In 2020, I set out to share my love of nature photography, hoping to connect with others who shared my passion. What started as a hobby quickly became an exciting social media experiment, driven by my desire to build an engaged audience and, ultimately, convert this community into customers.
By the time I’d scaled my Pinterest and TikTok accounts to over 3 million impressions, I’d not only tapped into the potential of social media but also deepened my skills in analytics, storytelling, and data-driven strategy.
This is the story of how it all came together.
Pinterest was a natural choice as a platform to reach my ideal audience. Known as a visual search engine, it’s a go-to source for users seeking aesthetic inspiration, from wallpaper ideas to DIY projects. The platform’s focus on discoverable content made it the perfect place to showcase my nature photography and direct people to my merch on Redbubble and affiliate links.
With little more than a few photos and videos, I began pinning my work, watching to see what would resonate. Initial traction came quickly, and the views started climbing—but I noticed something: audience engagement wasn’t where I wanted it to be. That’s when I knew I needed to rethink my approach.
This was my ~month progress with the account
Early on, it was clear that while views were growing, active engagement lagged behind. I took a closer look at my content to see why. I realized two key things: the quality of the images needed improvement, and my posting schedule was irregular and not aligned with my audience’s most active times.
This first period of growth helped me understand that success on social media requires more than just content. It needs structure. I decided to focus on quality, consistency, and timing. Here's what I did:
As I refined my strategy, I committed to a regular posting cadence. Based on initial audience insights, I began publishing twice on Wednesdays and Thursdays and three times on weekends. These times were strategically chosen, reflecting patterns I’d observed in Pinterest’s analytics about peak engagement periods.
From here, I wanted to increase discoverability, so I implemented a strong SEO strategy for Pinterest, choosing targeted keywords and creating optimized titles, descriptions, and even image file names. Each pin was crafted with care, helping it reach the right audience and enhance the overall brand presence.
With a consistent schedule in place, I set out to test various content formats. Pinterest offers options that go beyond simple images, including Idea Pins and product showcases, which engage users in new and interactive ways. I began creating Idea Pins that included video snippets of nature scenes, product close-ups, and occasional behind-the-scenes looks at my creative process.
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These experiments paid off, drawing a new level of interaction to my page. My focus shifted to honing the types of content my audience was responding to and keeping the format fresh and engaging.
By broadening the format mix, I saw both impressions and engagement grow, proving the value of adapting to platform features and audience preferences.
Real growth came from studying my audience’s behavior closely. I learned that video pins were attracting significantly higher engagement than static images. This insight led me to focus on producing more high-quality video content, showcasing dynamic scenes that resonated with the platform’s active users.
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One key observation? The most active hours for my audience were between 2-4 AM GMT, aligning with peak times for users in U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Denver. With this in mind, I adjusted my schedule to match my audience’s timezone, resulting in a noticeable spike in views and interactions.
As months passed, my engagement strategies became second nature. I continued refining my approach through courses like HubSpot’s Social Media Marketing and from YouTube mentors who specialized in social media growth.
As my knowledge deepened, so did the results. The impressions soared, eventually reaching over 1 million before growing even further.
