If you own your own business, I bet it’s fair to say you’re probably underutilizing Pinterest. “Pinterest weddings” are the butt of every joke in the wedding industry, but more and more, brides-to-be are browsing the site to find inspiration, book venues and hire vendors.

Pinterest can be an extremely valuable tool for photographers to market themselves. So in early 2018, I set out to see if I could grow my following on Pinterest to get more traffic to my website and ultimately book more weddings.

For those who aren’t familiar with Pinterest, if differs from other social platforms.

• On Instagram, your posts go stale after about 24 hours. On Pinterest, the longer your images live on the site, the more traffic it will receive over time.

• According to the data, our clients are already using Pinterest to plan their wedding or future events. Sprout Social found that 93% of Active Pinners Said They Use Pinterest to Plan for Purchases. Hello future clients!

• Pinterest is a visual search platform. Let your images be the ones that turn Pinterest users into potential clients.

While I’m certainly no expert, my audience on Pinterest grew significantly this year. When I first started back in March, I averaged 1,000 viewers per month. Now, with a little effort and strategy, I average 200,000+ viewers per month. That’s a huge jump! And it’s not just a number. I’ve also started receiving inquiries from people who discovered my work through Pinterest, and that’s the whole point!

Here are my thoughts on how to use Pinterest as a wedding photographer:

+Post consistently. On Pinterest, consistency is key, and posting consistently matters more than your follower count. Posting current images, being aware of trends, and solving people’s problems will give you the most bang for your buck. 

+Automate. Posting manually every day can be a time-suck. Instead, I use Tailwind to help me schedule posts in advance. Get a free month but clicking the link! Work smarter, not harder!

+Use keywords. Describe your image using keywords so that people searching will pull up your images, and don’t be tempted to leave a caption blank. I also add keywords specific to what I do, like “New Orleans wedding photographer” and “Kristen Soileau wedding photographer.”

+Vertical images all the way. They take up more real estate on the page and attract more viewers.

+Use links. Make sure your images always link back to your website, a blog post or a product you’re showcasing. Viewers can click through your images and find their way to your site and services that way.

If you’re a photographer or associated with the wedding industry in any way, it’s worth investing some time into Pinterest and other image-driven social media platforms. That’s where we can excel!

Did I convince you to give Pinterest a try?

Wanna see how I organize, edit, and upload a session in under an hour? Check this post out.