Pinterest: The new social media giant?

Pinterest is quickly becoming hot property in the social media world (already over 10 million users). Whether or not they manage to stick around long term and compete with the other social media giants or disappear into the archives of 'platforms that once were' is unclear but they have certainly captured interest and started off with a bang.

So what is Pinterest?

Pinterest is an online pinboard where you can 'pin' pictures you like and share your own. It allows you to capture images, sort them into themes and share them with others.


This infographic sums up nicely the current situation:




How can writers use Pinterest?


These are just a few ideas to get you started:

  • Planning your book- Use it to find inspiration for your scenes and characters. Make boards for each of your characters to get a complete, visual view of them.
  • Promoting your writing career- Pin your book covers into a themed board. If you're a travel writer pin photos of the places you've visited. Share author photo's to build recognition or your site logo for branding.
  • Sharing videos- Yes videos can be pinned too. Share your book trailers and video interviews.

Infographic via Mashable

4 Comments

  1. Rick18 February 2012 at 22:41

    All these social media sites are starting to become mind-numbing! Anyway, great blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jo Linsdell20 February 2012 at 00:34

    Thanks Rick. Glad you like it :)

    I know what you mean. It seems a new one is launched every day. I'm often asked to try out new platforms before they are publicly launched and I'm definitely a social media junky but at the same time there is no point in having an account everywhere if you don't use any of them fully.

    Big players like Facebook and Twitter are 'musts' but when it comes to the others I think it's best to see which ones work best for you and just go with those. There's not enough hours in the day to become an expert on all of them.

    Pinterest looks interesting and the fact that it can be integrated with your Facebook account is a plus. Seems better for collecting visual aids than for promoting and networking though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Christie Wright Wild22 February 2012 at 21:50

    I just heard about Pinterest a week or two ago. Now I'm hearing about it more and more. Everyone seems to LOVE it!

    Not to be a downer (and please don't give me a ticket for being the grammar 'police'), but there are four grammar errors in the section "How can writers use Pinterest?".

    By the way, those are GREAT ideas! Too bad I don't have a book cover to pin to the boards yet. One day...

    Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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