An Honest Review of Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies Course (The Manual Pinning Method)

Disclaimer: I only recommend products that I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no additional cost to you.

Table Of Contents

Top bloggers say that you should be spending 20% of your time writing content and 80% of your time promoting that content.

They also say that in order to make money, you need to be willing to spend money.

I don’t have any issues coming up with topics to write about. Oftentimes, it’s just a matter of actually having the ability to stop what I’m doing and sit down for an hour or two.

Where I really struggle is the promotion of my content.

Starting From Ground Zero

I do not have a background in marketing or any social media profiles that already had a massive following.

I actually had to delete all my social media profiles a few years ago because I was hacked. In the process I lost contact with a lot of close friends!

Why Pinterest?

Prior to starting my blog, I did not have a Pinterest account.

However, after watching a few Youtube videos and doing some research, I knew that I had to start learning how the platform works.

See, Pinterest users go onto the platform expecting to be redirected elsewhere. In this case, we want the landing page to be our blog. For bloggers like myself, this is what is called a “click through”.

Other the other hand, social networks like Facebook and Instagram hardly ever have you actually leaving. It’s designed for you to keep scrolling through the social media platform.

Purchasing Pinterest Courses

I have no problem purchasing a course, but it was really hard to determine exactly what course to take.

It seems like everyone is trying to sell you products that guarantee tons of blog traffic. Which is strange, because everyone has different strategies.

They can’t all work right? Or maybe they can?

Either way, I knew I didn’t want to spend extra time learning how to get Pinterest traffic when someone else has already figured it out. I’m all about maximum efficiency and not reinventing wheels.

Why I Chose Pinteresting Strategies

I wanted a course that had the following three components:

Low cost-Since I am a new blogger, I haven’t profited off my blog yet. I didn’t want to invest too much up front.
Friendly to beginner bloggers-I was (and still am) very new to Pinterest
Manual pinning strategy- I didn’t exactly know what this was until I started the course. But I don’t have Tailwind or pay for any Pinterest scheduler, and I don’t want to.

This course always comes out as the best Pinterest course that can aid in helping improve Pinterest strategies.

At the time I purchased Pinteresting Strategies, the course cost $57.

I didn’t want to spend too much money, and I felt comfortable with $57. To be honest, I don’t think the course is more valuable than that.

If I’m not mistaken, I believe there are plans to increase the cost of the course. If this is the case, I’d recommend spending that money on her subscription-more on this later in the post.

Who Is Carly Campbell?

Carly Campbell is a mommy blogger who runs the blog Mommy On Purpose. On there, she goes over topics related to parenting, personal finance, and working from home.

Carly’s specialty is all things related to Pinterest, and her Pinteresting Strategies course came highly recommended to me!

Course Breakdown

The course is broken down into chapters which will have a mix of videos Carly has recorded and reading material.

Welcome

In this chapter, Carly introduces herself, her blogging journey and talks about why Pinterest is worth the work. We also get to look at her income report.

First Things First

Before going any further, you need to have a few basic things going-a blog with a sufficient amount of posts, pictures, a mobile-friendly website, Google Analytics set up and Pinterest Analytics set up.

Getting Started: How Pinterest Works + Profile Set Up

Here we go over the basics of Pinterest and setting up your Pinterest profile. This is super important because a Pinterest business account and using Pinterest for personal use are two different things.

Pinterest Is About People

This chapter of Carly’s course goes into what makes a good pin, whether or not your niche is something people are looking for on Pinterest, and how the Pinterest algorithm works with your pin.

Pinterest Is About SEO, Too

Here Carly talks about keyword research and SEO strategy for text on your pins and pin descriptions.

Get Pinning

This chapter is the bulk of the course, where Carly talks about strategies for brand new accounts (like mine was) and established accounts. We go into what makes a rich pin, and what makes a pin not so great.

Final Important Things and FAQs

Here Carly discusses specific topics she gets asked about Pinterest, such as whether or not Pinterest followers matter, group boards, video and story pins.

Bonus Content

As a bonus treat you get free templates to use in Canva and PicMonkey. You also get a video that she recorded for her Pinteresting Mastermind Facebook group.

Carly also updates the course as needed. And with Pinterest constantly changing its algorithm, I can imagine this is no easy task to keep up with.

Key Takeaways

There are some really important lessons I learned from this course that I did not know previously or would have figured out on my own.

User Intent

You need to be thinking about what someone would actually be searching for and entice them with your headline.

Carly does a really good job giving examples of what would prompt someone to click on your pin and then actually click to your site.

I was making rich pins, but they weren’t eye-catching or interesting at all. If I didn’t make them, I probably wouldn’t have clicked on them.

Strong Boards

If you’re completely new to Pinterest, boards are where your pins will “live”.

So for example, if you write an article about the best Christmas presents for your mother in law, you may then decide to make a corresponding pin. You’ll link that post to the pin, and save it in your “Christmas wish list” board.

But here’s the thing-you don’t want a stagnant board. You can’t just pin all your pins to your boards and call it a day. You need to establish your board.

Keyword Research

I knew that Pinterest was a powerful search engine, but for some reason it didn’t click that I needed to treat it similar to Google.

Your pins and boards need to be saturated with keywords so that Pinterest can pick up on what your pin is all about and categorize it in the appropriate area.

Things I Liked About The Pinteresting Strategies Course

The format of the course was very easy to follow and go through.

I also liked Carly’s personality and really resonated with her. She does blogging and Pinterest, but that isn’t her entire life. She’s just doing everything in the best way that she knows how.

She seemed very relatable, and it made the actual learning interesting.

And because she’s been doing this for a long time, she has a lot of credibility. I would definitely consider her a Pinterest expert.

In her videos, she critiques some live pins, which I thought was helpful to see in real time. It helped me understand exactly why a pin might “go viral” or why a pin might flop.

Things I Disliked About Pinteresting Strategies

I really didn’t like the amount of typos I saw when I was going through the course material.

I understand one or two typos here and there, but there were multiple typos on every page.

When I emailed Carly’s assistant about this, she said that typos were a way for Carly to show a more authentic side of her. Here is the screenshot:

Personally, I think typos are unprofessional.

Along those same lines was the video content within the chapters. In these recorded videos, Carly would start talking about something, and then jump to something else, and then get back to the topic.

It felt very erratic and it was difficult to follow at times.

Another issue I had was that I don’t think the course goes into pin design enough, or as much as I’d like it to. I know what makes a bad pin, but I still don’t necessarily know how to make an eye-catching one.

But then again, the course isn’t called “Pinteresting Pin Design Strategies”.

Finally, I really disliked how the free templates in the “bonus” category were templates she was already giving out as a freebie.

I think if someone were purchasing your course, you could take the time to throw in templates that aren’t already available for everyone.

I would highly recommend Pinteresting Strategies to someone who is just starting out on Pinterest and has NEVER interacted with the platform before.

Carly does a really great job covering all the basics of Pinterest in a condense and easy to understand manner.

But, if you are someone who has an established Pinterest account and knows the platform and how to use it, I would probably invest in a different course.

Carly does offer a monthly paid subscription called “Pinteresting Mastermind” where she sends you Canva and PicMonkey templates. If you’re looking to hone in on your Pinterest strategy, that would be your better avenue.

Conclusion

That’s it! I hope you enjoyed my honest Pinteresting Strategies review.

I still have a long way to go and am working actively on my Pinterest game, but with Carly’s course I am very hopeful that I am on the right track!

If you are interested in purchasing Carly’s course, you can do so here!

Now I’d Like To Hear From You!

Have you taken a blogging course yet?

Which one would you recommend?

Let me know by leaving me a comment down below!