PinIt! Pinterest Marketing for Authors
Pinterest is a marketing marvel that is completely underused by authors is marketing their brand. In my online class PinIt! I’ll be teaching how authors can make the best use of Pinterest.
The Pinterest Experiment #PinIt Series
I’m conducting an experiment! I feel so scientific (which is weird because I did really poorly in science in school). I’m going to be seeing how Pinterest affects the traffic to my blog when I focus on it as my only form of marketing for the next month. I’ll be pinning daily and using screenshots to keep up with my progress. That way I can show you exactly what’s working and what’s not.
Honestly, I’m not expecting miracles. A month is not that long. I’ll be continuing throughout the month of the class as well and see if we can get some momentum but I’m also going to be adding some things for my students that might change the metric. I’m super interested in what might change though so,
Here’s what I plan on doing:
- Posting one chapter of my Friday flash fictions story every week.
- Using Tailwind daily to schedule posts
- Using Tailwind Tribes to find content other than my own to pin
- Manually pinning my own and other peoples content as well.
- Keeping track of my analytics to see if any of it is working
- Reporting here weekly by video vlog so you can see any improvements along with me.
If you’re interested in keeping up go ahead and enter your email address in the box at the bottom and you’ll get updates by email along with a link to my Visual Content Planner for you to use and plan out your Visual Content!
Happy Pinning!
The Magic Of Pinterest Traffic
Here we are at blog post number two in the PinIt series for Authors. I want to talk about why Pinterest is the number two traffic driver behind Google. This is in general and for my website as well. Back when I started writing before I published my first book I blogged twice a week. For nine months before I published Breathe, I wrote blog posts about my journey, about my book, about my life, and about my English Bulldog, Brutus.
I also pinned my blog posts to my Elena Dillon blog board on my Pinterest account. I noticed that not too many other authors did this. I know we all complain about blogging. We complain about having to write something other than our books. We also complain about never knowing what to write about on our blog. It gets tedious. The sentiment is not totally wrong, but the one thing I noticed was the one thing we need. Blogging and pinning created: Traffic.
I got hits to my blog from Pinterest. As a matter of fact, I got a lot of hits from Pinterest. Like all the time. More than Facebook. This surprised me. More than Facebook? Even more than Facebook when I paid to boost those posts on my page. Huh.
And Pinterest, my friends, is free. Okay, that got my attention. I get traffic by pinning my own stuff, and it’s free. That was awesome. I spent some time looking into why Pinterest was working so well. And I told my writer friends about it. Strangely even to this day with as many times I’ve spoken about it, taught it in a class, given a workshop, and told my author friends about it, very few of them have jumped on board.
The problem I think comes from thinking that it’s going to take a lot of work and time they don’t have. There’s a yes and a no to this. The yes part is the steps you have to do to get it set up and going in the right direction:
Make sure your Pinterest account is set up as a business account
Write a good description
Decide what you’re going to pin
Create your boards
Write good descriptions for your boards
Start creating pins from your website
And that’s all you have to do to get set up.
The no part comes in when you get going. It becomes second nature and so easy to create a pin for a post and stick it on a board. Every few days repin it to other boards and guess what? Traffic!
From there you have to have a plan, but that is true for your author business anyway. You should be blogging about your books, your characters, your setting, some of your hobbies, especially as they relate to your writing, etc. And then you create a pin for each post, preferably more than one, and start pinning.
I’m here to tell you the traffic will come. Start pinning stuff about books and reading. Start pinning stuff about writing. Start pinning stuff about the location or genre of your books.
And watch the magic happen.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
Next week? The Pinterest Experiment!
Why Pinterest for Authors?
When I decided to start blogging seriously here on Confused and Terrified Writer I thought about what topic I really wanted to focus on. I’ve been kind of scattered here, really wanting to help my author friends with so many of their problems that came along with being a productive author and business owner but this blog was not coming together in a cohesive way at all. Too many topics and not enough content. And then throw in selling my house and a move across the country and you
A stalled blog!
So, leading into the new year I thought for some time about what this blog should be. What would help my readers the most? And while thinking about what topics I love to talk about with other writers one came to mind right away.
Pinterest.
Wait! Don’t start groaning and thinking I’m leading you down one more path of social media planning and overwhelm. I’m not. I promise. Would I lie to you?
That reaction is the typical one I get from authors who already feel like social media takes way too much time away from their writing. I’m right there with you. Even though I teach people how to use social media, I wish I didn’t have to think about it, feel guilty about not doing it, or overwhelmed with what on earth I’m going to post on it.
But here is the secret…
Ready?
Pinterest isn’t a social media platform.
I’m sorry what did you say, Elena?
You heard me. It’s not social media.
Then what on earth is it?
Shh, I’m going to tell you:
It’s a search engine.
A big, beautiful, VISUAL search engine.
Huh?
Yes and there are some really fantastic reasons why you need to be there.
A lot.
Here they are:
- It’s the number TWO search engine behind Google. That’s huge. More on this later.
- It’s completely underused by author
- It’s free
- It’s where your reader’s are hanging out looking for what they want to do next.
- You don’t have to interact with anyone or be chatty on Pinterest. An introvert’s dream
Now do you see?
The downside, of course, (there is always at least one) is that some of us aren’t exactly gifted in the visual creation department. (Waving madly over here) but there are so many free tools to help us create beautiful pins about our stories that it’s easier than it’s ever been.
Now why am I sharing this with you and not just keeping it to myself and going on my way? One of the things I’ve realized about myself is that I love to help people, I love to teach others stuff that will help them in life and their business, and I really love Pinterest. It’s my absolute favorite platform.
I know I said it’s not social media and it isn’t but it is still a way to put yourself out there so… same, same right? There is still planning involved. However, I would much rather spend my time figuring out the best way to put myself out there on Pinterest than Facebook, Twitter or Instagram than any other. I like all those and they have their place but Pinterest is just plain fun. I’m also going to show you a way to batch your content to make it fast and easy but again, more on that later.
In the next month and a
Full disclosure: at the end of that time I’m going to invite you to take my Pinterest class (starting Feb 11th) through the Orange County Chapter of RWA. It’s super cheap (Like $35? Or something?) and it’s the cheapest it will ever be again. This will be my beta run for the class and after that time it will go live and go up in price. We will have a private Facebook group for the class. In the group, we’ll talk all about Pinterest and help each other plan what to Pin and compare what works and what doesn’t. Trust me, it’s fun.,
That’s it for now. I hope I convinced you to come back and learn more about how to use Pinterest for your author business. This Thursday, January 3rd in my next blog post I’m going to talk about traffic and how Pinterest became my number one traffic driver. Also, how you can do the same for your blog so come back then and check it out!
Until then,
Write On my lovelies, Write On!
Pinterest Is Upping Their Game!
Pinterest has really been upping their game as of late. I really love that Pinterest wants us to succeed with their platform and in our businesses. Cool right? In that vein, they have made some changes over the course of the last few months. If you’re a frequent Pinterest visitor you’ll have noticed the new Follow tab.
The Follow tab is a throwback to the old days of Pinterest where you would only see Pins from the people that you followed and others would only see your Pins if they followed you. Now the cool thing about this is all of your Pinterest followers who are interested in your content (because they followed you!) will see your content first. If your content gets good engagement then it will be carried on to the Smart Feed.
The SmartFeed is filled with content that is like the stuff you’ve been pinning but not necessarily by people you follow. It will be stuff Pinterest thinks you like. So two great ways to get your content out there!
Hashtags. Back at the beginning of Pinterest hashtags worked on the platform. Then all of a sudden they were a big no-no. All the experts said “No hashtags on Pinterest!” So everyone stopped using them. Then all of a sudden toward the end of 2018 the big news was “You can use hashtags on Pinterest again!”.
Now that they are working again you should be using them for your marketing efforts. Use up to twenty quality hashtags that work for your author business in your Pinterest pin descriptions. Done and done. Way to go Pinterest! Another awesome way for people to find our stuff.
I’m really excited about what Pinterest is doing and how well it works for my author business and I hope you are too. If you want to know how you can make your Pinterest account better and improve your marketing efforts I’m offering a discount on Pinterest consulting right now.
6 Reason’s I’m a WordSwag Addict
Let’s just start with the fact that I love apps in general. I love anything that makes my author life faster and easier. Creating graphics, posting on social media, editing photos, cool ways to create short video any of these apps are love, love, love.
WordSwag, in particular, makes it so easy to create graphics in a hurry that it jumped to the top of my list of favorite apps. Sometimes I use it to wish a friend happy birthday on FB but mostly I create fun quotes for my social media when I’m watching TV, standing in line somewhere or waiting for something.
When I first downloaded it, there was no cost except to unlock all the fonts, now there is a fee but it’s minimal. And completely worth it. I’ve gotten more use out of this one app than any other creation tool on my phone.
First reason to love it? It’s connected to Pixabay so there are thousands or royalty-free images to use included! This function alone give it the wow-factor and makes it worth the price of admission.
Second: It’s simple and easy to use. There is a very low learning curve but the images come out looking amazing.
Third: Images download easily to your camera on your phone for easy use with any other app like collage, gif, animation apps. I use it this way all the time. It would be a great addition to WordSwag if they gave the app these functions as well but one app can’t have everything!
Fourth: Plenty of choices of fonts. I have my favorites for sure but there isn’t a shortage here.
Fifth: Has a filtering functionality that works well as well as brightness and blur options that make editing quick and easy. No need to use an editing app unless you need something more fancy.
Sixth: Has quotes built into the app so if you have no idea what you want to post you aren’t stuck looking them up on a web page. It’s all there for you! Huge time saver.
Overall this is a fabulous app that makes it easy for you to create a quick graphic to use for your author business. Haven’t posted anything on Instagram or Facebook for a while? Waiting in line for a coffee? Get to work and promote your author business!
Here is the super cool video from WordSwag giving you a preview of what it can do:
P.S. I will be launching my Visual Content Marketing for Authors class in May and I have a whole video dedicated to WordSwag and how to use it for your author business. Plus a whole lot of other apps and tools. If you’re interested sign up below for my email list and you will be notified as soon as it’s ready to go live!
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