After a year of gathering data about how people interact with images on Pinterest, the team at Curalate believes they can predict whether or not your pictures will get noticed. Curate is a social media image analytics company that counsels businesses on how to optimize pictures for maximum engagement on Pinterest and Instagram. They have been steadily amassing a database of millions of images, which includes physical details about the picture - like colors, textures, aspect ratio and saturation - as wells as statistical information about how often the post received repins and comments.
From this substantial collection of data, analysts sampled approximately half a million images, looking for patterns among popular pins. They have released the results of their data-crunching in (how else) infographic form, along with a report detailing several common characteristics of the most successful images. Here is a sample of their findings.
Color: The most shared images on Pinterest are colorful; they contain more than one dominant color. Pictures with more than one principal color repinned more than three times as often as monochromatic images. Reds also do better than blues. Pins that fall within the red / orange / yellow and brown spectrum are twice as likely to be repinned as those that contain cooler colors like blue.
Saturation and lightness: People on Pinterest do not seem to like extremes. Pictures that are about 50 percent saturated do better than those that are oversaturated (too bright and hot) or undersaturated (black and white). Likewise, people prefer images with balanced light over those that are very light or very dark. Use more than one color, but in moderation.
Texture: Pictures with roughness do better than photos containing smooth things. (Rough images feature items that are highly textured.) This could be a little challenging for attorneys since most things in an office tend toward smoothness, but it does present a good reason to get out and take some more unexpected photos and to share pictures of out-of-office events.
Background: Interest falls sharply for images without backgrounds. White space, while good for design in general, is bad for Pinterest. Repins fall by 2 to 4 times if a picture contains 40 percent or more background (white or negative space). Lawyer pictures can tend to have predictable backgrounds, so try to step out from in front of the bookcase and choose more unique surroundings.
Faces: The old marketing wisdom that clients respond better to people than things does not hold true on Pinterest. Pictures of objects, or of people that have been cropped below the neckline, spur considerably more engagement. A picture is 23 percent less likely to be repinned if it contains a human face.
Because an attorney's trade relies heavily on writing, marketing through images can prove particularly challenging. But with a little creativity, firms can take advantage of visual marketing. Marketing without words is simply a matter of telling the right story through images. If your firm has been engaged in any sort of branding and marketing activities, you should have already brainstormed about your firm's story, culture and personality. Much of branding is storytelling – building a reputation that clients can trust.
The pictures you share on Pinterest are not simply individual images, they are part of the overall narrative you are telling about your firm. People respond to pictures - they attract more engagement than textual posts among users of social media. Host photo competitions, share behind-the-scenes vignettes from your firm, post pictures of events and catch your attorneys in candid moments (the flattering kind, of course). Be creative with your boards and grow your influence.