Pinterest’s New Campaign Gets It Right: Why “Live Your Life, Don’t Just Scroll It” Changes Everything

Marketing, Pinterest

Pinterest’s New Campaign Gets It Right: Why “Live Your Life, Don’t Just Scroll It” Changes Everything

This is exactly why Pinterest works for business.

Pinterest just dropped their biggest brand campaign yet, and honestly, I want to slow clap for them.  🙌

The campaign calls out the cost of being constantly online and offers a different path forward. While other online platforms often sell the illusion of living, Pinterest helps you create a life you actually want to live.

That right there? That’s the difference between Pinterest and everything else. And it’s exactly why Pinterest works so well for service providers who are tired of the social media grind.

This Campaign Gets What I’ve Been Teaching for Years

Most platforms are engineered to keep you scrolling through other people’s lives. Pinterest was built around something completely different: the moment a person moves from inspiration to action.

I’ve been saying this for years. Pinterest is not social media. It’s a visual search engine. People don’t go to Pinterest to scroll mindlessly. They go there with intent. They’re planning something. They’re researching something. They’re looking for solutions.

Pinterest reports that 78% of Australian users feel more positive after using the platform, which is 17 percentage points higher than the next closest platform. Additionally, 87% of Pinterest users believe their time on the platform is well spent, compared to 60% on other apps.

Those numbers don’t surprise me at all. When you’re using a platform to plan your life instead of just watching other people’s highlight reels, of course you feel better about the time you spend there.

Why This Matters for Your Marketing

Here’s what Pinterest’s new positioning means for your business: you’re marketing to people who are actively looking for solutions, not just passively scrolling.

Pinterest aims to inspire action beyond the app. The message is less about competing for screen time and more about redefining its purpose within it.

This is huge for service providers. Your ideal clients aren’t on Pinterest to waste time. They’re there because they have a problem to solve or a goal to achieve. They’re planning a website redesign. They’re researching photographers for their rebrand. They’re looking for marketing strategies that actually work.

Ready to meet your clients while they are

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The Anti-Scroll Platform

Pinterest’s latest campaign looks back at life before social media, saying that the best thing that you can do online is to find a reason to go offline.

I love this so much because it’s exactly what happens when Pinterest works. Someone finds your pin about brand photography, clicks through to your website, reads your blog post, and books a discovery call. They found you online so they could improve their life offline.

That’s not happening on Instagram. That’s not happening on TikTok. Those platforms are designed to keep people scrolling, not to send them somewhere else to take action.

Nearly half of U.S. teens now say they spend too much time on social media, with many saying it has a negative effect on people their age. Pinterest is positioning itself as the solution, not the problem.

What This Campaign Tells Us About Pinterest’s Future

Pinterest launched its most ambitious paid media campaign on May 1, 2026, framing the platform’s fundamental design philosophy as a direct contrast to what its chief marketing officer described as platforms “engineered to keep you scrolling through other people’s lives.”

Pinterest is doubling down on being different. They’re not trying to compete with Instagram or TikTok on their terms. They’re saying, we’re not that. We’re something else entirely.

For businesses, this is incredibly good news. It means Pinterest is going to keep prioritizing search functionality over social features. It means they’re going to keep focusing on helping people find what they’re looking for instead of just keeping them on the platform.

How to Use This in Your Marketing

This campaign reinforces everything I teach about Pinterest strategy:

Lead with solutions, not entertainment. People are on Pinterest to solve problems and plan their lives. Your content should help them do that.

Think like a search engine, not social media. Use keywords. Answer questions. Be helpful and specific.

Make it easy for people to take action. Your pins should send people to your website, not keep them scrolling.

Focus on planning moments. Pinterest helps 600 million people each month to search, save and decide with confidence. With eight in ten Pinterest users arriving to search for at least one meaningful moment each year, the opportunity to show up during active planning is massive.

The Bottom Line

Pinterest’s new campaign isn’t just marketing speak. It’s a fundamental statement about what the platform is and isn’t. It’s validation for every service provider who has chosen to focus on Pinterest over other platforms.

People want to feel good about their lives in 2026, not upend them. What Pinners are searching for instead are approaches that enhance what they already have.

That’s exactly what good service providers do. You help people improve their businesses, their brands, their marketing. You don’t promise to completely transform their lives. You help them get better results from what they’re already doing.

Pinterest gets it. The campaign gets it. And if you’re a service provider who’s been on the fence about Pinterest, this should tell you everything you need to know about where the platform is headed.

It’s not about the scroll. It’s about the search. It’s not about watching other people’s lives. It’s about planning your own.  That’s the platform I want to build my business on. 

You can read Pinterest’s blog here.

Go introduce yourself on Pinterest, Instagram, or TikTok. I’ll be cheering you on from over here.

Why You’re Always Scrambling for Content: The Brand Photography Planning Problem

Brand Photography, Content Creation, Marketing, Podcast

photographer sitting at a desk with a camera Why You're Always Scrambling for Content The Brand Photography Planning Problem pin jvm stock photo

Why You’re Always Scrambling for Content

The Brand Photography Planning Problem

If you have brand photos that you barely use, the problem isn’t the photos.

If you have brand photos that you barely use, the problem isn’t the photos. The problem is that the session wasn’t planned around your marketing system, and that’s a completely fixable problem.

I’m Jen, a brand photographer and marketing strategist for female service providers, and I want to talk about something that comes up constantly with new clients. They’ve had brand photos done before, sometimes more than once, and they’re still scrambling for content every single week because the photos they have don’t actually fit what they need.

That’s not a photography problem. That’s a planning problem, and it starts long before anybody picks up a camera.

What Most People Get Wrong About Brand Photography

Most people approach a brand photography session like this: pick some outfits, choose a location, show up, get pretty pictures, and then go home with a gallery that feels beautiful but somehow never quite fits the content they’re trying to create.

The photos are nice, but they’re not doing any marketing work for you. That’s because the session was planned around aesthetics, not strategy.

What Brand Photography Is Actually For

Brand photography has one job inside your marketing system: to make showing up easier and more consistent. That’s it.

That means your photos should be ready to drop into a Pinterest pin across multiple topics and boards, your email newsletter header every single week, your website hero and service pages, your About page, your social content for the month, launch graphics, freebies, podcast artwork, and more.

One well-planned session should give you content for three to six months across all of those places. If your photos aren’t doing that for you, the session wasn’t planned with your marketing in mind.

I’m not blaming your photographer at all. But I do think it’s really important that you choose to work with a photographer who specializes in brand photography and understands marketing strategy.

Ready To Plan Brand Photos That Actually Work for Your Marketing

Join THE CLUB for Q+A Calls and Education on Pinterest marketing, using photos, marketing workflows, and so much more.  Plus, access to our community of service providers for building sustainable marketing systems.  

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How to Plan a Session Around Your Marketing

This is how I approach every single session, and it starts with a marketing conversation, not an outfit conversation.

Step 1: Map Your Content Needs

What platforms are you active on? What ratio of images do you need? Have you looked for a specific image as a reel cover that you just don’t have? Do you need vertical images for Pinterest and stories? Do you need horizontal images for website banners and email headers?

If 60% of your images end up in a format that doesn’t work for Pinterest, you just cut your Pinterest content potentially in half before the session even starts.

Step 2: Plan Around Your Offers

What are you selling in the next three to six months? What launches do you have? Your photos should support the energy of what you’re selling. Cozy and connected for a community offer, polished for a high-ticket service, bright and energetic for a launch.

Step 3: Build a Shot List by Category

Think in categories, not poses. Here are the five categories every service provider needs:

Working images: You in your element, doing what you actually do. For me, that’s working on my laptop or talking into a microphone.

Lifestyle images: Your personality, your environment, what makes you you. This can include having your kids at the beginning or end of a photo shoot to show you working from home.

Connection images: On a video call, in a coaching session, at a coffee shop with your laptop.

Detail images: Your tools of the trade. If you’re a hairstylist, your brushes or curling irons. If you’re a makeup artist, your makeup or roller bag. Your tools, props, and space tell people what to expect.

Blank space images: Shots with intentional negative space where you can overlay text for Pinterest pins, reel covers, blog graphics, or presentation slides.

A shot list built around those categories gives you a library instead of just a gallery.

Brand Photography and Pinterest: The Connection

Pinterest is a visual search engine, and visuals that stop the scroll get the clicks. An iPhone photo can work on Pinterest, but a well-lit, well-composed brand photo with space for keyword-rich text overlay is going to perform better almost every time.

When you have a full library of custom images from a planned session, you can create pins consistently without ever running out of visuals. No more scrambling for something to post. No more reaching for a random selfie because you need content right now. You have a library, you use it, you repurpose it, and it keeps working while you’re living your life.

How Often Should You Get Brand Photos?

This is a question I get a lot, and the honest answer is less often than you think. If you plan well, you’re going to get great photos that last.

Most of my clients do one to two brand sessions per year on average. I do have clients who are very active on YouTube or Instagram or who blog frequently, and for them, I offer content sessions throughout the year so they get new photos every three months.

One session every six months, planned from a strategic marketing intention, will give you more than enough content to run your marketing without scrambling.

Seasonal sessions also help. Spring content has a different feel from fall, but here’s the key: it only works if the session is planned around your marketing. When you get seasonal content, you can use that seasonal content for years.

More sessions don’t fix a planning problem at all. The planning piece of my brand sessions is the most important part.

What Actually Changes

When clients go through a well-planned brand session, something shifts in how they show up online. Not just because the images are beautiful, although they are, but because they finally have visuals that feel like them and actually fit what they’re creating.

The confidence level people get after a brand session is incredible. They show up on fire online. Sitting down to write a Pinterest pin or a post gets faster and easier. Choosing an image for the email header takes 30 seconds instead of 20 minutes of scrolling through a gallery that doesn’t quite work.

The visual problem gets solved, and when that problem is solved, the whole marketing workflow gets way lighter. Marketing that fits your life, not the other way around. That’s the whole point.

Brand photography isn’t a nice-to-have when it’s planned right. It’s the engine behind your entire content workflow.

If you are in the Bay Area (Northern California), I’d love to photograph you! 

Go introduce yourself on Pinterest, Instagram, or TikTok. I’ll be cheering you on from over here.

What Some Help Planning A Photoshoot?

I have a Brand Photoshoot Workbook + Checklist that will help you identify your idea client, and plan a photoshoot with a workbook and checklist to get the best photos out of your photography session.

 
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DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

Pinterest Wedding Trends 2026: How Wedding Pros Can Turn “Alt-Bride” Into Business Gold

Content Creation, Marketing, Pinterest, Pinterest Trends

Gathering of wedding photos showing the wedding trends for 2026 by Jen Vazquez

Pinterest Wedding Trends 2026: How Service Providers Can Turn “Alt-Bride” Into Business Gold

Hey there! Pinterest just dropped its Wedding Trends Report 2026, and if you work with couples in any capacity, this isn’t just trend-watching.  I’m a former wedding photographer and work with a ton of wedding pros, so this is my wheelhouse, and I’m delivering your business roadmap.

The big headline? Couples are rewriting wedding rules entirely. Pinterest found that couples are embracing “low-key pre-wedding soirées, opalescent palettes, speakeasy venues and bold new bridal headwear: crowns, caps and cool-girl veils.” But here’s what matters for your marketing: the top reason couples say an unconventional wedding appeals to them is that it allows them to reflect their personalities.

Translation? Your ideal clients aren’t looking for cookie-cutter services anymore. They want providers who get their vision and can help them execute something uniquely theirs.

The Trend: Alt-Bride Aesthetic is Taking Over

Bridal headwear is becoming bolder and more statement-making, with rising searches for fascinators, Juliet cap veils, and custom wedding hats signaling that cool-girl alternatives to the traditional veil are gaining momentum. We’re talking fascinators up 1,865%, Juliet caps, pearl headdresses, and forehead tiaras all rising.

But this isn’t just about fashion. This trend represents a fundamental shift in how couples approach their wedding planning. They’re prioritizing personal expression over tradition, which means massive opportunities for service providers who can speak their language.

Pinterest For Service Providers Checklist

Want help with Pinterest? Snag my free instant free download right now Pinterest For Service Providers Checklist!

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Marketing Strategy 1: Update Your Pinterest Keywords Right Now

If you’re still pinning “classic bridal looks” and “traditional wedding venues,” you’re missing the boat. Jazz club weddings are up 1,115%, speakeasy lounges are up 225%, and glass greenhouse weddings have seen a 100% jump.

Photographers: Start creating boards like “Alt-Bride Portrait Ideas,” “Moody Wedding Photography,” and “Unconventional Wedding Venues.” Pin examples of dramatic headwear shots, speakeasy-style lighting, and editorial bridal portraits.

Wedding Planners: Create pins for “Speakeasy Wedding Reception Ideas,” “Jazz Club Wedding Styling,” and “Greenhouse Wedding Design.” The common thread: spaces that feel cinematic and immediately photogenic, where the setting itself does some of the storytelling.

Florists: Focus on the unconventional bouquet trend. Searches are climbing for fuzzy wire bouquets, bouquet purses and flowerless arrangements. Create pins showing alternatives to traditional florals.

The Trend: Opalescent Palettes Meet Moody Tones

Pinterest found two distinct color stories dominating 2026 weddings. “Plum and olive wedding” searches are up 1,380%, while “Opalite aesthetic” searches have climbed 2,710%. On one side, earthy, moody tones like plum, olive, and muted terracotta are lending their warmth to celebration details. The other trending color story? Shimmery iridescent hues and opalescent finishes.

Marketing Strategy 2: Show Both Sides of the Color Spectrum

Don’t pick a lane between moody and iridescent. Show potential clients you can execute both vibes.

Stationers: Create pin sets showing invitations in both palettes. Pin examples of “Plum and Olive Wedding Invitations” alongside “Iridescent Wedding Stationery.”

Cake Designers: Pinterest data shows couples want options. Create pins for “Moody Wedding Cake Colors” and “Opalescent Wedding Cake Design.” Show your range.

Makeup Artists: This trend is perfect for showcasing versatility. Create separate boards for “Moody Bridal Makeup” and “Iridescent Bridal Beauty.” The search volume is there for both.

The Trend: Unconventional Venues with Built-In Atmosphere

Traditional ballrooms are making way for venues with built-in atmosphere… couples are prioritising venues with a strong sense of character over conventional formality, seeking locations that already tell a story before styling even begins.

This trend is huge for any service provider because it changes how couples think about their entire wedding experience.

Want to DIY your Pinterest but with Expert guidance?

The Club is your monthly membership for Pinterest strategy, marketing support, and community connection. Get live Q+A sessions twice a month, monthly Pinterest and marketing masterclasses, 10 customizable Canva pin templates, 2 guided Pinning Sessions monthly, and access to a community of service providers building sustainable marketing systems. 

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Marketing Strategy 3: Position Yourself as the “Unconventional” Expert

Venues: If you have any unique characteristics, now is the time to highlight them. Industrial spaces, historic buildings, outdoor locations – lean into what makes you different.

Photographers: Create content around shooting in unconventional spaces. Pin inspiration boards for “Jazz Club Wedding Photography” and “Greenhouse Wedding Photos.”

Coordinators: Show how you handle non-traditional spaces. Create pins for “Speakeasy Wedding Planning” and “Unconventional Venue Styling.”

The Trend: Men’s Wedding Fashion is Having a Moment

“Men’s jewelry aesthetic” searches are up 890%, and pinky rings (up 550%), hand bracelets (up 595%) and chain necklaces (up 360%) are all trending for grooms. This represents a huge untapped market for many service providers.

Marketing Strategy 4: Don’t Forget the Grooms

Photographers: Create specific content for groom portraits. Pin inspiration for “Groom Jewelry Photography” and “Modern Groom Portraits.”

Stylists: The groom market is exploding. Create boards for “Groom Jewelry Ideas” and “Modern Groom Accessories.”

Planners: Show how you handle the entire couple, not just the bride. Pin content that includes both partners equally.

The Money Move: Create Trend-Specific Service Packages

Here’s where most service providers miss the opportunity. They see the trends but don’t create specific offerings around them.

Smart Photographers: Create “Alt-Bride Portrait Sessions” and “Speakeasy Wedding Packages.”

Savvy Planners: Offer “Unconventional Venue Styling” services and “Alt-Wedding Design Packages.”

Strategic Florists: Market “Non-Traditional Bouquet Design” and “Moody Wedding Florals.”

The couples searching for these trends have money to spend. They’re not looking for budget options. They want providers who understand their vision and can execute something unique.

Why This Matters More Than Just Following Trends

Pinterest’s Wedding Trends Report isn’t just about what’s pretty right now. Pinterest highlighted 14 key trends, including “Unexpected Venues,” “Quirky Cakes” and “Nostalgic Tech Touches.” This represents 7 billion wedding-related searches and shows you exactly what couples are planning to spend money on.

When you align your Pinterest strategy with these search behaviors, you’re not just hoping for engagement. You’re positioning yourself in front of couples who are actively planning and budgeting for these specific services.

The service providers who win in 2026 will be the ones who recognize that couples want partners in creating something personal, not vendors selling standard packages.

Your Action Plan for This Week

  1. Audit your current Pinterest boards – Do they reflect 2026 trends or are you still pinning 2022 vibes?
  2. Create three new boards based on the trends most relevant to your services.
  3. Update your pin descriptions to include the trending keywords from Pinterest’s report.
  4. Plan new service offerings that specifically cater to alt-bride and unconventional wedding trends.
  5. Start creating content that shows you understand and can execute these new directions.

The couples getting married in 2026 are already searching for these trends. Your Pinterest strategy should meet them where they are, not where weddings used to be.

Go introduce yourself on Pinterest,  Instagram, or TikTok. I’ll be cheering you on from over here.  You can see the release on Pinterest.

DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

Wedding accessories talking about Pinterest Wedding Trends in 20206 with Jen Vazquez
Gothic romantic bridal moodboard for 2026 wedding trends on Pinterest by Jen Vazquez

Pinterest Consistency Isn’t About How Much You Pin (It’s About How You Pin)

Marketing, Pinterest, Podcast

cozy minimalist morning at a home office. Talking about The Real Reason Your Consistent Pinterest Strategy Isn't Working

Pinterest Consistency Isn’t About How Much You Pin (It’s About How You Pin) 

You’re showing up, you’re pinning consistently, you’re doing everything right, but your Pinterest still feels like it’s going nowhere. Here’s the workflow problem nobody talks about.

You’re being consistent. You’re showing up. You’re pinning. You’re doing everything everyone told you to do.

And your Pinterest still feels like it’s going nowhere.

Here’s what nobody really tells you: consistency on Pinterest isn’t just about how much you pin. It’s about how you pin. And there’s a specific workflow problem that makes even the most consistent pinners invisible.

I’ve been managing Pinterest strategy for service providers for over a decade as a Pinterest Pioneer since 2009, and I see this pattern constantly. Stick with me and I’ll show you exactly what it is.

The Real Consistency Problem

Here’s the thing most Pinterest advice gets wrong: people hear “be consistent,” and they interpret that as posting more.

So they batch 20 pins on Sunday, schedule them all out for the week, and then disappear for two weeks while life happens.

To a human, that feels consistent because you’re doing the work, right?

But to the Pinterest algorithm, that looks like a burst followed by a gap. And every single time you create that gap, your momentum resets all over again.

What Pinterest actually rewards is daily activity. A small, steady signal that says, “This account is active, reliable, and worth surfacing in search results.”

That compounds over time in a way that bursts never do.

Ready to build this workflow with support?

Ready to build this workflow with support? The Club gives you monthly Pinterest trainings, live Q&A, and real accountability to make Pinterest finally work for your service business.

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The Under-One-Hour Weekly Workflow

The workflow I’m about to show you solves this in under an hour a week. Here’s exactly how it works:

Step 1: Content Inventory

Before I even open my scheduling tool, I make a list of everything I want to pin this month:

  • New blog posts
  • New YouTube videos
  • New podcast episodes
  • Evergreen content that’s still relevant and driving traffic
  • Lead magnets I want to push
  • Service pages

For a typical week, I’m working with four to six pieces of content. Each one gets multiple pins, but here’s the important part: different angles for each of those pins.

They’re all going to the same content, but they come at it different ways with different text overlays. Same destination URL. That’s how one piece of content can fuel an entire week.

Step 2: Create the Pins

I create my pins in Canva using brand templates. I use the same color palette (my brand colors), the same font system, just swapping in the headline and image for a different angle, along with a call to action.

For each piece of content, I create three to five variations.

This is where templates save everything. Without them, the under-an-hour thing isn’t true. You have to have a system for that to be reality.

Step 3: Schedule Strategically

Here’s the workflow problem nobody talks about: spacing.

I upload my pins, add titles, keyword-rich descriptions, and destination URLs (don’t forget that call to action), then I drop everything into my Tailwind scheduling queue.

The tool automatically picks the best posting times based on when my audience is most active. You don’t want to publish when nobody’s pinning, and you don’t want to rely on your time zone.

But here’s the critical step most people skip: I check the queue to make sure I’m not scheduling the same URL multiple times in the same week.

Pinterest wants to see your content distributed naturally. If you flood the same link back to back, you’re working against yourself.

Ready to build this workflow with support? The Club gives you monthly Pinterest trainings, live Q&A, and real accountability to make Pinterest finally work for your service business.~ Jen Vazquez

The Difference Between Burst and Consistency

The gap between consistent pinners and burst-and-gap pinners isn’t visible in week one. It shows up at month three when compounding either kicks in or doesn’t.

When Pinterest sees consistent daily activity from your account (even just one or two pins a day), it treats you as an active, reliable creator:

  • It starts surfacing your older content more
  • Your impressions on existing pins go up, even when you haven’t touched them
  • The algorithm recognizes you as trustworthy

When it sees bursts followed by gaps, it treats you as inconsistent:

  • The algorithm starts to pull back
  • Your older content stops getting surfaced
  • You’re essentially starting over every time you come back

That compounding effect that makes Pinterest so powerful for service providers only kicks in for consistent accounts, not for the ones who try hard in bursts.

Why This Workflow Changes Everything

This workflow makes you a consistent account without Pinterest taking over your life. Because I want you to get more out of Pinterest, but I don’t want you to work more.

One hour a week, the queue is filled. Done.

The workflow I just shared is only half the picture, though. If your Pinterest foundation has gaps, this workflow will run perfectly and still not get you clients.

Your profile could be invisible in search. Your board titles might be telling Pinterest the wrong thing. Your top pins might be linking to pages that quietly kill conversions.

Next week, I’m doing a full Pinterest audit covering five things to check before you post another pin. Most people find at least two or three things they didn’t know were broken.

This workflow makes Pinterest work for you instead of the other way around. It builds the daily momentum that creates real, compounding growth.

And when you combine it with a solid foundation, that’s when Pinterest becomes the lead generation engine it’s supposed to be for your service business.

Go introduce yourself on Pinterest, Instagram, or TikTok. I’ll be cheering you on from over here.

DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

Headshots vs Brand Photography: Which One Does Your Business Actually Need?

Brand Photography, Case Studies, Content Creation, Marketing, Podcast

boring headshot and multiple fun headshots talking about headshots vs brand photography

Headshots vs Brand Photography: Which One Does Your Business Actually Need?

You’ve got a headshot. But somehow you still never have the right photo when you need one.

You’re creating an Instagram post and realize your headshot doesn’t fit the vibe. You’re writing a blog post and need something more casual. You want to show your workspace but all you have is that one professional shot of you smiling at the camera.

Sound familiar?

This is the reality for most service providers I work with. They invested in professional photos, but they’re still scrambling every time they need an image. And it’s not because their photographer wasn’t good. It’s because they booked the wrong type of session for what their business actually needed.

Today I’m breaking down the real difference between headshots and brand photography, which one service providers actually need, and why booking the wrong one is one of the most common (and expensive) content mistakes I see.

What’s Actually IN a Headshot Session

Let’s start with headshots. A traditional headshot session gives you 1-3 final images. They’re typically shot against a simple background, with your face and shoulders in focus. The goal is to look professional and approachable.

Headshots work great for:

  • LinkedIn profiles
  • Speaker bios
  • About pages on your website
  • Professional directories
  • Corporate environments

But here’s what headshots don’t give you: variety, lifestyle context, or images that tell the story of what you actually do.

A headshot is designed to answer one question: “What does this person look like?” It’s not designed to answer: “What does this person do, how do they work, and why should I hire them?”

The Brand Photography Difference

Brand photography, on the other hand, is designed around your marketing needs. A strategic brand photography session gives you 50-100 images that work across your entire marketing strategy.

We’re talking about:

  • You working with clients
  • Your workspace or office setup
  • Behind-the-scenes moments
  • Product shots if you sell anything physical
  • Lifestyle images that show your personality
  • Multiple outfit options
  • Different backgrounds and settings
  • Various crops and orientations for different platforms

The goal isn’t just to show what you look like. It’s to show what it’s like to work with you, what your process looks like, and how you help people.

Brand photography answers the question: “What’s it like to work with this person, and how will they help me?”

When Headshots Work (And When They Don’t)

Here’s the truth: if you’re a service provider trying to grow your business online, a headshot alone won’t cut it.

Headshots work great if:

  • You work in a corporate environment where consistency matters more than personality
  • Your marketing strategy is primarily networking and referrals
  • You rarely create content or have a small online presence
  • You’re just starting out and need something basic for your website

But if you’re creating content regularly, using social media to grow your business, or trying to build a personal brand around your services, headshots will leave you scrambling.

Here’s why: every time you want to create content, you need an image that fits the message. A formal headshot doesn’t work for a behind-the-scenes Instagram story. A serious corporate photo doesn’t match a casual blog post about your morning routine.

When you only have 1-3 images to work with, you’re constantly hitting a wall.

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The Content Creation Mistake That Costs You Time and Money

The biggest mistake I see service providers make: they book a headshot thinking it will solve their content creation problems.

They spend $500-800 on professional photos, get 2-3 beautiful headshot images, and then realize they still don’t have what they need for their marketing.

Six months later, they’re back to using phone photos or the same headshot over and over again. Their content starts to feel stale. They’re embarrassed to post because they’re using the same image repeatedly.

This is a system problem, not a creativity problem.

If you’re creating content regularly – whether that’s social media posts, blog articles, email newsletters, or website updates – you need a library of images that supports your content strategy.

That’s what brand photography gives you.

Ready to plan your brand photography session? Get my free Photoshoot Workbook with everything you need to plan a strategic session that actually supports your marketing goals.

How to Know Which One Your Business Actually Needs

Ask yourself these questions:

How often do you create content? If you’re posting once a week or more on any platform, you need brand photography.

What’s your marketing strategy? If you rely on content marketing, social media, or online visibility to grow your business, headshots alone won’t support that strategy.

How do you want people to feel about your business? If you want to seem approachable, authentic, and relatable, lifestyle brand photography will serve you better than formal headshots.

What’s your budget and timeline? If you need something quick and affordable to get started, a headshot might make sense as a first step. But plan to invest in brand photography as your business grows.

Here’s my general recommendation: if you’re a service provider who creates any type of content or uses social media for business, invest in brand photography. If you’re in a corporate environment or your marketing is primarily referral-based, headshots might be sufficient.

What Strategic Brand Photography Looks Like

When I work with service providers on brand photography sessions, we plan everything around their marketing goals.

We start with a content audit: what type of content do you create? What platforms do you use? What’s missing from your current image library?

Then we plan the session around those needs:

  • Multiple outfit changes that reflect your brand personality
  • Different settings that show various aspects of your work
  • Lifestyle shots that feel authentic to how you actually work
  • Detail shots of your workspace, tools, or products
  • Images that work for different platforms and purposes

The goal is to walk away with enough images to support 3-6 months of content creation without repeating photos.

We’re not just taking pretty pictures. We’re building marketing infrastructure.

I have clients who bring champagne because they want celebration photos. Some throw confetti. Others bring their children because they’re an integral part of their business. One client was literally folding laundry on the ground during her session because that’s part of her brand story around work-life balance.

These photos have stood the test of time because they’re authentic and specific to what each business owner talks about on social media.

Finding the Right Brand Photographer

Not every photographer who says they do brand photography actually approaches the planning from a marketing angle. You want to make sure you’re working with someone who asks about your marketing goals before your session, not just your outfit choices.

Look for a photographer who:

  • Plans a shot list that matches how you actually use content
  • Thinks about variety: horizontal, vertical, and images with space for text overlays
  • Captures lifestyle moments and detailed shots
  • Delivers images that work across multiple platforms
  • Provides guidance on how to use your photos strategically

At Jen Vazquez Media, every brand session starts with a marketing conversation. We talk about where you’re showing up, what you need images for, what’s coming up in your business, and any launches or rebrands you have planned.

We plan the session around those answers so that you leave with images you can actually use, not just images that look pretty in a gallery you never open.

The goal of brand photography isn’t beautiful images. It’s usable images that make your marketing easier, help you attract the right clients, and make it easy to show up online because you’ve got the perfect image for whatever you’re talking about.

If you’re ready to stop scrambling for photos every time you create content, it might be time to think bigger than a headshot. Your marketing deserves images that actually support your strategy.

Go introduce yourself on Pinterest, Instagram, or TikTok. I’ll be cheering you on from over here.

 

📌 DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

Pinterest Analytics for Service Providers: Which Metrics Actually Matter

Content Creation, Marketing, Pinterest, Podcast

beige feminine office with Pinterest Analytics on the laptop

Pinterest Analytics for Service Providers: Which Metrics Actually Matter

And Which Ones Are Lying to You

If you’ve been on Pinterest for a few months and you’re not sure if it’s actually working, you’re probably looking at the wrong numbers.

I get it. You open Pinterest analytics, see monthly views going up and down, and think “is this even doing anything?” That’s the most common thing I hear from service providers who are new to the platform.

The truth is, some Pinterest metrics will tell you exactly how your strategy is performing. Others will send you into a spiral for no reason. Let’s sort out which is which.

Before we dig in, make sure you grab my free Visibility Vault at learn.jenvazquez.com/resources. There are over 25 Pinterest + marketing tools inside, and specifically look for the Pinterest Analyzer. It’ll make everything I’m about to share way more actionable.

The Number Everyone Watches (And Misunderstands): Monthly Views

Everyone checks monthly views. And almost everyone misunderstands them.

Monthly views are an impressions metric. It tells you how many times your pin appeared on Pinterest, whether that was in the home feed, in search results, or on someone else’s board. But here’s the thing: just because your pin was served up doesn’t mean anyone actually saw it. It could have appeared on the sixth page of someone’s home feed and never been scrolled to.

These numbers can spike when one pin gets reshared by someone with a larger following. They can drop when Pinterest is testing your new content in small batches. Fluctuations are completely normal and are not a sign that something is broken.

Here’s what I really want you to hear: impressions are not the number that tells you whether your strategy is actually working.

A service provider with 50,000 monthly views and 200 outbound clicks is actually doing worse than someone with 8,000 monthly views and 400 outbound clicks.

Views without clicks do not book you clients.

The Metrics That Actually Matter

Outbound Clicks (The Money Click)

When someone sees your pin in the feed and clicks on it, that’s a pin click. But the outbound click is what happens next. That’s people leaving Pinterest and landing on your website.

This is the metric that most directly connects to leads, signups, and clients. It’s also the last metric to start growing. The order is typically: impressions first, then saves, then pin clicks, then outbound clicks. It can take some months. But even if outbound clicks are growing slowly, your strategy is working.

I like to call outbound clicks the “money click” because you’re that much closer to booking someone. It doesn’t mean they’ll instantly hire you, especially if you have a high-ticket service. But it means there’s enough interest. Your keywords did their job and got you found. Now it’s your chance to nurture that person, whether they grabbed a lead magnet, checked out your services page, or went to follow you on Instagram or TikTok to learn more about you.

Profile Visits

This tells you whether people are finding your pins interesting enough to want to see more of your content. Growing profile visits means growing brand recognition on the platform.

Saves

When someone saves your pin, Pinterest takes that as a very strong signal of relevance. Saves tell the algorithm to keep surfacing your content to similar audiences. A healthy save rate is a really good sign.

Now, saves don’t always mean someone is about to book you. In the wedding industry, for example, it could be a 16-year-old pinning your image to a future wedding board because they love the dress. But what saves do tell you is that Pinterest is indexing your pins properly and sending them out to people. That’s a great signal.

Outbound Click Rate

This is your link clicks divided by your impressions. Even if your monthly views are low, a healthy outbound click rate means the people who are seeing your content are interested enough to act on it.

Quality over quantity, every single time.

What Does a Realistic Growth Timeline Look Like?

This isn’t exact science, but here’s the average of what I see across my service-based business clients:

  • Months 1 and 2: Quiet. Low impressions, low clicks. Pinterest is indexing your content and running small test batches. This is completely normal.
  • Months 3 and 4: Impressions start rising. You might notice one or two pins getting more traction than the rest. Pay attention to those.
  • Months 5 and 6: Link clicks start moving. Website traffic from Pinterest becomes visible in your analytics.
  • Beyond month 6: The compounding effect kicks in. Old pins start to resurface. Traffic builds without you having to create more content. The library you built in months 1 through 6 is now working around the clock.

Most people quit in months two and three. That’s right before the momentum shifts. Stay consistent. I cannot say that enough.

>> WANT HELP UNDERSTANDING YOUR PINTEREST NUMBERS? JOIN THE CLUB <<

Inside The Club, we do live Q+A sessions every month where you can bring your analytics, share your screen, and get real-time feedback on what’s working and what to adjust. Plus monthly trainings to keep your strategy sharp. Join at learn.jenvazquez.com/club.

Using Google Analytics Alongside Pinterest

Pinterest analytics shows you what’s happening on the platform. Your website analytics show you what happens after the click. You need both.

In Google Analytics, look for Pinterest as a traffic source under referral or acquisition data. A heads up: you’ll see multiple Pinterest sources listed (pinterest.com, pinterest.ca, mobile Pinterest, desktop Pinterest). Scroll through all of them and add them up for a more accurate picture.

Also know this: Pinterest analytics and Google Analytics will never perfectly match. They measure things differently. Someone could click an outbound link and immediately close the window. Pinterest counts that as an outbound click, but they never actually loaded your page. Always default to Google Analytics for the most accurate view of who actually made it to your website.

Once you’re in Google Analytics, look at:

  • Which pages Pinterest is sending people to
  • How long they’re staying
  • Whether they’re signing up, clicking to a service page, or booking a call

A click that leads to a five-second bounce is very different from a click that leads to a signup. Knowing which pages convert helps you create more content like the ones that are actually working.

Early Positive Signs to Watch For

Even in the first few months, before link clicks really start moving, there are signs that tell you the foundation is building:

  • One pin consistently getting more impressions than the others. That’s Pinterest telling you it likes that content. Study what’s different about it and create more like it. It could be the image, the colors, or the keywords.
  • Profile visits climbing slowly. People are discovering you and wanting to see more. That’s brand recognition growing.
  • Saves increasing on a specific board. That topic is resonating. Lean into it.

Marketing is all about testing. If a pin takes off, make more pins for a different blog using the same keyword approach. Or go back to a blog from two months ago and create fresh pins for it. Test the same keywords, test different colors, test different images. The goal is to figure out what’s driving those impressions and do more of it.

Here’s a bonus tip: sometimes your pin will stand out because it’s visually different from the feed. If you search for anything wedding-related on Pinterest, the entire feed is pastel. When I was a wedding photographer, I’d make pins with a black background and white text, or use my bright pink brand color, specifically to stand out in that sea of pastels.

When Should You Actually Adjust Your Strategy?

The biggest mistake I see is people pivoting too early. They’ll be three months in, assume something’s wrong, and change their strategy. That throws you right back into Pinterest’s testing phase, and you lose all the momentum you were building.

Pick a strategy. Move forward. Don’t change it for at least three to four months.

If after six solid months of consistent pinning you’re still seeing zero outbound clicks and no website traffic from Pinterest, that’s when something may need to change. But it’s usually one of these four things:

Keyword Gaps

Your content exists but isn’t optimized for what your ideal client is actually searching for. Go back to keyword research and update your pin titles and descriptions.

Content Mismatch

What you’re creating isn’t what your ideal client is looking for on Pinterest. Look at which pins are getting saved and lean into those topics.

Destination Problems

Your pins are getting clicks, but people are bouncing fast. The page they land on doesn’t deliver on what the pin promised, or there’s no clear next step. Think about what someone sees above the fold on your landing page. If that doesn’t pull them in, there’s nothing Pinterest can do about it. Fix the landing page.

Inconsistency

Posting 20 pins in one week and then disappearing for three weeks breaks the compounding pattern and sends signals to Pinterest that you’re not trustworthy. Steady and consistent always beats bursts followed by gaps.

Don’t Have Time to Manage All of This Yourself?

If you’ve been watching this series and thinking “this sounds great but I genuinely do not have time to manage all of this,” that is literally what my agency does.

We manage Pinterest for service providers who want the results without doing it all themselves. We handle the strategy, the pinning, the scheduling, all of it.

>> BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL <<

What’s Coming Next

One thing that dramatically improves Pinterest performance is having brand images that actually stop the scroll. Not just on Pinterest, but everywhere. The visual matters a lot, especially on a search engine that’s built around images.

Next week I’m talking about how brand photography fits into your entire marketing system, including how to plan your next photo session so you always have Pinterest-ready content to work with.

Go introduce yourself on Pinterest, Instagram, or TikTok. I’ll be cheering you on from over here! 📣