Pinterest is incredibly unique among social platforms in that it is entirely image-driven - which makes it an absolute goldmine for photographers. Essentially, Pinterest functions like a search engine that has the potential to drive a high level of traffic to your website. Learning to optimize your Pinterest marketing will funnel potential clients straight to your booking page!

The question then becomes: how do you make your business stand out on a platform which is home to 240 billion different images? We’ve put together a Pinterest marketing strategy that is specifically designed to help grow your photography business by driving browsing potential clients straight to your website. Let’s dive in:

Make Sure You Have a Pinterest Business Account

First things first: make sure that you have a Pinterest business account. There are plenty of differences between a personal account vs a business account for Pinterest marketing, including:

• Rich Pins -  Rich Pins are important because they enrich the user experience and the content of your Pins. Once Rich Pins have been enabled for your website, Pins that have been pinned from your site (which are now Rich Pins) will automatically be populated with website data to provide pinners with more details. Ultimately, this will help increase engagement with your content.
• Promoted Pins - This is Pinterest's ad feature, which enables you to pay for a pin to be promoted to a larger audience. This is only available for business accounts, and when used strategically, it is a powerful tool for gaining exposure.
• Pinterest Analytics Dashboard- A Pinterest business account gives you access to the Pinterest analytics dashboard. This is a must-have feature if you’re serious about building a Pinterest marketing strategy because it allows you to track key metrics: which pins are performing the best, what keywords you are ranking for, and what kind of boards your Pins are being pinned to. 

Define Your Target Audience 

Who do you want to click on your Pins and be directed to your website? This is absolutely key to developing your own Pinterest marketing strategy. You can’t define your business goals without this crucial information, and you certainly can’t create a marketing plan if you don’t understand what your audience is looking for. 

As a photographer, your target audience should be your dream client. Who are you hoping to attract to book your services? Is it a mom looking for a beautiful family photo session, a restaurant hoping to shoot the food photography for their new website, or an adventurous couple who want to document their elopement? 

Definite your target audience: Age, income, geographic area, and style. Knowing your target audience becomes even more important when you move into the next stage of your Pinterest marketing strategy: finding keywords to optimize your SEO.

Ensure Your Pinterest Account Is SEO-Friendly 

What is SEO? It simply stands for ‘Search Engine Optimization’. Remember - Pinterest is more than just a source of inspiration. It is actually a search engine, with a unique algorithm and ranking system that controls what Pins are shown and promoted. You could have the best Pins in the world, but if the algorithm can’t ‘read’ them, they won’t be shown to the right people. In order for Pinterest to consider your Pins and account in search results, there are several SEO best practices that you can implement to increase your exposure. 

One of the most important ways to implement SEO best practices in your Pinterest marketing strategy is through keywords. Once you have your ideal client in mind, begin to brainstorm the keywords they might be using to search on Pinterest. ‘Fall pumpkin patch photoshoot’ or ‘Boho outdoor wedding’ are examples of potential keywords and phrases that your clients could be using. Make a list of as many relevant keywords as possible.

Take a look at your profile, and ensure that you are using keywords in the following places:

• Your Profile Name
• Your Profile Bio
• Board Titles 
• Board Descriptions 
• Pin Titles
• Pin Descriptions

You will have some broad, ‘umbrella’ keywords that you will use as a cornerstone of your Pinterest marketing plan, and you’ll use these in your profile name and bio as well as your Pin descriptions. But make sure that some of the more niche and specific keywords are also being used on your profile - use these to name specific Pinterest boards and to describe your Pins. 

Lean into Pinterest’s resources, such as their Categories feature and Pinterest Trends, to find relevant keywords and topics that suit you as a photographer. Both of these resources should help you find ‘subcategories’ within the industry - and know what clients are looking for! These could be anything from a unique party theme to a particular style of wedding dress - keep an open mind.

Pin Every Day

If you want to grow your Pinterest marketing momentum, you need to pin consistently. We recommend that you pin as many as 15 to 25 Pins per day. As part of your Pinterest marketing strategy, you might consider a publishing and scheduling tool, such as Tailwind, to help you set a sustainable pace based on your available content. 

Of course, maintaining a constant pin rhythm to this scale requires that you have enough content to pin! One pro tip to maximize your content’s reach is to pin every piece of content to 5 different Pinterest boards (but no more than 10). You can see how having multiple boards is a key part of any thorough Pinterest marketing strategy. We recommend that you have an array of broad topic boards such as ‘wedding dresses’ or ‘horse riding’. Having broad boards will make it easier for you to pin the same Pin to multiple boards.

Use Pinterest Analytics to Gauge Your Success

As a business owner, you can’t afford to avoid measuring the success of your Pinterest marketing strategy. The best way to hone in on a strategy that works for your brand and for your client base is by monitoring your analytics month-to-month and monitoring what’s working. 

When you dive into your Pinterest Analytics, you want to be sure that you are focusing on the right metrics. Rather than worrying about monthly views - the key metric you need to be focusing on is the amount of traffic that is being driven to your website. Take note of what images or products drive the most traffic to your website, and aim to focus more attention on your top performers. 

You can then use this information to start creating Fresh Pins using new images that you haven’t yet used on Pinterest. You might want to consider making graphics (with a text overlay) out of your top-performing images to link back to blog or portfolio content.

Following these easy steps will help you build a Pinterest marketing strategy for your photography business like a pro. You’ll see a clear increase in website hits, which in turn will lead to some new client relationships!

Narrative Makes Pinterest Marketing Easy

Using Narrative will boost your Pinterest marketing strategy because Narrative makes it so easy to link individual photos on your website to Pinterest. While other photo formatting plug-ins and platforms will oftentimes distort or alter your images when you try to format them in eye-catching ways, Narrative allows you to create a beautiful collage of your portfolio while not joining multiple images into one image. This is a game-changer because this allows you to pin every individual photograph as a Pin on Pinterest!

This makes it incredibly simple to generate content! One single post on your website will allow you to create multiple Pins, which increases your credibility in the eyes of the Pinterest algorithm. It will begin to show your content more widely, which leads to more click-throughs! 

Don’t Wait to Start Pinterest Marketing!

Whether you are kicking off your initial Pinterest marketing strategy or re-assessing how to move forward, we’re excited to watch your Pinterest presence grow, and your business boom! Set yourself realistic goals, and be sure to celebrate your wins along the way.

For more information about how to win at Pinterest marketing, head on over to Second Fiddle! We’d love to help you take your wedding photography business to the next level by harnessing the power of Pinterest.