How to Engage Readers on Pinterest by @K8Tilton
Today I am pleased to answer writer Camela Cami Thompson‘s question “How the heck do I use Pinterest in an engaging and relevant way?” [share ]After Twitter, Pinterest is my favorite social media platform. [/share]For those of you who don’t know, Pinterest is a visual social media platform. This means all the content you share on Pinterest will be image heavy. So how can authors use Pinterest to connect with readers?
- Determine who your audience is. If you write young adult fantasy, your audience will be very different from someone who writes cookbooks. So who is your audience? What readers are you hoping to engage?
- Create a list of topics your audience is interested in. Once you know who your audience is, take some time to research their interests. If you write young adult fantasy, your audience may be interested in other fantasy novels, other young adult novels, unique worlds/places, and clothing/jewelry from other cultures. Compare that to a non-fiction audience that may be interested in writing tips, books about writing, how-to guides on writing, and practical advice. Know what they are looking for.
- If you haven’t already, create a Pinterest account and create boards for each of these topics. Make sure you keep the title of your board at 26 characters or less and that you use the board description to describe what you are posting on the board in searchable terms. With Pinterest, being clear is always better than being clever! The clearer you make your boards and pins, the easier it is for others to find the topics you pin.
Pro tip: Create new boards as secret boards and only publish them once you have pinned five or more images to the board. - Pin images! Be sure you pin images that go with your board and pay attention to the description of each pin. For example if you write non-fiction about writing and you want to pin an article you read about how to create a killer outline, be sure your description shares information about the article, and even add in your own thoughts!
Pro tip: Once you have gained more than 25-50 repins on any of your pins, create a best pins board like this one by author and social media voice Peg Fitzpatrick. If you are looking for more inspiration for popular boards try Rachel Thompson’s poetry board or check out a few of mine below!
If you follow these steps, you’ll be ready to start sharing your Pinterest account and engaging with readers in your audience!
What are your biggest challenges with Pinterest? Share them below in the comments and I’ll be happy to help!
Sign up for my newsletter and never miss a post again! I will never share your email and that’s a promise. Follow me on Twitter @RachelintheOC or @BadRedheadMedia for social media, branding, or marketing help. Increase your blog traffic by participating in #MondayBlogs (a Twitter meme I created to share posts on Mondays — no book promo) and entering my free feature giveaway.
Starting November 3: Author Social Media Boot Camp! Take a look: group sessions for authors on a budget. Now you too can get affordable, effective help FAST! Follow @ASMBootCamp on Twitter and sign up today here! and pick up Broken Pieces (#1 on Amazon Women’s Poetry Paid) today!
All content copyrighted unless otherwise specified. © 2014 by Rachel Thompson, author. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided a link back to this page and proper attribution is given to me as the original author.
Thank you so much for responding to my question! This helps me a lot. I had a few storyboards and started on suggestion 2, but this helped me realize that I should be adding more commentary.
Storyboards are an excellent place to start Camela! They can really give readers a look into the world of you book. By adding your own descriptions you’ll help that even more. I can’t wait to see how Pinterest works for you!
This is a wonderful post and a question I have pondered on myself. I adore Pinterest and look forward to getting more from one of my favourite platforms.
Excellent Shelley! I found the trick with any social media platform is to focus on your audience if you want to grow the audience. I know people who use Pinterest just for their own ideas, and that’s fine, but if you are looking to build a following it is a must to focus on what they are interested in.
What a useful post! I’ve read some uses for Pinterest but none seemed compelling enough for me to add it to the platform. I now have several ideas!
I’m so glad to hear that Charli! Pinterest is a great way to reach out to visual people and it is one of my favorite platforms. It’s just a matter of knowing who you are trying to reach and catering what you pin to their likes. 🙂
[…] .reading-box-container-1 .element-bottomshadow:before,.reading-box-container-1 .element-bottomshadow:after{opacity:0.1;}How to Engage Readers on Pinterest by Kate Tilton […]
[…] .reading-box-container-1 .element-bottomshadow:before,.reading-box-container-1 .element-bottomshadow:after{opacity:0.1;}The Basics of Building a Writer’s Platform […]
[…] .reading-box-container-1 .element-bottomshadow:before,.reading-box-container-1 .element-bottomshadow:after{opacity:0.1;}How to Engage Readers on Pinterest by Kate Tilton […]
[…] text” (SEO), using the site for market research, pinning cover images for feedback, and more. Kate Tilton also offers tips on how to engage with your audience in Pinterest (first step is to find out who […]
[…] text” (SEO), using the site for market research, pinning cover images for feedback, and more. Kate Tilton also offers tips on how to engage with your audience in Pinterest (first step is to find out who […]
[…] talked about how to engage readers on Pinterest, but how do you grow your following and interactions? As Rachel says, let’s […]
Thanks for posting the link to Rachel’s board. It’s quite difficult to track down authors who are using Pinterest well to promote their brand. For some reason Pinterest for Authors still appears to be a fringe activity … but I think it’s the best possible social media network for an Author.
My pleasure Jay. Pinterest is a fast growing platform but it seems a lot of authors are new to using it as a way to promote their brand. It is an amazing network for authors and I hope I will be able to shed some light on Pinterest for authors with my articles here.
[…] I’ll do my best to answer it from my perspective. I won’t even go into Instagram and Pinterest (both of which I love), but you can read more about Instagram here, and Pinterest here and here, […]
[…] I’ll do my best to answer it from my perspective. I won’t even go into Instagram and Pinterest (both of which I love), but you can read more about Instagram here, and Pinterest here and here, […]
[…] optimize each picture to send traffic back to your blog, book, or service, and consistently share. Review these BadRedheadMedia Pinterest articles for more info on how to do just […]