How To Use Pinterest As A Photographer
As a photographer, you know that taking photos isn’t all that your business is about. Marketing plays a huge role in growing your business and getting clients. You may have heard about Pinterest before, but are unsure about whether this is a worthwhile marketing channel for your goals.
Let’s explore the reasons why Pinterest is a platform that’s perfect for photography businesses, and how photographers can best utilise it!
Is Pinterest Good For Photography?
Pinterest is often incorrectly characterised as a social media platform. In fact, it acts as a search engine, except it shows images instead of a list of titles as search results. It’s a way to utilise images to promote businesses, making it an ideal platform for photographers.
Is Pinterest Better Than Instagram For Photographers?
There are a few ways that Pinterest stands out compared to Instagram, especially when it comes to photography businesses:
Pinterest pins last way longer than Instagram posts. This translates to ongoing exposure for your content.
People go onto Pinterest to search for inspiration. According to Social Media Today, 40 million people a year use Pinterest to plan their wedding, making Pinterest an ideal platform for wedding photographers, for example.
Pinterest can act like a digital portfolio, showcasing all of your incredible work for potential clients to discover.
How Do I Promote My Photography On Pinterest?
Follow these steps to get started on Pinterest and begin driving more traffic to your business website:
Create A Business Account
The first step is to create a business Pinterest account or to switch your current Pinterest account over to business mode. You have to have one if you’re using the platform for marketing your content, services, or products.
It also comes with perks such as access to Pinterest Business Hub to track your metrics and see what content is actually working. You’ll also be able to use Pinterest Trends and the advertising tool.
Optimise Your Profile
Do this by:
Claiming your website
Claiming your website on Pinterest allows for extra analytics related specifically to your website, which is super powerful if you want to analyse your top-performing pins and learn what content is driving the most traffic to your site. Meaning increased traffic and click throughs!
Find my guide to claiming a Squarespace website on Pinterest here.
Adding a profile photo and cover image
You can take advantage of the cover image space to showcase a landscape version of one of your favourite photographs! While the profile picture should be one of you, perhaps with a camera to highlight the fact that you’re a photographer.
Adding your name and business description
Use these fields to get specific on what sets your photography business apart. This is a space to use keywords (more on this below).
Get Pinterest Tools
You cannot just post your photos to Pinterest – you’ve got to take a few extra steps, including creating pins that are the correct dimensions. Tall pins need to be 1000 x 2100 while standard pins are 1000 x 1500 in ratio.
You can use a design tool, like Canva, to create pin designs with your photos simply.
Find more Pinterest business tools here.
Do Keyword Research
While Pinterest is an image-based platform, your words still matter!
When using Pinterest for business, it is essential that you create pins that your ideal audience will find through the use of keywords.
Using keywords in your board descriptions and pin descriptions will increase your reach on the platform by putting your content in front of more people.
You can use Pinterest Trends and the search bar to do keyword research.
For more ways to find Pinterest keywords, click here.
Create Boards
Pinterest boards are places where you save, collect, and organise your pins.
In the beginning when you’re setting up your business account, you can create around 10 boards.
As you’re growing your account, you can add a new board or two each month, and then reduce it to only when you need a new board.
When it comes to choosing board topics, take inspiration from your website and your keyword research.
For example, if you’re a wedding photographer, some board options for you could be Black And White Bridal Photography, Wedding Photo Ideas, Wedding Photography Poses, and Bridal Portraits.
Once you’ve got your board titles, it’s time to write board descriptions detailing what the boards are about. Use the keywords you found to write full sentences for the description – don’t just keyword stack! It’s essential to focus on the user experience.
Repurpose Content
As a photographer, you’re going to want to pin your images. However, to drive traffic to your website, you’ve got to link your pins to URLs, such as blog posts.
A great addition to your Pinterest business strategy is also content repurposing. You can take your Instagram and TikTok videos and upload them to Pinterest.
Here is my full breakdown on content repurposing for Pinterest.
Monitor Your Analytics
Once you’ve posted your pins, Pinterest will begin to collect metrics on how your content is doing, including reach, impressions, and click through rate.
Go through these analytics to see which pins are performing the best so that you can create similar content.
Due to Pinterest being an image-based search engine, it offers photographers like you the perfect opportunity to get their work in front of people actively searching for inspiration and services relating to their businesses.
Hello, I'm Megan!
An introvert at heart, Pinterest is the perfect platform for me. Simply posting your content using the right marketing strategies gets you an abundance of website traffic? No engagement or ‘showing up’ needed?
Who wouldn’t want to use this powerhouse of a platform …
