Top tips for using Pinterest to market your photography brand

Pinterest is one of the most useful social networks out there for photographers. It’s a great place to grow your brand and promote your services to new clients, as well as remaining top of mind for your existing ones. That’s not to say that it’s easy to get it right, however. You may be using Pinterest already and getting few results. If that is the case, or if you have never tried it before, then these top tips will help you get on the right track.

Don’t overly self-promote

This one may seem counterintuitive. You are there to market your photography brand, right? So why wouldn’t you dedicate all of your attention to self-promotion? The reason is that people like to see a wide variety of pins, and aren’t always interested in just your own work. That’s why they follow you or your boards – to see what you are interested in and what inspires your work as well as the work itself.

A good way to get more views and clicks to your pins is to work on a roughly 50:50 ratio. For every pin that leads back to your own work and your website, try to pin something else that is from a different source. It’s great if you pin, like, or comment on existing pins rather than adding new ones. Every time that you do this, the original poster gets a notification. So, the more existing pins you re-pin to your own boards, the more chance there is of someone else checking your boards out.

It’s also worth noting what happens when you look at a pin in the expanded view. You will see a list of all of the boards which have that pin on. This means that if a user views a pin on someone else’s board, there is a chance that they may spot your board as another source and have a look at your pins out of interest.

As you can see, it’s very important to pin existing content onto your boards rather than always self-promoting. This hugely increases the chances of other users stumbling onto your profile.

Orientate your boards towards your clients

When you are pinning, you can choose which board your pins go to. It’s a good idea to set up several different boards even when you are first starting out. Create themes for these boards, and think about what your clients would like to see.

You can create one called “What to wear at a photoshoot” and fill it with examples of great clothing from your own archives as well as examples from other boards. You could make a board themed around summer shoots or gather inspiration for a particular client that you are already planning with. You can also find other ideas from your niche. For example, if you are a wedding photographer, you could create boards about wedding stationary or the perfect wedding details to make a ceremony extra-special. If you are a pet photographer, you might have a board about the perfect pet accessories or treats and toys to make any pet happy. As a fashion photographer, you might pin your favourite looks from each new season, or gather timeless fashion pieces that should be staples of every wardrobe.

When you gather inspiration in this way, two things happen. First, you might come up with some new ideas and thoughts about your own work, which will help you to improve. Second, clients who have interests that align with your brand can find you more easily. When that bride is looking for ideas on her own wedding stationary, she might find you and get excited about booking a wedding photographer who knows everything that there is to know about weddings.

Optimise your pins

Be sure to check your pins before posting them. You need to make sure that they are working as hard as possible for you. You want to have a description which is packed with keywords. An example for our wedding photographer could be to caption a client image with “Wedding photography in Chicago – the fall wedding of a beautiful bride and groom”. This pin would then feature whenever anyone searched for terms like wedding photography Chicago, beautiful bride, fall wedding, wedding Chicago, and so on. Use different keywords with each image so that you don’t get penalised by search engines.

If you are featuring a product via your pin – such as the option to add prints to an order, or the initial booking of a consultation – then be sure to add a currency symbol as well as the price to your description. This will cause a price to appear on the pin itself across the top corner, so it looks all the more professional.

You can also activate your account as a business profile. This helps to show that you are a photography brand rather than just an enthusiast. If you verify your website, you can also create extra-special pins which really stand out in any feed.

Make your website pin-friendly

Finally, it’s always great to get extra exposure. Every time that your images appear on Pinterest, there is a greater chance of them being seen by someone who will become a client. To that end, you should make it easy for viewers to pin images from your website.

This can be done by adding a Pinterest button to any page, as well as having it pop up on images if you prefer. This means that anyone can pin your page with a single click. It’s helpful for you, too – though you can also just install the Pinterest toolbar or Chrome extension to be able to pin from any page on the internet.

Getting your work pinned on Pinterest and seen by others is key for bringing new customers through to your website. Pinterest is a visual social network, and that makes it ideal for photographers who have great work to showcase.