A quick intro to Pinterest for authors
Personally, I love Pinterest. I use it for personal reasons, and as a tool during my writing process. Plus I use it for marketing and promotion of both my author brand and my books.
Why use Pinterest?
Pinterest users are normally browsing for things that catch their interest. They are looking to discover new things, and ideally to take action (like, re-pin, comment, click the link to buy or find out more and so on.)
As an author, this means:
Pinterest is a platform for promoting your profile/brand AND a sales platform.
By pinning photos and images, you are getting your pen name out there and building recognition, you can provide your story and your hook, and build reader interest in you and your work. If you encourage engagement/interaction, you can build help build your fan base, increase traffic to your website, and increase clicks to buy your books.
More interest equals more clicks equals more traffic and sales.
How to use Pinterest
Consider what image you want to convey. Create a profile and personal boards that reflect your author branding. Try to show some of your personality. Ideally, don't always be hard-selling - follow the 80/20 rule and pin buy links but also share snippets, character inspirations, and some of your personality. Upload new pins, re-pin others, like and comment.
I have boards that cover my work (inspiration boards for each book, a board for my covers, a board for my blog posts), plus boards related to my writing genre. I also have boards that are my personal boards (recipes, my dream home ideas, travel locations etc) so my readers can have a small peak into my interests.
The key rule, as with any other social media platform, is to be professional and treat Pinterest like your shopfront.
What makes a good PIN?
- Attractive/beautiful - good graphics, correctly sized, clear and not too cluttered, eyecatching
- Informative - interesting, useful, good description, clear what it's about
- Actionable - include a call to action (buy now, find out more, discover...) Give readers a reason to click such as to find out more on your website
- Discoverable - good descriptions, correct boards
In coming posts I'll be discussing creating quality images (quickly and easily), how to post to Pinterest, using group boards and features such as Rich Pins. If there's anything you'd particularly like to know about let me know and I'll cover that first.
Here is my Love. Writing. Life Pinterest profile if you'd like to check it out.
Happy pinning!
Nicki xx[ctt template="4" link="0QDzV" via="yes" nofollow="yes"]Authors need PINTEREST. See why. [/ctt]
