Most authors these days can call themselves entrepreneurs. There's a lot that goes into the business of writing besides storytelling. If you're looking to make writing a regular thing, especially when it comes to building and maintaining your writin...
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For those of us who get overwhelmed by conversations and connections, Pinterest is a refreshing platform. You can spend hours looking at pretty things and not have to talk to another human. It's a social platform where you don't have to be social to be successful. Pinterest users are not checking what their friends or followers are up to, they go to the site to plan for purchases, and a whopping 87% make purchases after finding it on Pinterest.
Here are our best practices for Pinterest:
1. Create a Pinterest business account. Even if you already have a personal account, you should create one for your author business. You can also convert your personal account to a business account. There are plenty of online resources to get you started.
2. Optimize your profile with your author brand. Follow the same protocols as you did with your other social media accounts, injecting some personality into your bio and making sure you use brand logos and profile images that your followers will recognize.
3. Verify your website and other online accounts. Along with your website and blog, Pinterest allows you to claim other spaces where you're active; such as Instagram, your Etsy store, and your YouTube channel. Not only will this help your followers find you on other platforms, but you will be able to activate more features, such as and the .
4. Build strategic boards. For author branded Pinterest accounts, you will want to create boards that are of interest to your readers–not necessarily you. If you like to create aesthetics for your stories, such as cast photos and pictures of settings, share those here. But that doesn't mean all your boards should be related to your books. If you write historical fiction, perhaps your visitors would be interested in a board with recipes from that time period. If you write personal fulfillment books, create a board filled with motivational quotes. A horror writer might share images of their favorite villains.
5. Use optimized images. Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is a visual platform. People are going to see your pins before they read your content. That means your pins need to be high-quality and explain why the reader should click on them. Pinterest prefers vertical pins, which stand out better on both desktop and mobile devices. The ideal size is 600×900 pixels, but they will accept any pin with a 2:3 ratio.
6. Be an active pinner. Even though your pins will live on for eons, it is not a post-it-and-forget-it platform. You should be pinning and repinning content every day. You can do this manually or by using a post scheduler; such as later.com or Tailwind. And remember to share your own content whenever possible rather than always repinning existing content. Perhaps you create writing tutorials on YouTube, or you write a blog with tips and advice. Share these on Pinterest. It's an excellent form of cross promotion.
7. Be purposeful with your content. Don't go too crazy. You want your Pinterest page to look clean and aesthetically appealing. Too much clutter, and it could give off a chaotic vibe. White space is your friend here. And choose a board to feature, perhaps the aesthetics for your latest book. The featured board will appear first on your page.
8. Utilize the secret boards feature to organize all your research for your books, or personal stuff you don't want your visitors to see. You can do this by creating a board, then under the edit feature, choosing the Keep This Board Secret setting.
9. Install Pinterest widgets on your website. The Follow button lets people follow you on Pinterest and see things you save. The Pin, board, and profile widgets help you showcase your Pinterest activity on your website. You can learn how to do this by searching Pinterest Build a Website Widget.
10. Include keywords. Research your target audience and build boards surrounding concepts and keywords your audience may search for. You can do this by using Pinterest's keyword search tool. Access this feature by going to your Business Hub and clicking the Ads tab at the top of the page. Then click on the Create Ads. This will take you to the Promoted Pin creation page for creating Pinterest ad campaigns. Select Traffic as your campaign type then click continue to get to the next page. Scroll down until you see the Keywords window. This is where you can start doing keyword research for your Pinterest account. You don't need to create an ad campaign to use this tool.
11. Write an inviting, keyword-rich description for your pins. When people click to pin, the alt tag will show up as the pin description, so doing keyword research and including a great description in the alt tag section of each image is a must. There are helpful resources online for writing an engaging Pinterest pin description.
12. Find your target audience organically by researching related group boards. You can contribute to these boards to expand your reach on the platform.
