When it comes to wasting time converting your product or service to direct sales, there’s no better place to be than on Pinterest.
Let me repeat. We’re not on here because it’s fun, although it is, we’re pinning and repinning and perusing boards because it converts to new clients and allows us to do what we love – create more memories for more people through our photography.
First, some interesting stats.
- Pinterest skews heavy female, 68.2 / 31.8
- 50% of users have children
- 28.1% have salaries more than $100K per year (money to spend)
- 25-34 is the biggest age range represented
- Users spend an average of 15.8 minutes on Pinterest – this is insanely high. Facebook is only 12.1 and Twitter is 3.3.
Here’s the big one: Referral traffic percentage – 3.6%. Seems low, right? Well that 3.6% is higher than to LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube combined.
Context & Content
Now that you know why you need to be there, here’s how to optimize your boards and pins.
1. Context; Context is huge. To be clear, this is what context means, according to Oxford: Context: the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.
Let’s break down the context of Pinterest.
Setting = the Pinterest “news feed”. This is the first thing a user sees when they log on, where they will see the latest content from all of the boards and users they follow. If you have followers, you have to post often to stay in their feed. You’ll notice, the setting doesn’t have a set pin size, but the most visually appealing pins are the ones that take into account Pinterest’s unlimited vertical option. In other words, you can post an image that has a max of 700 pixels wide, but unlimited height. This is where creativity reigns.
Look at the following examples: The content is designed with Pinterest’s native settings in mind. For the photo with the baseball, it worked best with just two images. For the 49ers pin, it worked best with more images. Pinterest is great because it allows you, the creator, to make the creative choices that best serve your brand.
The content, also known as the subject matter, are the individual pictures you make and the images you design in Photoshop. The context is where you post that content, and how it will be interacted with. Pay attention to what people want on Pinterest and give them more. It’s easy to see what does well, and what doesn’t, based on re-pins and Pinterest’s built in analytics (which aren’t robust, but sufficient).
Another great use of context on Pinterest is pinning content you didn’t create. When you do this, you are creating context about you and your brand.
For example, we have a board called Mobile Living with pins that are about alternative lifestyles like living out of Vans and RVs. While, our photography doesn’t usually involve this topic, it’s something we are interested in. We have plans of spending a year living out of an RV with our daughter in tow, creating and exploring the world. The board helps fuel that dream and shows potential clients/followers the things we are interested in.
Pinning the things you are interested in will allow you to attract people who are drawn to your style and the way you see the world.
Video
Pinterest recently added YouTube support to their platform. This might not affect you as a photographer, but if you’re like us, you create videos from time to time, or work with videographers who document events we were honored to photograph. Sometimes we want to feature those videos. This is an example using context in reverse.
You might assume that since Pinterest natively offers the ability to post a YouTube link as a pin and give the viewer the ability to watch the video right there on Pinterest that you should choose that option. The correct choice, however, is the opposite.
We’ve found that Pinterest is a visual medium that works best with still images. You’re better off creating an image that depicts the content in your video in a visually appealing and interesting way. For example. If you’re video is titled, “5 Shots Every Wedding Photographer Must Have,” you should create an image with examples of those 5 shots and a subtle tagline. Your clicks will increase, people will go to your YouTube and then browse your content over there. It also gives you more control because you can set the URL of the PIN to anywhere – a blog post with the video embedded or the actual video on YouTube or Vimeo. Whatever you do, make sure wherever you link to matches up with the content the viewer expects to see when they click.
