Why Pinterest + YouTube Still Matter in 2025

If you’ve ever wondered, “Is anyone even finding me online?”—this episode is for you.

You’re showing up. You’re posting consistently. You’re doing what’s “right.” But it still feels like no one’s seeing it. I get it—and I’m breaking down why platforms like YouTube and Pinterest (yes, even in 2025) are still game changers for small, local, service-based businesses like yours.

This episode isn’t about adding more to your plate—it’s about doing what works behind the scenes so that when a slow season hits, you know your business is still getting found.

🎯 What you’ll learn:

• Why Pinterest and YouTube are powerful long-game tools (even with low follower counts)
• How they differ from Instagram and Facebook’s “post it and forget it” cycle
• What it means to stack your digital footprint
• How to turn past Reels into evergreen content that gets seen
• A simple quarterly strategy to optimize visibility without burnout

✨ BONUS: I walk you through 3 steps to repurpose your best content and get found on Google—no extra content needed.

💡 Free Resource Mentioned:
👉 Download the Content Clarity Planner to simplify your posting strategy and show up with intention.

📍Let’s Connect:
Marketing IG: @boostyourvisibility
Photography IG: @brendaeckhardt
Website + Coaching: brendaeckhardt.com

🎧 Like what you hear? Follow the show and leave a review—it helps more small business owners find this content.

📥 Grab your free Content Clarity Planner
📸 Connect on Instagram
🌐 Explore free resources + programs
💬 Ready to grow your business with clarity and less stress? Apply to work with me

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Pinterest and YouTube Matter
• 3:40 The Difference Between Platforms
• 9:00 Why Virality Doesn't Matter for Small Business
• 14:00 Optimizing Content for Long-Term Visibility
• 17:40 Simple Action Steps to Implement Today
• 21:20 Breaking Free from Content Chaos

Transcript

Brenda Eckhardt: 0:00

Welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. This episode, it might just be the gut check that you need. Today, we're going to talk about a couple of platforms that don't necessarily have the dopamine hit that others do. And those are Pinterest and YouTube. Oftentimes people wonder, do they even matter? Why would I bother as a small business, local service-based business? And we're going to talk about that and what they actually do in the background. And before we get too far, I want to make sure you know, it doesn't mean that this is something that you have to add to your plate and do every day. It's just something we can optimize and have working in the background for you. If you're new here, I'm Brenda. I help small businesses like yours that are local, service-based, maybe even a main street business or shop or boutique to get found organically online and doing it in a way that you feel true to yourself and your brand. And we work our way through the overwhelm and cut to the clarity and what really matters, what's really important so that you can get your time back and still do what you love most. And that's not doing a lot of this social media marketing stuff. So I'm here to help you make sense of it all and just get clear. I've been a photographer for 20 years and a marketing expert for at least 10 of those years. And if there's one thing I know for sure, It's that strategy beats trends every time. Trends come and go. We see them all the time and it's very easy to get sucked into that vortex. But strategy is the way that we save time. And that is what this episode is going to help us with. So let me paint the picture for you. Does this sound familiar? You've been showing up. You've been doing all the things on Instagram and Facebook. You've maybe even been emailing. And you might even have your footprint on YouTube and Pinterest. But it feels like just one more thing, and you're trying to spin all the plates. But on Instagram and Facebook, you've been sharing behind the scenes. You've been writing really thoughtful captions. Somehow, though, they're not propelling you as fast as you'd like them to be. or you're not getting the foot traffic that you really need to see. You're not crazy. You're just frustrated. And believe me, I've been there too. And I've found a way that helps to avoid that, whether it's quieter times in your business, the off season, or maybe just a slow economic season. These strategies help us to know that we have exhausted all possibilities. We've done everything we can do. And then when those seasons come, we can take care of ourselves and not feel quite as stressed about it. So lately I've been diving deep into YouTube and that doesn't mean posting every day. What it means for me is working on optimizing my titles and captions, optimizing my playlists and using keywords that I know that people local to me that are looking for high school senior photographers are naturally typing in to Google. If you haven't asked your customers how they found you and what they maybe typed, if they said Google, what did they type in, you're missing a lot of critical information. You might think you know, but you might be shocked at what you hear of how people actually word it when they type it in, and that's really important in creating your content. Even your Instagram captions, because Instagram and Facebook are searched by Google now, and those results do show up with photos and videos. Another surprise that you might hear here is people don't read words anymore or look at the photos. They go straight to the short video tab on their phone on Google. It just depends on your market and those questions are so important. And I've had those answers from my clients, which is how I'm going through and optimizing my YouTube and my Pinterest pins. And I'm doing that so that as I get busy with my full crazy season, I don't have to think about that again for four to six months. This is just a quarterly thing that I work on and that I recommend that you spend some time on so that it can do the work in the background. And I'm going to explain to you what it does and why. So this is deep strategy work. And if you've done that, you can pat yourself on the back because this is not... your basic small business marketing, this is smart strategy and it will help you to get ahead of the competition and to stay toward the top of Google. Now, obviously I can't guarantee that, but when Google reshuffles, having these things in place are gonna help you to get found. Google decides to change the algorithm and reshuffle and you're not showing up as between number one and three for the listings or for the photos, people move on. But the great thing about YouTube and Pinterest is they usually go toward the top when Google images from your website or your blog or even your Facebook get pushed down. Pinterest and YouTube usually reach the top. So you're always having content show up. With Facebook and Instagram, those posts are post it and forget it, basically. They don't have evergreen capability. they're one and done. With YouTube and Pinterest, they're evergreen, meaning people search those platforms months down the road and still find your posts. I have pins that are still being repinned today from 15 years ago on Pinterest. And those pins, because there's so much interest in them, show up on Google when people search certain keywords or key phrases for a local photographer in our area. That's the power of YouTube and Pinterest. And again, this isn't like spend weeks at a time doing it or being on there every single day and losing your free time. It's once a quarter or once every six months and spending a good amount of time, maybe a day, just optimizing your pins. optimizing any YouTube posts. And it doesn't have to be long form video. It's so easy to simply post your reels to Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube. You can even connect your Instagram to Pinterest and it's automatic. You never have to think about it. The only time you have to think about Pinterest is when you see the growth and when you want to go in and that once a quarter or once every six months to optimize the wording on those pins more geared toward Pinterest. So that is the difference between the Meta products and more of the YouTube Pinterest products and what they do for you behind the scenes. Now, I've had one-on-one marketing clients tell me, Pinterest and YouTube seem like a waste of time. I know the look a small business owner's face or even a social media manager's face when I mention something like Pinterest or YouTube because they just check out. They're like, I don't have time for that. And believe me, I get it. I'm running two businesses alone with the help of an awesome virtual assistant. but I only have so many hours in the day too. We're stacking our footprint, basically. We're creating our foundation online. If you're only posting on Facebook and Instagram, you are doing the bare minimum of marketing. And our goal is not to just be one and done. Our goal is to create a legacy, to play the long game in business. If you want to be around for more than four years, it's important that you get on these other platforms because Meta products could go away tomorrow for all we know. It's really important to be on all of these platforms. So the other thing to know about Pinterest and YouTube is they don't reward performance like Facebook and Instagram do. Have you noticed that feeling or that frustration that you have on Instagram or Facebook when you're trying to get more views or just see more likes on your posts and it's just not happening? But when you do, it seems like you're rewarded and you see some growth over time once you hit that momentum. Well, Pinterest and YouTube doesn't do that. It's purely based on search and So if it's something that's trending or something that people are searching for in season, it's naturally going to come up if it's optimized. And that's the power. You're not competing with these algorithms and platforms. You're just optimizing your content to show up. So this is where it gets real with my ideal customers when I'm working with them one-on-one, if I were to work with you even just one time doing consulting. Often the thought process is wanting to go viral. And I don't necessarily mean 5 million views, but wanting to have a lot of view counts and likes and growth and new followers on social media. But the reality is for a small local service-based business, This is a polarizing opinion. Virality doesn't matter. It's not going to bring you money in your pocket. Virality is not going to pay for braces on our kids. It's not going to pay the rent. It's not going to pay the bills. What you need is visibility that's consistent in multiple different ways. So let's say this is you. You're a small business owner. Maybe you have a storefront or you have a small business where you make jewelry or candles and it's only you. Or maybe you have a small group of employees and maybe you even have a part-time employee handling your social media. But either way, your marketing feels scattered. It feels like you're always missing something. You're not quite getting things to click. And that is where this information comes in handy for you. These are the missing links, and I'm just handing them to you for free through my YouTube channel or through my podcast. So let me say this again. You don't need to have 100,000 followers or even 10,000 followers to grow your business. You need one person to go online and search plumber in Madison, Wisconsin, or photographer in Des Moines, Iowa, and have your pictures or videos show up. Because again, people are visual now. They're not reading as much we need our photos and videos to show up in search and that's what pinterest and youtube does for us along with of course our website and a blog if that's something that you use so here's what i'm doing right now on my platforms. I have all of these reels stacked up from the past year's high school seniors. I have uploaded them to this YouTube channel as YouTube Shorts. I have them uploaded to Pinterest because my Instagram is connected to Pinterest. I'm going through and optimizing the title and descriptions of the playlists on YouTube. I've created a playlist for each of the biggest searched key phrases. Let's say senior pictures in Madison, Wisconsin that are unique. Now, I just made that up, but let's just say that that's a playlist that I have. I'm putting reels in that YouTube Shorts area in that playlist. I'm doing the same thing for flower shop owners, flower shop marketing. You see where I'm going with this. And that is optimizing for Google, but I'm taking it a step further. Once I have those done, all of the playlists are complete. I have these short form videos there. My reels basically have been repurposed and used on YouTube. I'm creating a page on my website and naming it that main key phrase that's in the playlist. and I'm using a plugin from YouTube and just pulling in that playlist to that page. So it's always good to have outside links well, links going in and out of your website for Google to see that you're actively taking care of your website. It's not just a static website that's been long forgotten. They want to see that you're upkeeping your website and that's a great way to do it. If you create your YouTube playlists, just create a page and put them on that page. And if you need help with that, you can talk to your web provider or ChatGPT will tell you exactly what to do. Now here's what I want to challenge you with gently. Meta is comfortable for us. Facebook and Instagram do feel like home. It's what we're used to. It's what we've always done. Stories feel like our everyday life. Reels can be very fun to make. Our photos are fun to show off and get interaction to show our latest work. But they're one and done. And what we need is to be findable. And the best way to be findable over time is YouTube videos. and Pinterest. They're not one and done. They're evergreen. People can search for you in two years or search for a business like yours in two years or even an idea or inspiration in two years and find you. And that's all it takes is one person here and there to find you and they can become your best customer. So let me leave you with these three action steps that you can do within the next week. You can upload all of your Instagram Reels to your YouTube account. If you don't have one, make one. Again, chat GPT. Any of these AI platforms can help you with optimized results. descriptions, just use your business name as the title of your account and upload all of your reels to YouTube. Do the same thing to Pinterest and then schedule 30 minutes at some point to go through and just change the titles of each one to what you believe or you understand are the most searched key phrases by your customers. and let it ride. If you wanna do descriptions, that's even better, but let's keep it simple and just do the titles. Next, you're gonna pick one resource page or playlist to create for your website. You're just gonna add another page to your website and you're gonna title it with that playlist name and you're gonna import that page to your website so that it looks like it belongs there, but really it's pointing to your YouTube Shorts playlist. Next, you're going to either schedule 30 minutes a week to optimize each of these accounts, or once a quarter, you're gonna spend most of your day one day every four months, doesn't seem like much, or have one of your employees do it if you have employees to go through and change the titles as things get uploaded. Because again, if you connect your Instagram to your Pinterest, it's going to be automatic and you can always backtrack. It doesn't hurt anything to backtrack and change the titles later. It's only going to help. Now I know this episode might have stirred up some overwhelm or maybe even some hope. And that's good either way, because we're not meant to blindly follow trends. We're meant to expand our businesses and be creating businesses that are scalable, that actually grow when we're not working. I love making money in my sleep, and I think you probably do too. And that is what this type of marketing can do for you. So if you're ready to break free from the content chaos and start building something scalable where your business is deeply rooted and not just surface one and done posts, reach out or comment and let me know where you're at, what you could use help with, and let's talk about possibly working together or just shoot me your questions and I'll see how I can help with whatever it is that you're struggling with right now. I have a lot of free resources in this account. If you look in the description, you'll find a few of those. I I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you found this helpful, please like or share this podcast episode and definitely leave me a comment to let me know what your thoughts are. I'd love to hear from you. Let's stop decorating storefronts and let's start scaling our businesses together.