Why You Need to be Using Pinterest as a Marketing Tool | Whitney Beth Photography
 

You guys, something exciting happened to me last week. So exciting in fact that I had to sit down and write this blog post even though I already had planned a different one for today. Since the start of 2020 I had made it a goal to reach 1 million monthly views on Pinterest. I started 2020 with virtually 0. Thursday night I went to bed with my Pinterest board hanging out around 974k. In the morning when I woke up it HAD REACHED 1.2 MILLION MONTHLY VIEWS! I was thrilled and took a screenshot before my numbers could dip again. lol. 

I mention "before it could dip again," because it has. So. Many. Times. Pinterest growth is not unlike any other growth. It doesn't ascend in a straight, linear line, instead it fluctuates and dips and grows and dips and so on. In fact, In October I was rocking it at 984k and then it dropped and dropped and finally leveled out at 100k. All that work, gone. I busted my butt the last few months of 2020 - which if you know a family photographer, you know that's their busy season. But all this work, for what? To have my photos strewn across the internet in inspo boards and "things to try?" While that is cool to think of all the people my work has been in front of, no. Pinterest is one of my top marketing tools.

I had someone reach out to me and ask how I, a family photographer, was using Pinterest when it seemed like the majority were wedding photographers. This question prompted this entire blog post. Pinterest is not only for wedding photographers. If you have a website or a blog or some little space on the internet that wan't to be seen you need to be using Pinterest. 

First off, the most basic explanation of why: More pins on Pinterest equal more hits to your website equals a happy Google, which equals Google thinking you are relevant and rewarding you with a higher Google ranking. If you have a higher Google ranking you are most likely to find new clients, viewers, readers, whatever you are looking for. See how that works?

It's also extra nice that if you have a business Pinterest account, it'll give you your analytics of your pins and you can see how well you're doing and what pins are getting you the most traffic. (See my screenshot below for an example.) When it says "Impressions" that means how many times it has appeared on someone's screen as they were scrolling. 

Impressions are great, and are the gateway drug to being pinned to a board. You can see in the screenshot below it there are three different stats under each image; The number of times it's been seen (Impressions) The number of times it's been saved to a board, and the golden ticket, the number of times a viewer has clicked on it to go to the original webpage - in my case, my blog. 

The best case scenario is someone pinning your picture and going to your website. You get the hit and traffic to your site, and that pin is then pushed out into that pinner's feed where their friends may see it, like it, and pin it. So why is this such a big deal? Because, unlike Instagram, Facebook or whatever else you are surfing, Pinterest is not chronological, and while it does use an algorithm - it also shows you what your friends have pinned. This is huge! If you're like me and try to blog three times a week and then pin everything on that blog think of all the material that gets recycled over and over again that can potentially be bringing clients to your websites and getting you higher up in the Google game. Take the screenshot below for example;

The top picture was from a blog post in April of 2020. Here we are February of 2021 and 23 other people have saved that pin. Same with the next picture - coincidentally also from April of 2020. The last circled pin is from October of 2019 and 22 other people have saved it. That pin is nearly 1 1/2 years old and it is still working for me and bringing traffic to my site. If you keep up with blogging and pinning your are throwing more hooks out and bettering your chance at being seen. 

So while I am not a wedding photographer I still use Pinterest as a vital tool in marketing myself to help my SEO and presence online. Every click over to my site is one hit closer to getting to the first page for, "Best Family Photographers in Utah," or "Best Utah Senior Photographer." All these little steps can and do add up to a big reward if you're willing to put in the time. 

If you want to follow along on Pinterest and see the types of stuff I pin, feel free to click on over and be friends! (Pinterest link)