Pinterest Basics

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.
jen vazquez photography pinterest profile image

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.  
jen vazquez photography pinterest profile image

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 name jen vazquez photography pinterest

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).
jen vazquez photography Pinterest Page february 2020

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!

3 Steps to update your Pinterest Profile

Do you want to harness your Pinterest site to drive traffic to your website and thus gain more client, but you don’t know where to start? I’m here to help! Here are three easy steps to update your Pinterest profile.

ONE – Personal vs. Business:  This is obvious – if you are in business to make money, then make sure that you have a business Pinterest account.  If you don’t – change it now. Additionally, make sure to make all personal boards private or you can delete them and start again with a personal board.  TIP: Some people consider keeping their personal board and then creating a new business board. You can do that! However, I prefer to keep whatever followers and I have any pins if they are business. Need Help on How to Change Personal to Business or Create Business: Just go here https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/get-a-business-profile

TWO – Username and Profile Picture:  This should be your business name and typically whatever your social media sites use.  Sometimes you can’t use a long name, like with mine I had to choose jenvazquezphoto because jenvazquezphotography was too long.  Heads Up: My Women Who Execute Pinterest site is brand new and thus, it’s not where my wedding photography one is. I always have a client or two say, wow it’s sparse haha!  I’m working way harder on helping others than helping myself right now. Bottom Line:  You want to choose exactly what you have for other social media sites, unless it’s too long then you shorten it.  

You’re Profile Picture This should never be your logo or a picture that presents your business, it absolutely should be a picture of you.  You are the face of the company and you should use a picture of you. The picture should have great lighting (think photographing outside or in front of a window or lighting system and photographed on a blank background (so nothing detracts from your face).  It should also be a headshot or an image from the shoulders up. You want to be able to see your face upfront since it’s such a tiny photo anyway.

THREE – Profile Name and Description:  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 Photography | Wedding Photographer.

For your description, 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 in 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 or bread recipes for people who have no time).

BONUS- 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 analytics) or Recent Activity which is Pins people saved from your claimed website and linked accounts. Why? Because if people are pinning them, then they found them compelling and chose to pin them (i.e. save them) to one of their boards. This is what you want to show to those visiting your profile.

Pinterest Cover Image Options by Women Who Execute

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