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Reading Time: 8 minutesIf you've been following us for a while, you know we are a big fan of using Pinterest, and it's no different for wedding photographers. It's an easy way to get found and far more effective than other social media channels to get bookings and clients.
That's because Pinterest isn't really a social media channel at all; it's a search engine.
This means, once you know what Pinterest is looking for, you can get found on Pinterest with ease by your clients. Whereas on other social media channels you're hoping and waiting that someone in the great wide world will see your hashtag, you can practically control who gets to see your content on Pinterest.
You can read more about unique ways to use Pinterest for wedding photographers, (including unique ways to earn extra income using Pinterest) here.
In this post, I'm going to show you how to get found on Pinterest with my super simple Pinning process. Note – this is the exact process I use with my Pinterest clients! My current clients include an account with monthly views between 750-2million monthly views, so I know what I'm talking about.
Here's my unique pinning process that gets your wedding photography business found!
Before I give you ‘the strategy', what you need to know is that Pinterest, more than anything, values new fresh content.
This is a relatively new approach for Pinterest – it used to be that you could pin anything repeatedly and get traffic, but Pinterest has confirmed in early 2020 it is now prioritising fresh new content.
That means you need to pin new pins on a regular – daily – basis to increase your views and following – to get you in front of your brand new photography clients!
Don't worry – I'll show you how to make that easy in a minute. But first this is the main thing to understand about Pinterest.
Once you know what Pinterest wants – it's easy to give it what it needs so it can give you what you need!
The other thing Pinterest needs is information. Unlike other social media channels where you can post nothing but a few words and an image, Pinterest needs a little more targeted information, so it knows exactly where to put your pins.
While this takes a tiny bit more thinking than posting a photo on other social channels, it's all for your benefit – you tell Pinterest the information it needs to get in front of your clients!
Ok, now here's how to do this. First, you're going to take around 15 -20 minutes to optimise your profile and boards, and then next I'll show you how to create pins daily that Pinterest can understand and get in front of your target client.
While Google makes that super hard to do SEO research to get your blog and website featured, Pinterest makes it soooo easy! Which is why Pinterest for wedding photographers makes it so easy to grow your business.
Ok, ready? We're going to do a little keyword research, and I promise it's super simple.
All you have to do to begin is go to the Pinterest search bar, and type in some basic terms related to wedding photography.
Type in ‘wedding photography' for example, and look at the drop down auto responses that Pinterest gives you. It's literally telling you what people are searching for!
You can get even more specific – try typing in ‘bridal portrait' for example and Pinterest will auto-suggest to you a whole list of keywords related to this, which will be much easier to get found for than the generic ‘wedding photography' suggestions.
So, grab your notepad and pen, and brainstorm a few ideas for words you might like your wedding photography business found for on Pinterest. Think about light, colour, style, areas you specialise in, favourite kinds of venues, for example.
And then take each one of those terms, one at a time, and put them into Pinterest search, and see what keywords Pinterest gives you. Write all of them down, you'll need these later!
So to start with, you're going to want to decide which keywords you want to be found for. So if your client is searching for ‘bridal portraits' and you know you create gorgeous bridal portraits, you want to use this as your keyword. What else do you want to be found for?
Pick 3-4 keywords. These can be the ones Pinterest suggested to you, or they might be the broader ones ‘fine art wedding photographer'. These keywords might include your style, technique, information you share, etc. If you stick to the list of suggestions Pinterest gave you in the previous step, you can't go wrong for this part!
Note – I don't tend to use location as Pinterest isn't yet that specific, although you could use a country, just not as specific as your local area if you want to reach the maximum.
So first, you're going to
Instead of just ‘Rachel' or ‘Happy Days Wedding Photography' you can include keywords in your profile. So it will look like this >
Rachel | Fine Art Wedding Photography | Bridal Portraits | Engagement Photography
or
Leanne | Natural Daylight Wedding Photographer | Organic | Rustic | Intimate Weddings
And you can do the same thing again in your description.
Instead of just ‘ Hi, I'm Rachel, and I'm a wedding photographer in North Carolina' start to think about how you can include your keywords in natural sounding sentences.
For example the above description changes to
I'm a fine art wedding photographer specialising in destination and luxury wedding photography. Specialising in film photography, vineyard weddings, bridal portrait poses.
When you include keywords in your description, you are actively telling Pinterest who should find your pins and your account!
Now, you're going to keyword-optimise each of your Pinterest boards using the same process as the above.
So, take your board called ‘couple portraits' and type that term – couple portraits – into the Pinterest search bar. Note down the automatically suggested results that Pinterest gives to you in the drop-down.
Next, go to your board and go to edit the board description. You're going to put in here some sentences that include all of the suggestions Pinterest gave to you as keyword ideas!
So if Pinterest gave you the drop down suggestions – couple portraits poses, couple portraits lighting, couple portraits bride and groom, couple portraits posing tips –
You want to include all of these in your board description. Don't just list them out, you're still writing for humans to read it, but you could say something like –
Looking for the best couple portraits posing tips? I'm sharing how to get the best couple portraits on your wedding day, with the best couple portraits poses and lighting!
For example.
You're then going to go ahead and do this for all of your boards. Repeat the process for each one until they are fully optimised with keyword relevant to who you are, and what you do. It's worth the little time investment it takes as this transforms your results!
Make sure you also include the keywords that you included in your bio / account description, on each board.
You're going to want to create pins that lead back to your site. So find your recent shoot that you posted, or a blog post, or even a video that you've uploaded to your site. You're going to copy and paste the URL of the page you want your Pinterest viewers to click through to.
I advise sending them to a beautiful, useful blog or video that they can really gain an insight into who you are, and how you work.
Remember people want to be emotionally moved in some way – don't just give them a boring post about ‘this is a wedding I shot at X venue it was a lovely blue sky day and I loved the bride's incredible dress isn't it amazing' kind of frothy boring nonsense that my 6 year old could write.
Give them something that matters.
A post about your own wedding day, or a heartbreaking piece about someone you loved, and and at the end, relate it back to your photography. It doesn't even have to be wedding photography – I got a ton of bookings when I posted a very shadowy version of my wooden table that I'd styled out with some scraps of lace and a handtied bouquet! But that's because my target client was into DIY decor and personality. What does your client want?
Find or create your most useful piece of content, and then copy the URL.
Next, create a pin. Either use the templates already over on Canva (you can tweak the style later) or grab some cheap canva templates from over on creative market. You could always make your own, with Photoshop, sure!
But canva templates are so easy and fast to create on the go – I've created pins standing in a queue waiting at the bank, in car parks, and while waiting for coffee!
I have a really simple process for doing this on a daily basis. I simply log into Canva and find my saved Pinterest template, change the title, wording, replace the image, and download to the images on my phone!
It takes around 5-10 minutes to create an eye-catching image, and there's a lot more I could say on Pin design!
But what's most important, is this next step.
Next, you're going to upload your pin. First, there's a tiny bit more research to do! but it will take seconds on to your phone. This is all you need to do, step by step.
Open the pinterest app, and use the search bar for what you want to be found for for this particular pin. Yes, keyword research again!
So say you wrote a post on ‘how to get beautiful bridal portraits on your wedding day' and you want to help brides gain those beautiful shots (and show them how beautiful your work is in the post, so that they'll book you, right)?
You know what to do by now! 😉 just in case though, you're going to type in ‘bridal portraits' into the search bar, write down those keyword terms and use them in both the title and description of your pin.
One more thing though – make sure those keywords ALSO include the name of the board you are pinning to, AND the keywords in your description!
So your pin ‘My best bridal portrait poses for stunning images on your wedding day'
will be pinned to the board ‘best bridal portrait poses' and ‘bridal portraits' should be featured in your user name.
I promise once you actually do it you'll see exactly what I mean, and how simple it is to do!
Make sure to add your link to the little red button at the bottom of the page where it asks you to. Then select your chosen board for it to be featured on.
Next, you need to repeat the process! within a few days it will become second nature to create a pin using templates, spend a minute or two on keyword research, and post!
This easy, simple process is why it's so great to use Pinterest for wedding photographers. You're most likely so busy with shooting and editing. The last thing you need is another social media channel sucking up your time!
But Pinterest makes it soooo easy.
Of course you can spend more time on the entire process, in order to tweak and test the results you get.
You can research more keywords, and you can create and optimise more boards.
You can get prettier templates, change your colours, and learn what makes people click.
Learning copywriting will help you understand what motivates people to click too, which will help your pins do better.
But the above process is literally all that's needed for you to start getting visitors (and bookings) to your website from Pinterest!
I'll write another post soon on how to increase conversions on your site from Pinterest – eg how to get actual bookings from Pinterest, not just click-throughs to your site.
But this is the easiest and simplest way to start generating visitors right now today, and best of all it's free and can be done on your smartphone, from anywhere!
One final thing you'll want to do –
Track your stats. Upgrade to a business account to ensure that you can see the results of your pin! You'll also be able to see using your analytics, which pins work, which pins people are pinning and sharing, and more.
This will help you make informed decisions about your pinning!
So, that's how to use Pinterest for wedding photographers! Was this useful? Let me know in the comments below!
Want more info on Pinterest for wedding photographers? Don't miss this post! It shows you ten surprising ways to grow your business and earn more, with Pinterest.
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Thank you for this guide. It’s really helpful and will follow your steps. Thanks, Christian