5 Ways for Writers to Use Pinterest

My earlier post on using Pinterest for your business was a huge hit with some of my copy clients.

And (let’s just be honest) I kind of love Pinterest and probably waste too much time there.

So instead of just getting lost procrastinating, let’s be productive on social media. After all, if we’re using it to advance our careers, we can totally justify an hour of browsing and pinning, right?

1. Share your inspiration

Create a board for each project or WIP! Not only is this a great way to organize research for yourself, it can also be a lot of fun for your readers. Give them so fun visuals and interesting facts to browse along with your words.

2. Promote fellow writers

Social media is supposed to be social, right? So pin the books you love. Pin articles about writers you know. Don’t keep your boards focused only on yourself. Share the love, and others will share it back.

3. Offer a peek into the writer’s life

Social media and blogs have created a craze for lifestyle. Everyone wants to know what’s over the fence. And they’re especially interested when it comes to creative lives that are very different from their own. Give your readers a peek into “the writer’s life” and they’ll be fascinated.

4. Share unrelated content

Have other hobbies and passions besides writing? (I hope so.) Share them! Pin recipes and fitness tips. Have a board about crafts you want to do or tips you’d love to take. Include pins on your obsession with kite flying. Having boards on multiple interests not only broadens the reach of your pins, it helps to humanize you, which is traffic gold on the internet.

5. Include guest posts, features, and news

Did you write a guest post for a popular blog or news site? Was your work featured in a newspaper? Are you speaking somewhere or having a book launch? Pin it! If your name pops up on the interest in a way associated with your work, put it on your boards.

And as a final note, can we please stop with the stereotype that Pinterest is only for women?

Yes, many of the original users were women, and yes, many of the original businesses on there were pinning things about weddings and cooking and parenting.

But I think we can all agree that weddings and cooking and parenting are hardly exclusive to women (or if you think they are, you should take a good hard look around). So let’s be equal opportunity about our social media, all right?