Working along with a regular job seems a bit challenging.
It kind of feels like a non-obvious thing to our hard wired brains.
The moment we decide to do something (especially with our regular jobs) a number of questions arise in our heads.
- What’s the point of doing something when I already have an existing income stream?
- Why do I need to put in extra effort when I can chill in my spare time?
- What’s the GUARANTEE of getting success in the work that I’m going to do?
But let me give you the most apt explanation to all these questions as per my experience.
Life is uncertain. You can’t predict what’s coming. You can’t make a roadmap to stay away from the obstacles.
And money is one of the most crucial factors that determines what type of life we’re going to live (I’m not stating it’s the most important, but still)
You’ve to diversify your income streams, because you never know when things will go out of place.
I myself started doing this around 2 years ago.
I understood the need to amplify my skills and leverage my potential to try, fail and succeed in a number of things that weren’t in my head in the past 25 years.
I decided to try something different than my usual job.
After watching a lot of content on YouTube, I opt to become a Pinterest creator, since I’m more familiar with this platform as a user.
I began my journey as a Pinterest creator, with literally zero knowledge about anything.
I didn’t know what’s the meaning of being a creator, how to crack the algorithm, how to actually monetize your skills, how to build a community, and a hell lot more things.
But!
I’m glad that I made that decision.
It’s definitely one of the best decisions of my life.
Now, the tough part about being a creator is — you have to provide content, and that too on a regular basis.
You can’t treat this as a side hustle (at least in the beginning, once you get some momentum, you can do that).
Pinterest is a platform where creators upload their content in the form of pins and their potential audience finds those pins, then they interact with them.
If they like the content, they follow the creator like any other social media platform.
But the best part about this platform is that the content that you post can serve you for months not years.
I myself uploaded 8000 pins on my account and that too while working on my 9–5.
Snippet of my Pinterest Boards
I’m going to give you my exact blueprint!
If you’re someone like me who’s starting with zero knowledge or even if you’re into this game for a while, this blueprint will definitely help YOU.
Are you ready?
Let’s go!
I. You’re the Master of Your Time
Time is the most important factor!
We all must agree with the fact that time determines the quality of our life.
If we know how to distribute our time between the productive and not so productive things, then chances of our success in any work automatically increases.
Now, I know, you must be wondering how the hell would I take out the time to work on my own things when I’ve to meet those not so realistic deadlines.
You’re not alone and it’s completely NORMAL.
We just need to make a mental shift.
Instead of becoming problem-oriented, be solution-oriented.
The moment you decide to find a solution to the problem, believe me half of the battle is won.
In my case, the problem is how to take out the time, because before actually starting creating content I need to get at least the basic information about the platform.
So, what I did was I started watching YouTube videos, amidst my lunch breaks, or while travelling to my office.
It took me around 10–15 days to understand the basics of the platform.
I decided to open my Pinterest Business Account without specifying a niche initially, as I wasn’t sure where I wanted to direct the traffic.
II. Prepare Your Toolkit
A superhero is nothing without his supertools!
You also need to understand this fact.
For content creation on Pinterest, you basically need to follow these steps:
1. Researching
Use Pinterest search bar, Pinterest Trends, Pinterest Predicts to do initial research for your content.
Check out this article to know about amazing ways to find trends or niches on Pinterest!
2. Designing
The second step is putting your thoughts in the form of a design. As Pinterest is a visual search engine, you need to get that visual appeal in your content.
But! You don’t need to get everything right the first time.
You can use Canva to kickstart your designer journey.
It’s an all in one package!
The template library is huge and also the interface is so simple that even a non-technical person can
create stunning designs.
Note: Once you develop the habit of creating designs, you’ll gradually start seeing the difference in your pins.
3. Uploading
Pinterest allows uploading of your pins in two ways, you can either use the Pinterest uploader or you can try a third party tool like TAILWIND.
To save your uploading time, you can use the batch content method.
The batch content method is a smart and efficient way to upload multiple pins of the same category all at once.
In general, you need to make a group of similar type of content, the headings, description, keywords, etc. and then just copy and paste them in your pins.
To start, create several pins offering variations of the same content with different visuals or text.
Here’s an example of some of my pins. I offer slight variations in my pins, just to keep the visual appeal alive.
Once I created the pins, it’s time for uploading. To do that we first need to assemble the data as mentioned earlier, the headings, keywords, description, etc.
We can use ChatGPT to come up with the various headline ideas, so that you don’t copy and paste the same headings in most of the pins.
Note: You can also try it for descriptions.
Modify these headings just to make them look a bit more catchy!
4. Show that You Exist
We all exist!
But how many of us do actually have the courage to raise our hands and speak out our opinions in a crowd.
I guess a very few people.
The reason?
We fear failure.
And, it’s not something we’re born with, the societal conditions, the experiences we have, somewhere compels us to shut down our VOICE and just keep following.
When you go out in a world that’s full of millions of people who are 100 times better and experienced than you, then the feeling of nervousness is quite obvious.
- How will I reach out to the top creators?
- How will I promote myself?
- How will I face the negative comments?
All these questions are quite normal.
Let me tell you a little secret —
You just need to have the courage to go for it just ONCE.
Once you accept the fact that — failing is the most NORMAL thing that can ever happen to you, you really put a full stop to all those negativities that might come to your way.
Reach out to creators, comment on their content, apply to group boards.
You’ll get that attention that you deserves.
Just give yourself the permission to fail.
In conclusion, balancing a full-time corporate job with publishing 8000 pins is no easy feat, but with dedication and a strategic approach, it's possible.
Remember to prioritize tasks, stay organized, and celebrate small victories on your journey to success.
Happy Pinning!