5 Pinterest Lessons That Helped Me Grow My Podcast 74%

How I ditched Instagram and finally found a podcast marketing strategy that actually works

A few weeks ago, I posted something on Threads about how I’m no longer using Instagram in my podcast marketing strategy — and how my show is still growing and making money without it. Someone commented, “Why is that relevant?” And another commenter jumped in with: “It probably has to do with Pinterest.”

They were right. And honestly, I laughed out loud because I do talk about Pinterest all the time. But I talk about it all the time because it has genuinely changed everything about how I market my podcast. My strategy isn’t stressful anymore. My show has grown more in the past year than in the years before it. And I’ve done it all without worrying about Instagram trends or trying to go viral.

I’m Andi Smiley — podcast coach for women and host of the Friendly Podcast Guide — and in this episode, I’m sharing five of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from taking Pinterest seriously as my main podcast marketing strategy. These are the things I wish someone had told me sooner, and I hope they save you a whole lot of trial and error.

Results so far? A 74% increase in podcast downloads and 200+ new email subscribers — all from Pinterest, in just one year.

Topics covered in this podcast episode:

Why finding the right podcast marketing platform matters more than being everywhere
How to grow a podcast without social media (yes, really!)
Why Pinterest SEO keywords are the foundation of your strategy
How I learned that Pinterest-specific keyword research is a total game changer
Why your pins don’t have to be beautiful to perform well
What sustainable podcasting strategies actually look like for real people
Why Pinterest and podcasting have the same long-game mindset — and why that’s great news

Lesson 1: Find the platform that actually works for you

I started my Instagram account for Friendly Podcast Guide before I even dropped my first episode — so I’ve been at it for almost five years. And in that time, Pinterest came along and in just one year did more for my show than Instagram ever did.

That’s not to say Instagram doesn’t work for anyone. It just doesn’t work for me. My people aren’t going to Instagram when they want to learn about podcast strategy or find tools that’ll help them grow. And once I gave myself permission to stop forcing it, everything got a lot more doable.

The first lesson I learned is this: consistency and effort aren’t enough if you’re on the wrong platform. You need to find the platform where your ideal listener is actually hanging out and searching for what you offer. For me, that’s Pinterest. And it might be for you too!

(P.S. — if you’re not sure if Pinterest is right for your podcast, I have a free two-minute checklist for you! Grab it [here — INSERT LINK].)

Lesson 2: Pinterest SEO is everything

If there’s one thing that will make or break your Pinterest strategy, it’s your SEO keywords. And I learned this the hard way.

When I first started using Pinterest to market my podcast, I was just winging it — typing whatever I thought might work and hoping for the best. Then I started using the SEO keywords I had researched for my podcast episodes through Google and other tools. Better! But still not quite right.

The real turning point came when I realized I needed to research Pinterest-specific SEO keywords, because people search differently on Pinterest than they do on Google or in a podcast app. Once I started using Pinterest itself to research my keywords, my pins started performing so much better.

It feels obvious now, but at the time I just hadn’t thought about it that way. So learn from me and skip the guesswork — do your Pinterest SEO research on Pinterest.

Lesson 3: Pins don’t have to be pretty to perform

This one surprised me. Some of my best-performing pins? Just words. No pretty picture, no styled photo — just text.

Yes, Pinterest is a visual platform. But what matters most is that your pin speaks directly to your ideal listener and uses the right keywords so Pinterest puts it in front of the right people. Having your face on some pins is a nice touch (it helps people connect with you!), but it’s not essential.

What is essential: making sure your pin accurately describes what someone will get when they click on it. Because the goal is to get people to actually listen to your episode, right? If your pin doesn’t match the content, they’ll bounce — and then what was the point?

Don’t stress about creating gorgeous graphics. Use a Canva template, use the right words, and you’re good to go.

Lesson 4: Sustainable consistency beats the “expert” advice

Here’s something I’m so glad I didn’t know when I started: most Pinterest experts say you need to be pinning 15 pins a day.

Fifteen. A day.

That is not sustainable for most of us — and I’m here to tell you that it is absolutely not the only way to succeed on Pinterest. When I started, I was posting one pin per week. Every Wednesday, one pin dropped, and I was proud of that. And guess what? It still worked.

Over time, I’ve slowly increased to one pin per day, which I batch-create and schedule out in advance. But I built up to that gradually. The key is finding a pace you can actually maintain long-term — because burning out after two months helps no one.

Whatever your version of consistency looks like, that is the right version for you. Do what you can sustain, and keep going.

Lesson 5: Pinterest is a long game (and that’s a good thing)

Pinterest didn’t give me instant results. But slowly, steadily, I started to see views go up, then pin clicks, then episode downloads. And it kept building from there.

I’ve seen so many podcasters give up on Pinterest after just one month because the results weren’t huge yet. But here’s the truth: Pinterest is a long game — just like podcasting. If someone told you to expect overnight success with your show, they steered you wrong. And Pinterest works the same way.

Plan to start seeing meaningful results around the 2–4 month mark. But here’s what makes Pinterest different from social media: your content doesn’t die after 72 hours. Pins keep circulating for months, sometimes years. I have a pin I posted in 2023 that is still one of my top performers. It just keeps bringing new listeners to my show.

That is the kind of marketing I want — content that works for me long after I’ve made it.

Your quick recap:

Find the right platform for you — stop forcing what isn’t working
Get your Pinterest SEO right — research keywords on Pinterest
Pins don’t have to be pretty — the right words matter more
Consistency is personal — do what you can sustain
Nothing happens overnight — but what you build will last

If you’ve been thinking about giving Pinterest a try for your podcast, I made a free checklist to help you figure out if it’s the right fit: Is Pinterest Right for Your Podcast? Grab it [here — INSERT LINK]!

Connect with me

Website → [INSERT LINK]
Pinterest → [INSERT LINK]
Threads → [INSERT LINK]
Email list → [INSERT LINK]

Unedited transcript:

Funny story I posted on threads a couple of weeks ago about how I’m no longer using Instagram in my podcast marketing strategy and how I’m still making money and my podcast is still getting downloads. Someone commented on it and asked. Why is that relevant? And then another commenter commented on that comment, say that three times fast, and that commenter said it probably has to do with Pinterest.

I laughed so hard at that comment because I really do talk about Pinterest all the time, but I talk about it all the time because it truly has changed my life. My marketing strategy isn’t stressful anymore, and my show and business have grown more in the past year, all because of Pinterest. 📍 Hey, I’m Andy Smiley, and I’m obsessed with helping you grow your podcast without letting it rule your life.

I share strategies that actually work, the stuff I wish someone would’ve told me sooner. And conversations with the smartest podcasters I know today. I’m talking about five of the things I’ve learned from taking Pinterest seriously for the past year and before I start, if you come to the end of this episode and you’re like, wait.

Wait a second. Should I try Pinterest? I have a free two minute checklist for you. It’s called Is Pinterest right? For your podcast? It’ll help you figure out if Pinterest is something that will help your podcast grow or if it’s something you should skip.

I’ll put the link to the checklist in the show notes.

Pinterest has been a complete game changer for me in the past year, friendly podcast guides, downloads have increased by 74% and I’ve gained more than 200 email subscribers

I have learned so much over the past year from using Pinterest as my main marketing tool, and I’m really, really excited to share some of the things that I’ve learned with you.

The first thing that I learned is consistency and effort isn’t enough when it comes to marketing. You need to find a platform that actually works for you and your podcast. I learned the hard way that Instagram isn’t worth it for me. It doesn’t. It’s not where my people are going when they’re looking to learn about podcast strategy or buy my offers that will help them with their podcast marketing

While the flip side of that coin is Pinterest. Pinterest has helped me reach my people way more consistently than Instagram ever has, and I started my Instagram account for Friendly podcast guide. I’m pretty sure I started it before I even dropped my first episode. So like I’ve been doing it for almost five years, and Pinterest in the past year, one year has helped me so much more than Instagram has in the five years that I’ve had it.

And on top of that, not only do the results speak for themselves, but I have been way less stressed using Pinterest rather than Instagram and. There are so many less hoops that I have to jump through when it comes to Pinterest compared to Instagram, there’s no trends that I’m trying to figure out. I just have my SEO keywords and I make sure that they are throughout everything that I do on Pinterest, and it works really well for me.

So I’m kind of ed that it has taken me this long to figure out, but. The truth is that not every platform is for every person, and Instagram is not a platform for me and for my podcast. The second thing I learned is SEO is king, especially when it comes to Pinterest. Having the right Pinterest, SEO keywords will make or break a Pinterest strategy.

There are so many things that help Pinterest work really well for you, but the foundation of your Pinterest strategy really does need to be those Pinterest, SEO keywords. When I first started using Pinterest, I didn’t have any specific SEO keywords that I was using. I was just trying it out. I was just pretty much typing whatever I thought would work in into the title and description and when I was making my pins and just like seeing if it would work.

I do not recommend that, but I, that was how I started. After a while, I realized that I could be using some sort of SEO keywords. So I started using the SEO keywords that I had researched and was using for my podcast episodes. Um, and I had used like Google and other tools to figure that out. So it wasn’t Pinterest specific, but at least I was using SEO key.

We’re moving in the right direction. Then I finally realized last summer that I need to be researching Pinterest specific SEO keywords because people search differently on Pinterest than they do on Google or in a podcast app. And truly, my pins have been doing much better since I finally started using Pinterest to figure out what SEO keywords I should be using in my Pinterest content.

I feel it feels so obvious now, but at the time. I just didn’t think about it that way. So here we are. That’s one thing I learned, so hopefully you don’t have to learn it the hard way. You can just learn it from me. The next thing I learned is pins don’t have to be pretty to do really well on Pinterest.

Some of my best performing pins are just words. There’s no pretty picture, no pictures at all. It’s just words.

Yes, Pinterest is a visual platform, but the most important thing is speaking to your ideal listener and making sure you’ve got those Pinterest SEO keywords that are going to help Pinterest put your content in front of the right audience.

While I will say it is nice to have your face on some of your pins, um, to help people connect with you a little bit better, it really is not essential. It’s way more important to make sure that your pin describes exactly what your pin is gonna get when they click on that pin.

Because the goal is to get people to listen to the episode, right? So if they’re clicking on the pin, but the pin doesn’t reflect what the episode is about, then they’re not gonna listen to the episode

and then what was the point of making that pin? So make sure that your pin is actually about the episode.

Yes, having a beautiful picture on your pin can be fun. And if it works and it like relates to your episode, great, but it is not essential. And please don’t stress about not being able to create beautiful pins. Just use Canva, use a template, make sure you’re using the right words, and you’re set.

Another thing that I’ve learned from using Pinterest as my main marketing tool for the past year is being consistent doesn’t have to mean you’re pinning like a Pinterest quote unquote expert.

I am so glad. I don’t know how I got so lucky that I wasn’t following any Pinterest experts when I started using Pinterest to market my podcast because most Pinterest experts say that you need to be pinning like 15 pins a day. That that is not something that I can do. Like I cannot be pinning that many pins in a day like that is not sustainable for me, and I have a feeling it’s not sustainable for most people. So when I first started using Pinterest to promote my podcast, I was doing one pin a week, not even a day a. One pin a week.

Every Wednesday a new pin dropped and that was it. And I was like proud of myself for doing that. I’m so glad that I wasn’t following any Pinterest experts ’cause I feel like I would’ve given up. But so if you’re, listen, if you have listened to Pinterest pin experts that are like, Hey, you need to be doing 15 pins a day.

Sure you can be successful doing that, but that’s not the only way to use Pinterest. So like send me a DM on threads or something and we can chat because don’t give up if you think that 15 pins a day is the only way to do it.

Slowly over time, I have increased how many pins that I’m posting now I’m up to one pin a day. But I do schedule those out at least a week in advance. I just batch create my pins and then schedule them out because I can’t do that every day. I have so many other things to do.

And my favorite part is that with my pinning once a week and slowly going up to now, I’m pinning once per day. I have seen so much success with my podcast.

I’ve been able to grow my podcast. My podcast grew 74%. The past year, which is still such a fun number, it’s just kind of crazy. But here we are, and I’ve had more than 200 email subscribers join my email list in the past year also because of Pinterest. So yes, 15 pins a day.

You’re probably gonna have a successful Pinterest strategy that way, but also, at least for most of us, I think you’re gonna burn out if you try and do 15 pins per day. So. Figure out what’s gonna work best for you and for your podcast so that you can stay consistent and then do that. That is what’s best for you, is making sure that whatever you’re gonna do, you can stay consistent for the long haul and not burnout after a couple months,

And the fifth thing I’ve learned from taking Pinterest seriously for the past year is that nothing happens overnight. At least not for me. Pinterest did not give me instant success,

but slowly I started to see the results on Pinterest trending upward. Like, I started to see more views and then more pin clicks. And then I started to, um, see my episodes were getting more downloads, I have seen so many podcasters give up on Pinterest when they aren’t seeing massive results after just one month. And the truth is that Pinterest is a long game. And this probably sounds very familiar to you because we all know that podcasting is also a long game. Like when you get into it, hopefully someone told you the podcasting is a long game.

’cause Yeah, you’re just not gonna see results overnight. That’s just part of podcasting. And truly it’s part of Pinterest too, which is why. Pinterest podcasting. It’s just a match made in heaven because you have the same mindset for both. I love it so with Pinterest, you won’t start seeing big results until you’ve been consistently pinning for.

Two to four months, I would probably lean more toward four months, but I will say I started to see some of my pins pop off around two months, but I started to see even more around four months, and that’s been the same for a lot of my clients, is right around, right between two and four months.

And I know that sounds like a really long time, but please don’t let that scare you because all of the content that you put on Pinterest, it doesn’t die after 72 hours. Like on traditional social media. It keeps circulating for months or even years. So truly, I have a pin that I posted, I think it was in 2023, and it is still one of the pins that gets the most views on of all of my pins.

It just keeps staying either at the top or close to the top, so pins can live for a really long time and continue to introduce you and your podcast to people that need your content that are looking for help from you. So amazing. Pinterest is awesome.

So yes, it does take a little bit for the results to start showing up a couple of months, but if you can stick with it and have that perspective of I am building something that is going to last. You will see those results compound over time. Like I said, I have a pin that’s like three years old that is still bringing new listeners to my show, and it’s not the only one.

I have several that just keep on working for me and. I know that if I make a pin today and I post it today that it will still be working for me. Three months from now. People will still be finding that pin and still be clicking on it and finding my episodes, and that is just amazing.

I am just so grateful for Pinterest.

It has truly changed everything about my podcast marketing and made it so much more doable and made it so that marketing is no longer stressful for me.

Pinterest is just the best. Okay. As a quick recap, these are five of the things I have learned from taking Pinterest seriously for the past year. Number one, finding the right platform for you is essential. Number two. Get your SEO right? Number three, pins don’t have to be pretty to work well.

Number four, being consistent looks different for everyone and that is okay. And number five, nothing happens overnight. Well, at least not for me. Maybe it will for you, but. I kind of doubt that. Sorry. It’s just a part of life, I think. 📍 Do you have a friend who’s been thinking about using Pinterest for her podcast but isn’t sure if it’s worth it?

Text her and tell her about this episode. You can literally just like click the little share button and like copy the link and send it right to her. I’m pretty sure that this episode will change her life just like Pinterest changed mine.

Next week, Kylie Chandler and I will be talking about how to grow your email list

As a nice little follow up to my conversation last month with Allie when I talked to her about why podcasters need to be using email marketing. Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next week.