Romantic table with tall candles and a trailing linen runner
What are the top 3 social media channels that you utilize for your business? Take a second to think about it. Where are you putting your marketing time and efforts?

It's hard to keep up with all of the social media channels out there. In fact, no single business can do them ALL well. So it's especially wise for those of us who are small business owners to hone in on 1-3 channels where the bulk of our ideal clients are hanging out. We can't do them all well, but if we pick 1-3 wisely, and truly optimize them, we can see a lot of impact from our efforts.

As I see it, when it comes to weddings, the top 3 social channels where brides are hanging out are:

Pinterest
Instagram
Facebook (And this one is a DISTANT 3rd with most young people being much less active on Facebook.)

That's my take, but I'd love to know what you think in the comments below!

Most photographers have a highly optimized Facebook and Instagram presence, but the one channel that is often overlooked by photographers is Pinterest. And I would argue that Pinterest has THE MOST POTENTIAL to impact our businesses. The reasons for this are:

1 -- It's a wedding planning TOOL
It's the one channel that most brides are utilizing for the express purpose of wedding planning. That's often their goal in going there, whereas their goals in using Instagram and Facebook are more likely to connect socially with others they know.

2 -- It's photo-centric
Pinterest is made for sharing inspiration in photo form. It's ideally suited for content creators and, as photographers, we are constantly creating beautiful and inspirational CONTENT. And what's even better is that our photos are representative of the service we are selling. It's like Pinterest is made to sell what we have to offer.

3 -- It's made for saving, sharing, and exponential growth
Pinterest, unlike Instagram and Facebook, allows our photos that are saved even once to the platform to proliferate exponentially across that platform for years to come through endless sharing. Pins are often repined hundreds and thousands of times endlessly across a wide network of people, most of whom do not even follow our profiles. In contrast, photos shared on Instagram and Facebook are primarily initially seen by our followers and then get buried in our feeds.


At MJP we've been working to optimize our Pinterest presence for about a year now and we've seen tremendous growth as a result. According to my Google Analytics, Pinterest is the 2nd highest source of traffic to my blog after organic search results. Here's a screen shot of JUST the traffic from Pinterest to my blog over the past year.
Google Analytics shows traffic from Pinterest
In addition, I've seen an increase in client inquiries who say they have found me on Pinterest. Pretty awesome!

Because our content is already living on our blogs, optimizing our Pinterest strategy is a fairly low-maintenance endeavor compared with other social channels. I'll be sharing more about how we've developed our strategy in an upcoming post, but one of the best things I did was to learn from a Pinterest expert. One of my brides-turned-friends, Alexandra Evjen, is a talented stylist, blogger, and Pinterest expert. She has close to 1,000,000 followers on Pinterest and nearly everything I’ve learned about using this channel for my business has been gleaned from her.
Influencer and Pinterest guru Alexandra Evjen
Above photo courtesy of Rennai Hoefer

Alex is rocking it on Pinterest! You can follow her here and me here!
popular Pinterest page of  AVE Styles
I recently had the opportunity to interview Alex and ask her 5 burning questions I have (that I’m guessing are shared by a lot of photographers out there):

1. How can I leverage Pinterest for my business?
2. Do brides really find their photographers on Pinterest? Is it worth my time compared to other social media channels (since I can’t do it all)?
3. What type of content should I pin? How much of my own work? Should I pin other photographer’s work? If yes, isn’t that promoting the competition?
4. What time of day should I pin and how much?
5. Where can I find fresh, good content if my home feed is not doing it for me?
Melissa Jill interviews Pinterest expert Alexandra Evjen
Alex has made this interview, along with two others with questions from a designer and blogger's point of view, available for free here. Definitely check them out!

These free videos are SO helpful, but honestly, they're just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning how to utilize Pinterest to drive traffic to your site and generate leads. If you want to learn more and really develop an intentional and lucrative Pinterest strategy, check out Alex’s online Pinterest classes and Facebook group here. I can’t recommend them highly enough! Alex knows her stuff and is such an amazing resource. Like I mentioned, nearly everything I’ve learned to help me generate clients from Pinterest, I learned from her.

Alex’s online Pinterest classes cover four topics:
How to Craft the Perfect Pin
How to Grow Your Pinterest Following
How to Create a Strong Profile for your Business on Pinterest
How to Drive Traffic to your Website on Pinterest

And the amazing thing is that if you purchase one or all of these (you save $64 when you purchase all four!!) you get private access to a Facebook group where you can ask questions and get additional Pinterest-related support. I love this kind of thing because it ensures that you will get a great value for your investment!

Click here to access Alex's online Pinterest courses and start generating leads and growing your business using this powerful tool today!
how to harness the power of Pinterest for your business -- tips from an expert
Learn which social media channel is ideal for photographers, and how YOU can make the most of it!
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