SPOTLIGHT ON… Pinterest for Authors

PINTEREST FOR AUTHORS

Before you discard Pinterest as yet another social networking platform, you should probably know just how fun (and addictive!) ‘pinning’ can be.

What makes Pinterest a great tool for authors?

Organise the virtual pinboards to suit a character, book or series. Pin all your inspiration, research and visual cues on to the board to refer back to when needed.
Direct readers to your relevant Pinterest board/s as a marketing tool for your book launch or ongoing promotion of your novel.
Readers are able to ‘see’ the visuals that you had whilst writing, giving them an ‘insider’ view of the book and/or character.
Piqora recently release stats that proved the ‘life-span’ of a pin can be far longer than that of a tweet or Facebook post. Many tweets remain active in a follower’s timeline for only a matter of minutes (if you’re retweeted, perhaps longer), Facebook posts fair a little better with an average life-span of perhaps a couple of hours, but Piqora believe a Pinterest pin “can last thousands of times longer”. “Sure, you get 70 percent of your clicks in the first two days,” Pinqora CEO Shara Verma told me last week. “But there’s a huge long tail. Clicks kept coming all the way for 30 days, and even beyond.” ¹
John Koetsier of Venture Beat continues, “The key difference is that while Pinterest is a social network, it’s also an ideas-and-inspiration website, whereas Twitter and Facebook are social networks with a massive emphasis on immediacy. When people visit Pinterest, they browse, they search, they surf, and they uncover more pins.“¹

How can authors use Pinterest to their advantage?

Pinterest is a visual site, so appeal to the reader’s desire to best understand your motivation whilst writing by providing details on what each pin represents (e.g.: this is the lake I had in mind during the swimming scene)
Pin from your blog and/or website to encourage through traffic to your external sites; this is particularly helpful if you can direct the click-through to your ‘buy’ pages or if you’re able to include buy-links on the page the pinner will land on.
Tag all relevant pins (i.e.: your cover images or specific novel pics) with your name, and website, blog, or social media links.
Use a Pinterest board as a pre-release teaser to provide snapshots of aspects of an upcoming release. Generate interest in the book prior to release with strategic shots that will pique the interest of your readers and ensure they ‘have’ to buy the book on release day.
Contrast and compare: I’ve seen Pinboards used as a “If you loved (enter bestseller name), then you’ll love my new book! This is a personal choice option as many authors don’t like to compare their work in this way, however it is worth noting that new readers or readers who stick to certain trends may find this useful.
‘Leaked cover/pinboard’: another marketing strategy that I’ve seen on Pinterest. This would be useful for self-published authors however published authors would need to check embargo requirements before attempting.

Come on over and join me on Pinterest for inspiration, ideas, travel and cooking!

This week, the Spotlight is on authors who have awesome Pinterest boards and pages – check in daily to see who is in the Spotlight!

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