Today I’ll be covering some tips on how to use Pinterest as a wedding vendor. If you’re in the wedding industry, Pinterest needs to be where you focus your energy and marketing efforts.
Some Stats to encourage you:
40 MILLION people use Pinterest to plan their wedding every year (stats from Sproutsocial).
Just type in Weddings at the top of Pinterest and you’ll see there are 32.1m followers!!.
Of all social platforms, Pinterest lasts the longest, therefore you get the biggest bang for your buck!
Now that you know that Pinterest is worth your time, here are some tips to ensure that the algorithm loves you and serves you up to as many ideal clients as possible.
Use a Business Profile
This seems obvious, but so many wedding professionals don’t even think about this. You are in business, therefore, you should be a business on Pinterest. You will have the added benefit of being able to get fantastic analytics for free.
It also enables you to confirm your domain, which will lead potential brides back to your website.
Make sure that one of your boards is named your business. People will sometimes search for a business and having a board will make you more findable. Plus it is one board that should have ONLY your pins on it, not other people’s pins.
Use keywords in naming your images
Every single image should have three key naming areas:
Alt Text
Title
Description
This gives you the ability to use multiple keywords in the three areas. It will be a rich pin and also confirm to Pinterest’s algorithm that your blog is about what you say it’s about.:
Create Content for your Ideal Bride
A lot of wedding vendors find it hard to write blogs. Here are three ideas. 1. Blog about every single wedding/engagement. 2. Blog about questions you get asked most often from brides. A side benefit is that you can refer brides to that post. 3. Blog about yourself. Let brides get to know you, be authentic.
Include a Pin on every blog (I typically put mine at the end of the blog post).
Make Sure They Can Contact You
Whichever blog post you have linked up to the pin, make it easy for them to contact you. Have multiple ways. Don’t just have a form, also include an email address and all of the social media sites you are on. Often times, brides to be want to see you on multiple platforms.
Have Multiple Blogs on the Page You Send Them To
It takes a lot for someone to click and leave Pinterest. So ensure that you have not only GREAT content but also three other blog posts you have so they feel are encouraged to stay on your site. The longer they are on your site, the better chance they will contact you.
Keep it Simple, Be Consistent
Being consistent is the key to having the algorithm serve up your content. If you don’t blog, start — even if it’s a few times a month. (FYI that’s how most of my brides find me). Then create “fresh pins” for that one post. Ideally, you want to post a minimum of 5 times a day.
In this video, I discuss the importance of virtual coffee dates while we are on the state’s “stay at home” order.
This is a great way to “get out” without going anywhere. In an effort to keep working and work harder than ever to get brides booked, you need to pull out all the stops. Continue with social media marketing, Pinterest, and blogs. But include networking with other wedding professionals.
This will help you to know what’s going on in the industry in the area you live and also create friendships that could also lead to jobs.
I hope this message finds you and your family doing well. If like me, you’re craving a little more human interaction and if you’re using these unusual times to shore up your marketing for the future, I have a special invitation for you.
My friends over at Tailwind are hosting a Pinterest GetTOGETHER twice a week, starting Thursday, March 26th and continuing on Tuesdays and Thursdays for as long as we need them.
Each Thursday at 2:00pm PST, we’ll Get TOGETHER and cover a quick intro to Pinterest marketing, using Tailwind and some simple tips for success. Then, we’ll spend 30 minutes Pinning, creating, and enjoying each other’s company. Give and get feedback, ask questions, share your work! Questions are welcome!
On Tuesdays starting March 31st at 10:00am PST, we’ll have a full hour of Pinning, creating, giving and receiving feedback, and sharing our work. Questions are welcome!
And, because an hour passes so quickly, there’s a pop-up Facebook group for feedback, fun, and inspiration any time!
Here’s how to get in on it:
If you haven’t already, set up a Pinterest account (video 3 minutes)
In this podcast, we’ll be discussing Virtual Coffee Dates during the Coronavirus.
Here is a link to your free download of my google sheets doc to keep track of those that you have virtual coffee dates with and some questions to ask. https://wedphotographycoach/shop/.
Wed Photography Coach: Helping wedding photographers to identify, attract, and book their ideal brides! If you struggle with social media, if you hate blogging but know you need to do it, if you are looking for a system that’s easy to follow to book your ideal brides, then this channel is for you!
Today we are discussing all Pinterest, why you should use Pinterest as a wedding photographer, and the basic settings.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas like recipes, home and style inspiration, and more.
People say it’s a social media site, but it’s a REALLY GOOD search engine and highly used by brides.
Pins
Pins are ideas that people on Pinterest create, find, and save from around the web. If you click through the Pin, you can visit the website to learn how to make it or where to buy it. As you discover Pins you love, click the red Save button to save them to your boards.
Boards
Collections of Pins in an organized and specific way.
Why use Pinterest as a Wedding Photographer
Why should you use Pinterest as a wedding photographer?
Traffic — the purchase of using Pinterest is to drive traffice to your website.
Free Marketing — You don’t have to pay for Pinterest at all. So, it’s a free marketing platform that returns more visitors than Instagram or Facebook.
This leads to booking brides — anytime you have more visitors to your website, you have more opportunities to book a client.
Pinterest is the highest referrer to my website. More than IG and more that FB. Many photographers I start working with say that IG is the biggest referrer to their website. After we work together for a couple months on Pinterest, Pinterest is always higher.
Bottom line
If you want MORE traffic, start spending some time on Pinterest. Writing blog posts is the easiest way to create content for Pinterest AND as a wedding photographer, this is the best way to get your information out to google and future brides. I had a bride book me from North Carolina and Los Angeles due to a blog post.
TIP: If you create Youtube videos for your wedding photography business for brides, you can pin Youtube’s also!
Step by Step setting up Pinterest
Business not Personal: The first thing you need to do is to switch your personal account to a business account. The main reason is Pinterest analytics. There are zero reasons not to make it business – It’s free. Go do it now.
If you turn your personal Pinterest to Business
Make sure to make all personal boards private. Private boards don’t have analytics and aren’t see on your Pinterest Board. If you have boards that have a lot of followers or pins, but it’s not for your business, archive that board. Then you retain the analytics and can access it, but no one can see it.
Need Help on How to Change Personal to Business or Create Business: Just go here
Profile
Username:
This should be your business name and typically whatever your social media sites use.
You have 3-30 spaces for your name. Sometimes you can’t use a long name, so you can shorten a part of it.
Bottom Line: You want to choose exactly what you have for other social media sites, unless it’s too long then you shorten it.
Profile Picture:
This should never be your logo or worse yet a selfie.
This is your chance to immediately let people know who you are and being a photographer it should be good. You are the face of the company.
Use a shoulder up photo as it’s a super tiny circle image.
Consider an image of you and your camera so it’s very quickly apparent what you do.
Profile Name.
What I’ve seen from research and trial and error myself, is that you want to use this type of look. COMPANY NAME | TOPIC.
Here’s an example of mine: Jen Vazquez | Destination Wedding Photographer
Your profile name and description are also very important SEO. When Pinterest analyzes the pins you share, it doesn’t only look at the pin’s description. It also looks at the name and description of the board it was pinned to and the profile it was shared by. Your profile name and description should tell Pinterest exactly who you are and what you do and bonus points for who you serve (i.e. what kind of brides)
Profile Description (Bio):
You only have 160 characters to describe what your business and the boards are about. Make sure you are very descriptive because each word helps to be found on searches on Pinterest and other search engines. It’s SEO for your Pinterest boards.
Think of questions like, what do you do, who do you do it for, what you help with, what you provide, and anything that will help to drive traffic (think FREE tips to planning your wedding).
Profile Cover:
Your profile cover is auto-populated but you can choose what you want to populate.
You can choose what you want, but I always recommend to choose either the most popular board (you’ll find that in Pinterest analytics) or Recent Activity which is Pins people saved from your claimed website and linked accounts or what I use (jen vazquez photography california wedding photographer)
Sign up for my Private Facebook Group to see the video live!
Over the next few weeks, we’ll go over boards, how to create pins, how to pin from your blog to drive traffic, and how to use Tailwind in my Private Facebook Group – click the button above to join and see the LIVE video!
