pay for that. Yeah. And so that was like, and that's when my husband was like, oh, yeah, like, he was like, that's just a hobby. Like, he would say that and I would say no, it's not. Like, when I wasn't making any money, he would say it's a hobby and I was like, it is not a hobby. This is my job. Okay. Yeah. I treated it like a job from the start and so on. You were in the startup stage. Like, every business has a startup stage. You might not be making money yet, but like, the intent is that you will and you did. Yeah. And so that's $700. Like, and it was like, I don't know, it was like three months into being on journey. I got, I am very blessed that month over month. I have not had a month where I had less page views than the last month. So even with like the kind of downturn, I'm still not going to be, I'm not going to have less months or less this month than last month. So I've been very blessed and I have seen that number just kind of keep going up and keep going up and at this point, like, what, what I made this month, it's like, oh, like this, like my blog, we are fruit people. We do not have crazy amounts of like things. And so I can pay for quite a bit of the bills around here, which is awesome. Super exciting. Yeah. Our, you know, this is like bonkers when you think back to his, like, 15 years ago, 16 years ago, 17 years ago. But we, Lindsay and I bought our first condo and our first married and it was like low interest rates and it was like $78,000. So the payment was like $485 a month or something. But I remember in this, this is like Midwest real estate. This was 2009. This was post like financial financial financial crisis. And so the real estate world was really weird. But I remember for us, it was that point where I was like, oh, we don't have much of a mortgage, but this could pay the mortgage. And that was a moment, you know, whether it's mortgage or rent or whatever. It's like, oh, that's a really substantial amount. And, you know, obviously, it's different for everybody. But for us, it was like, it was really cool when you get to that moment. So how about for anybody who is starting out in the early stages, what advice would you give to them? Maybe they, maybe they're still in that aim stage. They haven't gotten to the fire fire yet when they're thinking of ready aim fire instead of ready fire aim. What would your advice be? Number one, just do it. I think imposter syndrome, excuse me, is a thing. And it's no. Like you are that girl or that guy. And you can do this. Like you can. If little old me on my couch or in my bathtub can build out a business that pays like a good portion of my bills each month, you can do it. So just do it. Like that is my biggest advice. Do it and stay consistent and you will see growth. Awesome. That's great. Charlie, if people want to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way to do that? Probably on TikTok. I am on TikTok all the time. I'm a Gen Z. So you can reach out on TikTok. I'll send you the link to that. It's like good enough mom in I.N. But I'll send you that. Perfect. Cool. Charlie, thanks so much for coming on. Super fun to hear your story and excited to follow along over the next year. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Hey there. And again, from the FoodBlogger Pro team. Thank you so much for listening to that episode of the FoodBlogger Pro podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, we would greatly appreciate it if you could share it with your community and leave a rating or review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back next week with another episode where Bjork sits down with Emily Walker from the FoodBlogger Pro team to recap the latest news and blogging trends from our blogging newsletter. We'll see you back here soon. And in the meantime, we hope you have a wonderful week. (upbeat music)