What about Pinterest and Instagram? Are they useful for promoting a book?
Yes and No.
I hope I’ve made the case for the need to have a visual marketing strategy in my previous posts. We are moving into a visual learning world and you can see that clearly with the rise of infographics and sites like Pinterest. Our brains are changing to be able to absorb information with images.
The two largest, and most interesting visual sites right now are Pinterest and Instagram. Are they useful for authors? Does it depend on the subject of the book?
MORE POSTS FOR AUTHORS
I would certainly use Pinterest for marketing any type of book. You can have Boards for the characters in your book, or the topics covered, or whatever seems right for the subject matter. Here are some idea and accounts to study:
- Gathering character details, just like you would on a physical bulletin board
- Great way to organize ideas for new writing projects
- Publishers like Pinterest. Follow them – Comment on their Pins!
- Boards for Books – promotional
I would research Pinterest deeply before jumping in. You can go read through a few of my Pinterest Boards; Business Tips, Pinterest Resources, Marketing Firehose.
Vital Pinning Process: You really must pin from your website. You want the traffic to show up on a space you control. Even if you are finding other images around the web, figure out a way to create a blog post or slideshow of these images that are hosted on your domain. then Pin from your website onto your Pinterest Boards. If you need to figure this out a bit better, I suggest you take one of the Pinterest courses that are popular right now.
Instagram
Instagram, to my mind, is best used if you are branding yourself as an author, but not so good for marketing a book. If you have a different opinion, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
It is a great way to open the doors into your world and let people in – visually.
People can see you have a life outside of marketing your stuff and show that you are multi-layered person. Authors still might want to have an air of mystery, but showing a little of your world (again, my opinion) will make you even more interesting.
Interesting = Clicking through to find out more. Open up your personality and lead people to your soul (and website). — Phyllis Khare
Now that Instagram has a web interface, the site is much more accessible and easy to find amazing people. Here’s a space to explore.
Vital Instagram Basics: Make sure you add the hashtag #author or #books to your images, if they relate to your books or are pictures of you!
Excellent Websites for Authors
My friend Lee Leffler makes excellent websites for authors! Web Marketing Star’s author websites are slick, modern, and gorgeous. They help sell the book, connect with social media, and keep fans engaged through a blog. Click to learn more about excellent author websites by Web Marketing Star.
