The captivating visual discovery engine that we know as Pinterest was first developed in 2010 and has been driving our imaginations and influencing our plans and creativity ever since.
On this engaging and visually intriguing platform, you can find inspiration for your next idea, a how-to guide for your next project, spark your artistry or simply plan your next purchase. Pinterest always has something fresh and exciting to discover, and endless opportunities for businesses and brands to connect with new audiences!
Using Pinterest for your business offers many benefits, and this is especially true for photography businesses!
This may surprise you, but Pinterest is actually not a social media platform. it’s a visual bookmarking site and a powerful search engine. People don’t use it to connect with their friends or share memes, they use Pinterest to get inspired, plan something and buy things – usually in that order!
In this article, I will cover some helpful and actionable tips when it comes to Pinterest for photographers, and how to harness the intent and interests of Pinterest users to promote your photography business.
Why Use Pinterest for Photographers?
Inspiration and planning aside, you can significantly excel within your photography business and gain more followers simply by sharing your work on your Pinterest account. After all, this platform is an extension of social networking, but not a typical one.
No one on Pinterest talks about what they did with their day, updates their status, or shares poignant posts from the past. Pinterest activity is all about the future; inspiration for future ideas, planning for the future, and eventual purchases.
One of the primary purposes of Pinterest is to plan things. Pinterest users set up planning Boards on their Pinterest accounts, on topics from website design, home decor, planning weddings or events to trying new recipes, or finding destinations for vacations. And a ton of these plans just might include photographers!
Pinterest users will come across shiny, new ideas for their memorable moments and inspirational images for their Boards. As photographers, your images can become a powerful calling card.
About 89% of weekly Pinterest users use Pinterest to shop online and 85% of Pinners say they use Pinterest to plan new projects.
Pinterest Business
Another Pinterest report showed that 55% of their users use their platform specifically to look for products and make purchasing decisions. It is used four times more than the rest of the social media platforms.
Included in those purchasing decisions are referrals and vendor selection. That alone should be enough to compel you to create a Pinterest business account if you don’t already have one, and flaunt your photography skills!
Pinterest Referral Traffic: How Pinterest Users Search
To say Pinterest is a huge driver of referral traffic is an understatement. And its magical capabilities are also still under-used by professionals.
In terms of global active users, Pinterest ranks as the 14th largest platform in the world. It has 459 million monthly active users and it gained 100 million of those monthly active users in 2020 alone.
Pinterest Fourth Quarter Earnings Report
Moreover, about 2 billion searches happen on Pinterest monthly, 97% of them are unbranded. This implies that users are not looking for specific brands and are open to new suggestions – and new businesses to interact with!
72% of Pinners had confessed that they had purchased items even when they were not planning to due to the enticing Pinterest recommendation.
You might be wondering, why all these search stats? We want to illustrate why incorporating Pinterest into your marketing strategy can boost your photography business. All you need? Your fabulous images and a website!
Here are some more useful Pinterest demographics if your mind isn’t made up yet:
The female audience has always outranked the male audience on Pinterest but it might surprise you to learn that at 60% women, the gender divide on Pinterest may be narrowing.
Pinterest’s marketing has identified men as one of the fastest-growing demographics.
Pinterest Business
Notably, 85% of female Pinners use this platform to plan their important life events such as weddings, party planning and world trips compared to just 53% of Facebook users and 44% of Instagram users.
And did you know that People watch close to one billion videos a day on Pinterest?
Pinterest isn’t a platform usually associated with video, but it is another recent significant growth factor that can be tapped into by photographers.
All this data clearly implies that there is a vast remaining market for photographers. And Pinterest drives 33% more referral traffic to websites compared to Facebook, 200% more traffic than Twitter, and 71% more than Snapchat.
The crux of this comparison is that more than 459 million people a month are using Pinterest worldwide, and not leveraging this for your photography business means you’re practically leaving money on the table!
Why Should Photographers use Pinterest as a Social Network?
A lot of time and effort is spent on your photography work and posting it only to Instagram and Facebook and not to Pinterest is a missed opportunity. Sure, they’re both also good social media platforms with excellent traffic, but another approach for a photographer is to use the visual awe of Pinterest to its maximum benefits.
Pinterest is more of a loyal friend to you than the others. When you share to Facebook or Instagram, the average lifespan of a post is fairly short. On Facebook, the life of your post varies between 2.5 and 5 hours and for Instagram, it’s only 48 hours.
However, Pinterest keeps your photography content alive for months, even years!
It’s evergreen, it’s permanency, it’s everything a perfect relationship should be.
Pinterest has been designed for long life and endurance, so Pinterest users will see your content whenever they go online and your hard work will get the reward it deserves.
Pinterest also frees you from the dreaded ‘feed’ that buries so much of our content these days. So if you create interesting and valuable content, use appropriate keywords and upload it with engaging visuals, your post will have a successful shelf-life, regardless of your number of followers.
If you’re still keen on using Pinterest for your photography business, let’s move on to the practical part of how you can efficiently start to use Pinterest for photographers!
How to Use Pinterest for Photographers in 5 Easy Steps
1. Create your Pinterest Business Account
If you are already a Pinterest user the first thing you need to do – if you haven’t already – is switch your personal account to a Pinterest business account.
There are many benefits to doing this, the main one being it will allow you access to Pinterest’s analytics, advertising and allow you to create those valuable Rich Pins.
It’s free and easy to convert your account into a Pinterest Business Account, so the decision is a no-brainer. Just follow these simple steps:
- Log into your Pinterest profile and access the profile menu by clicking on the drop-down arrow in the right top corner.
- Click on the Settings option, then click on Account Settings on the left menu.
- Find the Convert Account option under the Account Changes section and select Convert to Business Account
- Finally, log out and then in again, and you’ll find your Pinterest account has been converted into a business account.
2. Claim your Website to Optimize your Pinterest Profile
Claiming your website on Pinterest is an important step that will make the rest of the optimization process easier.
This step will help you own your website’s domain name, get you access to Pinterest business analytics, and display your business information on your Pinterest profile. Your profile picture and pin title will appear on every pin with a link to your website.
There are two ways to claim your website:
1. Add a meta tag to your website.
2. Upload an HTML file to the root directory of your website.
Follow this guide to claim your website on Pinterest and also read instructions on how to do this with your hosting provider, as each one will have a slightly different way to access the directory of your website.
After claiming your website, go to the settings section and fill in the required profile details. You will be asked to write your business name, a description or bio of what your Pinterest account offers, and your location.
Keywords are important here for Pinterest SEO, so include photography keywords in your Pinterest so that photography enthusiasts can easily find you and your content.
3. Optimize Your Pinterest Account
Pinterest is all about the visual, so it’s the perfect platform to share your photos on and bask in their glow. You can curate your Pinterest account to your liking and you can Pin your photos to Pinterest Boards that you create based on genre, topic, location, event – display them any way you want.
So let’s learn how to optimize your Pinterest business account profile, your Pins, and your Boards.
Pinterest Profile Optimization
The first question to ask yourself here is, who is your ideal audience? Who do you want to attract to your business?
To help your content reach the right audience, Pinterest analyses keywords that you use in your Pinterest account, on your Pin descriptions, and in your Pinterest profile!
So it’s important that your profile emulates who you are and what you’ll be sharing!
Pinterest Profile Picture
Your profile picture on Pinterest should reflect your photography business, so personal or low-quality photos won’t work as well here.
Using your logo or a professional photo of yourself is much better!
If you have a specific aesthetic or editing style in your photographs, it can be helpful to make sure your profile picture matches your style. This will help casual searchers get first impressions of your style!
Pinterest Profile Bio
Your account description or bio is important too – as is your Pinterest account name – because Pinterest will analyze these too. The keywords you use will help inform Pinterest on who to show your Pinterest profile to on the searchers users are interested in.
Which keywords you’d want to be found by? Including keywords in your name such as ‘travel photography’ or ‘wedding photographer’ lets Pinterest know what you specialize in and what content to expect from you.
It also helps users find you when they search photography keywords in the Pinterest search feature.
Optimize your Pinterest Boards
A unique feature of Pinterest is that you can divide your content up into Boards all with different categories that you create.
Followers then choose which Boards that interest them to follow, rather than having to follow them all. In addition, you can further organize your Boards into Pinterest Board sections.
Optimizing your Pinterest Boards is also important, because, like Pinterest Pins, the keywords and Pinterest SEO optimizations you do here will influence the searches your content turns up in!
For travel photographers, this might be categorizing your Pinterest Boards by destination or by season.
For wedding photographers this could mean dividing your Boards into different aspects of the event, such as:
- Ceremony
- Wedding rings
- Gift Ideas for Bride & Groom
- Wedding dress ideas
- Reception themes
- Location weddings
- Helpful Guides for Planning a Wedding
You can also organize your Boards by wedding or party styles, such as Boho or Classic, and create sections for the many types of shots you can take here!
Whatever type of photographer you are, include some Boards on photography tips, camera buying guides or photography tutorials.
For all of these Boards, ensure you include keyword-rich Board descriptions that your audience would search if they were looking for a photographer.
Spend some time setting up and optimizing your Boards to match your photography forte. The easiest way to get some ideas on this is to take a look at other photographers in your niche on Pinterest!
Additionally, if you’re a photographer who loves dogs and gluten-free cooking, make sure you change any of your personal Boards on these topics to secret, or Pinterest -and your followers – will get confused about what you’re Pinning.
4. Creating Pins and Your Pinterest Brand
You should keep in mind that Pinterest-friendly images are vertical – possibly the only drawback to Pinterest for photographers – and it’s this format that proves to be the most successful.
Therefore, vertical photos are more likely to be seen by Pinners and saved as Pins or repinned. Most photographers favour the landscape shot and although this format is allowed on Pinterest, it will be cropped and your Pins won’t get fed to as many users, as if they were vertical 2:3 shots.
You might also want to promote links to blog posts, contests, freebies, or photography preset bundles you have created, so you’ll have more success if you follow the correct vertical format when you’re creating Pins.
The Pinterest Pin official dimensions are 1000 x 1500px, vertical Pins with an aspect ratio of 2:3. These dimensions are recommended by the platform to guarantee optimal Pin image quality.
There are many great options to create free graphics to use as Pins. Many photographers use Photoshop to create templates, but Tailwind Create allows you to create hundreds of Pins personalized to your brand and industry with just one click. You’ll save a ton of time while creating beautiful Pins for Pinterest!
Tailwind Create allows you to create a series of photography Pin templates using your brand fonts and color palettes, so you can quickly create a variety of fresh Pin designs while keeping consistency and visual likeness in your Pinterest feed.
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This means your Pinterest audience will easily recognize your content in their Pinterest feeds!
5. What and How to Pin and Repinning your Content
This is the most engaging part of the entire setup. The essence of Pinterest thrives on Pinning and repinning content. You now need to Pin your new, shiny, keyword-rich Pins to your relevant, highly-optimized Pinterest Boards.
Remember to add those appropriate keywords in the Board description so they will appear in Pinterest’s innovative feed.
Create a few different Pin variations all linked to the same portfolio or blog post. Simply change the wording in the title or change the image or colors and you’ve got yourself multiple, fresh Pins that will drive traffic to that one link.
Creating fresh Pin variations to promote your portfolio, website or blog post is easier than ever with Tailwind Create!
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Finally, focus on pinning your own Pins as a priority, but also take time to repin other peoples Pins. Make sure you’re always repinning them to a highly relevant Board. You can find relevant Pins to repin to your Boards with Tailwind Communities – just find a photography Community that speaks to you!
The key to getting engagement on your Pinterest content is to Pin new, fresh Pins regularly. Pinterest examines your Pins for context to learn and understand what your Pin is about, so make it as clear as possible when you create them!
We hope all the advice and tips in this guide have been helpful and we hope after reading this, you’ll see Pinterest for the huge potential it offers your photography business.
Put some strategies in place and invest some time optimizing your Pinterest account and watch your photography business grow!
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