Yesterday, I got lost in the color blue. I ambled along winding, cobbled lanes, astonished by walls, gates and doorways painted in a summery-aquatic blue. I swore I was breathing underwater in the open air.
But I wasn’t underwater I was in the fabled city of Chefchaouen, Morocco.
I walked among the crowded shops, passing strangers in long robes, listening to their voices sing in a language unfamiliar to my ears. Donkeys laden with packs clattered past. In the market I admired a wild assortment of golden-hued spices, nuts, and gooey dates alongside silver and gold bangles stacked to catch the sunlight. A small tabby cat watched me from her afternoon perch with serious green eyes. Somewhere beyond the press of bodies I heard children laughing and a bell ringing.
And all the while, that lovely blue peeked out and crooked its fingers at me, beckoning “this way…this way.”
I wanted that blue for a garden gate of my own.
When I finally ended my brief trip – I lifted my eyes and saw that I had only been gone 15 minutes.
But I had made notes on my pad of paper – blue paint, cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon, dates. These were the items I wanted to put into my life.
A short trip through the visuals on Pinterest had given me just what I did not know I was looking for.
When my friends and I are logging onto Pinterest or Instagram, we want you to give us a place to go. A dream we can bring back with us into our day-to-day lives, like the color blue for a garden gate or spices and dates for a recipe. We want you to give us a visual story that lets us in. Show us what you do – let us travel into that picture with you.
I wrote this wanting you to understand that the strength of just one of your images lies in the story that lets the viewer step inside of it.
Your story is the connecting point between your passion for what you do and the curiosity of the customer who experiences that passion through the perspective of their life.
The beauty and power of visual social media lies in a photograph that tells two stories simultaneously: yours and the customer’s. This isn’t traditional advertising. This is social storytelling. This is connection.
Photo Credit: Creative Commons Blue streets of Chefchaouen by serzhile is licensed under CC BY 2.0
