#198: How To Start Using Pinterest to Build Your Business
If you're building a business that is rooted in intuition, soul and strategy then in this episode, I'll be sharing an intuitive way to plan your brand using Pinterest—no social media overwhelm required.
We'll learn why Pinterest is a unique tool for inspiration and organic growth, and that it actually works more like a search engine than a traditional social platform the so-called Pinterest "algorithm" in 2026 is driven by intent.
Meaning, they are valuing pins that leverage phrases that mirror what someone might actually be searching for, and the more specific and niche the better! This is also especially good news if you're planning on using Pinterest to share your podcast.
Of course, we're starting with some reflective journaling, so you can gain clarity, collect resources, and shape your business vision in a way that truly feels good to you.
Whether you're dreaming up a new idea or refreshing your current brand, get ready for actionable tips, personal insights, and permission to explore, play, and trust your process.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
How Pinterest can serve as a soulful alternative for brand building—beyond typical social media hustle
A unique Pinterest process for vision boarding and intuitive journaling to clarify your business dreams and creative projects
How to approach marketing and strategy intuitively, leveraging long-form content for aligned, sustainable growth
How to set yourself up now -by organizing inspiration and resources visually (and practically) for easier action later
The FREE Audio-First Podcasting Action Plan
Get clear on what you actually need to start your podcast (and what you don’t)
00:00 Vision Boarding for your business with Pinterest
03:56 Why Pinterest is different that social media and operates on user intent
07:42 How SEO and Long-Form Content (like podcasting) thrive on Pinterest
12:48 How to create a reflection process with journaling for your Pinterest exploration phase
21:23 Creating and organizing Pinterest boards
22:31 Setting yourself up on Pinterest to activate organic marketing in your business later
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Read the Full Transcript
Christina Barsi [00:00:00]:
Hi and welcome back to the Boss Goddess Podcast, where we discuss intuitive business strategies for heart-led and creative women.
Christina Barsi [00:01:06]:
And today's episode is especially for you if you're ready to change something up in your existing business or are ready to create something new of your own that will honor your uniqueness and your natural rhythms and creativity and genius, but you're in that exploratory stage. This is also for you if you're looking for new ways to market your existing business or future business away from social media, which can feel very hustly or pushed in many ways to create optimization there. And that alternative platform that we'll be talking about today is Pinterest. So the first thing to understand about Pinterest and why it's different than social media is that it's actually not a social media platform, but functions as a search engine, meaning it is designed to serve view what you're specifically looking for as a searcher. So that makes it really good news for a business, right? So if you're new to me, I'm Christina Barcy, your host, but everyone calls me Barcy. And if you are a returning listener, welcome back. And if you're joining me for the first time, thank you for giving this a listen. And if you do enjoy this episode, I'd like to invite you to stick around by clicking your favorite podcast app follow button.
Christina Barsi [00:02:23]:
This way you won't have to search for the show each time you want to listen, and it will just be added to your library of podcasts, and it will just automatically update with new episodes as they release. So the practice I'll be sharing today is a bit like creating a vision board. I know we love to create vision boards at the early part of the year usually. Um, it's actually a lot like a vision board, but today we'll be using Pinterest to organize our inspiration and give us that visual element to what we're dreaming about. But not only that, we'll be able to save useful resources that we can learn from and include in our development over brand, business, or creative project, or the evolution of our existing brand or business as we are sort of doing this exploratory, inspirational, aspirational search. So being able to also pin and save useful resources that highlighted strategies I wanted to learn more about really allowed the action steps that come after the exploration, after exploring a vision, to come much sooner. Because you are exploring your vision by collecting real resources that are potentially service providers or offerings that will serve your best next step. Some of my first action steps in getting clear was actually finding a couple of courses that I found on Pinterest, and they were exactly what I needed when I was getting a little overwhelmed and actually kind of blocked by the mainstream rhetoric that, that I was finding about what I wanted to learn more about or what I was trying to get clear on.
Christina Barsi [00:03:56]:
And I found someone that was way more in tune with my energy and, and my sort of the frequency I wanted to explore this on. It didn't feel, you know, forced at all. It felt really lovely, and I'm so glad I found her. But I wouldn't have if I wasn't doing this on Pinterest. And I took that course, and I, I learned so much from doing that. I got so much clarity out of it. So over this past year, I've completely fallen in love with Pinterest, and here are some more reasons why. So firstly, I'll preface this by saying that I did explore leaning into LinkedIn these past couple of years as well, and as I was exploring where different audiences spend their time and how different algorithms work, with the goal of wanting to sort of pare down and create some focus around a single platform and not try to be everywhere, what I discovered is I think, I think LinkedIn is great and there are reasons for me to keep using it, but it started to feel a lot like all of the other social media platforms feel to me.
Christina Barsi [00:04:57]:
It was a bit anxiety-inducing, comparison-triggering, and it had this very strong energy of hustle culture that I was trying to minimize and sort of get away from. But the more I learned about Pinterest, the more I wanted to explore it, the more I wanted to spend time there. And the main thing to understand about Pinterest— I'll say it again— is that it is actually not a social media platform, it's a search engine. It's like spending time on Google essentially. So it operates very, very differently. It values SEO and is wonderful for long-form content, which is not only my specialty but my preference. That's why it's my specialty. For example, podcasting, which is 100% a long-form style of content, and a podcast episode also becomes long-form written content in a click these days by converting it into a transcript, which can also then become a blog post.
Christina Barsi [00:05:53]:
Another form of long-form content that— first of all, Pinterest loves blogs. It's kind of what most people do there in terms of pins, and, and those in terms of businesses who want to share pins, they usually have a blog. And that all drives SEO to wherever you want to drive it. Like, your business website and Pinterest is designed to support all of that. So it's a really lovely way to become discovered. Where social media is designed to support you staying on their app by way of short-form content, they're interested in just keeping you on their app. They're not interested in sending you away from their app, where that's actually what Pinterest is designed to do. It's to send you away from their app to whatever CTA that each pin is linked to.
Christina Barsi [00:06:41]:
For example, if you wanted them to listen to a podcast episode on your website, you would just include that link in your pin. So when they click visit, visit, you know, when they want to save the pin, then they have it for later. And then if they want to go actually click on your pin to visit the site that is linked to the, the visual part of the pin, right, then it takes you directly to what you want them to go to. It's like having a Linktree on every single post, but really directive And not only that, the people who find it have already searched for that. That's the main difference. That's what makes it so wonderful is that they're actually already looking for you. They're not passively receiving random information from people they don't know, which is kind of how social media works. So Pinterest also has this ease energy and alignment baked into it for me because it's designed to support what I'm already doing and love to do, which is long-form content.
Christina Barsi [00:07:42]:
And in turn, long-form content is designed to support long-game endeavors, which a business is. So the two are just so hand in hand. So I plan to create some more episodes about SEO and Pinterest in the future, but I wanted to give you that overview so you could understand how this platform is really different, how it's been inspiring me, and how exploring it now through this exercise I'll be sharing with you in just a moment can benefit your business in the future when you are ready to take more steps, but also really benefit exploring your creative vision and connecting you with some clarifying next steps just to get started. And I also wanted to share my newfound passion and understanding of the importance of SEO, which I'm now super leaning into this year as a sustainable strategy for my business and podcast. And it falls within this intuitive strategy realm because it is designed to align and reflect your authentic messaging and attract your ideal customer organically. And these long-form types of content that I'm talking about, like podcasting, continue to work in your favor for years when we tie it all together with SEO. So it takes you out of that constant creation loop, which is totally a hustle. Okay, so let's jump into it.
Christina Barsi [00:08:55]:
I know I also mentioned journaling as a part of our intuitive brand planning, and I'll be incorporating that part as we go along with this process. So the journaling component will be part of this because we always need a good reflection strategy. When we are in this visionary exploratory clarity stage. So you may or may not already have a Pinterest account. If you do, then depending on the type, meaning business or personal, and also if you have a public account or not, this next step may vary. So your first step might be to sign up for Pinterest, or your first step might be deciding on whether you want to create some private boards on your personal account, or if you want to open a business account, which requires you to make it public. So decide your comfort level and also what stage you're in to make this first step decision. But I'll share that the way I did it was I decided to create a business account and play with my brand exploration there because I already knew I was going to leverage Pinterest for this leg of my business and I already had some definition around what I wanted bossgoddess.co to be.
Christina Barsi [00:10:03]:
But that said, I did tweak it often, meaning like my, my look, my what I called it, what my call to action was like. I just kept tweaking and tweaking and tweaking as I was refining and getting more clear, and it allowed myself to explore lots and lots of things. So I went back and deleted a lot of posts that I either evolved away from or that expired because some of my pins were event-based that had passed. And I also changed my profile a zillion times as I got more and more clear, like I said, on what I wanted to offer, who I wanted to serve. And I'll just keep optimizing that as things get more and more clear. So I say go ahead and start a free business account so that you can leverage it later in the ways that we're talking about. So I'll link to my Pinterest handle in the show notes so you can explore it while you're listening. And I want you to give yourself permission to explore, to have fun, to be inspired, and allow this to be a constant work in progress.
Christina Barsi [00:11:01]:
Because that's truly what anything that's long-term is. It's always going to be a work in progress. There'll be moments where you're just ticking along and things are going great and you don't have to change much, especially if you're just starting or if you're rebranding or doing something, trying to do something new, incorporate something new. The, the work in progress part is, is just part of it. So allow yourself permission to just allow that to be part of this too. It's always evolving, and that's the fun part. So Pinterest won't punish you for playing with your ideas. Remember that.
Christina Barsi [00:11:36]:
Eventually, when you're ready to optimize your account and drive consistent traffic to your stuff, then, then you'll want to be more strategic, but we don't really need to worry about that right now. So after you decide how you want to take that first step—private, personal boards, or business account—then your next step might be journaling or to enjoy exploring Pinterest. You may just want to enjoy exploring Pinterest for a while and do the journaling after that or during that. You may pair it up, you may decide to do some exploring and then journal and reflect, or you may want to journal after you do your initial setup. Whatever you feel called to do first, Remember, this is an intuitive process, so you get to decide on how to approach this based on what feels good to you. So tap into that. So whether it's journaling or exploring Pinterest, I want you to ask yourself this question: What is inspiring me to express, explore, and learn more about? What is inspiring me to express Explore and learn more about. So that's kind of the intention I want you to set when you go in to explore on Pinterest, or maybe you want to journal on that question first.
Christina Barsi [00:12:48]:
So that's kind of how you want to decide, you know, do I want to journal about this idea? For what do I want to— like, I have no idea. If you're feeling very like overwhelmed by, I don't even know what to search for, then I suggest journaling first. If you learn better by just seeing, like, seeing things pop up and just throwing words into the search and seeing if any of it makes sense to you, or if you're resonating with anything, then maybe you want to do the Pinterest first. So to get started, if you are jumping into Pinterest first, I suggest creating at least one board so you can pin these all in one place for now, and then you can categorize them further later. Like, you could label it "pins to explore" or "my dream brand" or anything that makes sense to you to do a pin brain dump into, or you can be just, you know, have fun with it. And then this is kind of going to be your brain dump board, and we'll sort through all these pins after you do this initial exploration. I'll kind of explain how to organize it towards the end here. And if this is all sounding really confusing, once again, it's probably helpful to go take a look at my Pinterest account, my business account, just to see how this looks and, and what I mean by boards.
Christina Barsi [00:13:59]:
Again, there's a link to my account in the show notes. And while you're there, feel free to follow me. If you send me a DM on Pinterest too, then you can ask me questions directly about this episode or about your exploration, or, you know, just say hi even is always nice. So, okay, coming back to it. So you can type in anything that you're wanting to explore. It may be a color aesthetic for your brand or a visual representation of the vibe. Like you could type in color schemes or a phrase like, uh, spiritual business or feminine energy, or maybe you want to learn more about SEO like I did, or how to leverage Pinterest, which I was like, those are the first things I was really looking up when I was doing my business account. I wanted to understand Pinterest.
Christina Barsi [00:14:46]:
So all kinds of blogs and resources will pop up, and then anything you like, just hit save to the board that you've created for the exploration. And be sure you're leaning into what is aspiring and feels good to you, that you feel connected to. Don't overthink it, especially for this exercise. Really allow yourself to just have fun. You can delete things later. And I think it's almost good to, to click on all the things that you're sort of resonating with, even if it's on a low resonance, if you're not sure, right? Like, if you aren't totally sure, click on it anyway. Because when you look at that board, you'll see everything at once and you'll kind of see like what doesn't fit or what you like and don't like in a, in a big picture way. Now, if you're choosing to journal first, I suggest free writing from that prompt.
Christina Barsi [00:15:39]:
What is inspiring me to express, explore, and learn more about? And once you've done that, choose a few of your discoveries that came up while you're journaling, while you were journaling, that you're most inspired to explore first and begin your Pinterest search and pinning. So once again, allow it to be fun and just approach this all with curiosity and leave room for that observation and for different discoveries to pop up. So then after you take at least one day off, I suggest sort of taking some space from it, from like looking at what you've pinned, then go back, take a look at the one board of all of your pins that you've collected and just notice what you see. Just notice it. Is there a clear visual brand or vibe emerging? Did you pin a lot of the same color or genre of things? Are there a lot of pins from the same accounts? What do you like about their account? What are you noticing you're attracted to? Are you surprised by any of it? Does it feel really not cohesive at this time? Is it mostly resources right now, which is okay too? Maybe you really just are in a learning phase and it's not really about defining your brand yet. It's really just about learning a few things that you are really, you know, considering to incorporate. Or maybe it's like I was doing, like learning just about the platform itself. And that's totally, that's totally fine.
Christina Barsi [00:17:05]:
That, that will show you where you're at. So once again, I invite you to be observant and curious. And then I suggest journaling your thoughts down, journaling sort of what's coming up, what you're noticing. And anything else that might come up from the process. Or if you feel like the next best step is to explore more pens first before you start journaling, then that's totally fine too. This is your process. But really, I encourage you, when you're deciding which thing to do next, it's just what feels best to you, what feels like the next best step. If you feel like you need to do a journal brain dump and really observe, or if you feel like that's the best next step for you, you need a break from penning, like do the journaling.
Christina Barsi [00:17:45]:
If you feel more inspired to kind of, you know, explore lots of resources and then explore lots of visuals, like, go for it. But I do encourage you to include a journaling step, even if it comes a little later in the process for you, and do that from that place of observation, curiosity. And give yourself some compassion and grace too if things are coming up that you're like, whoa, I didn't realize I was such a fan of black, let's say, which is me. Every time I'm like, wow, this is like a really dark vibe. I kind of surprise myself sometimes with that. So, you know, just have fun with it. Notice things, write about them, and just enjoy this process. It's really organic.
Christina Barsi [00:18:28]:
It's a fun way to begin exploring your business ideas, your brand identity, whether even if you're simply shifting your existing business like I'm doing right now, or creating a new leg to your business, which I'm also doing right now.. Or if you're exploring creating something brand new entirely, which I've been in that place too, of course. We had to start at some point, and I remember what that was like as well. And giving myself that room to really feel into what was going to feel best to me was super imperative to feeling confident in putting action to that. So the feel-good part I'm going to say this a lot, the feel-good part is so important. It allows you to show up. It allows you to create action faster than if it feels like something you should do. Okay, so I want you to— this is why journaling is important.
Christina Barsi [00:19:23]:
If you start feeling forced or like you should be doing something and you're not, but it doesn't feel like you really want to do it, those are all indicators that you need to come back to what feels good. Okay, so tangent over. So the beauty of this is that it goes beyond visual inspiration, like a vision board offers, like a physical, you know, cut things out of a magazine vision board. And it allows you to collect those helpful resources that you can work your way through as well over time while you set yourself up for driving traffic to your future endeavor at a later point. It's also a marketing platform. So because it's an SEO-driven or a search engine-driven platform. And if that is something that you decide to do later, then you're already setting yourself up for that now without needing to even think about that. You don't have to think about that now, but it's just baked in because you'll have it.
Christina Barsi [00:20:18]:
So like I said, I'll create more episodes about Pinterest in the future that will explain that side of it further, but it's just sort of a, like I said earlier, like a two two birds, one stone kind of a thing. So there's one more step that you can take when you're ready. After you've had some fun exploring and pinning and making observations and considering what resonates with you most, you may be ready to organize some of these pins into categories. I thought that that part to me was kind of fun— also fun, I should say— in which you would just create a few more boards than the one you have. You may even delete the one that you have currently because it might not resonate anymore, um, once you organize it. Or you might keep it for future brain dumps, future exploration. But you're just going to create a few more boards that are labeled by the categories that you notice have more than one pin. Or even if they have one, I mean, sure, uh, why not? So like if you've pinned 1, 2, or 3 things that have to do with Spiritual Businesses, let's say.
Christina Barsi [00:21:23]:
That could be the name of this board. Or if you have color palettes or brand color pins, maybe you call that board Brand Colors or Brand Inspo. Or, you know, you have more fun with it and name the vibe or the color palette like Dark and Moody or Light and Breezy, like whatever feeling is popping up. It could be what you call that board, and then what you put the— you just move the pins into that board away from the the general board that we created at the beginning. And then you just start to organize it, and it's kind of fun to see like what your categories are that emerge. And once you've done that, now you have this visual representation and this set of real-life resources for you, uh, for how you're exploring your business's identity at your fingertips. So you can, you know, really leverage it as a learning opportunity too, to kind of grow into the areas you want to grow into through the resources that are available within Pinterest. And this can all just evolve very easily by simply creating new searches and deleting pins and boards that no longer resonate with you.
Christina Barsi [00:22:31]:
And this is also very shareable, so if there was someone you wanted to hire later to help you design a website, let's say down the line, or, you know, a brand strategist, or anyone who a visual like that helps do their job for you, right? Who wants to understand what you're trying to create, you can literally just share it with them or have them go to it like I'm sharing my handle with you. You can kind of take a look at all of it and get a real sense of, of what it all is, you know. So that's another lovely thing about doing this exercise on Pinterest.. So I encourage you once again to let this be fun, to give yourself permission to explore and be inspired, for it to be a process that unfolds, that gently unfolds organically and in honor of your uniqueness. So I'll be looking for your Pinterest DM so I can answer any questions or just say hi. Until next time, bye for now.
