This Guest Post is by Teresa Fritschi, author of All That I Need
Marketing your Indie book – authors, get ready for some heavy lifting with Pinterest.
Over the last six months the ascent of Pinterest has come almost equal to the dominance of Twitter and Facebook. You have likely asked yourself “what is all the noise about?” So I did. I asked. Except that unlike you metaphorically asking, I naively posed my query to syndicated radio talk show host @carol_mcmanus, The Linkedin Lady, and her Wednesday afternoon co-host @KenHerron. What? You mean you didn’t hear that vortex sucking sound come through your computers’ speakers? Astonishing. If you are inclined to listen to the following week can be heard here.
1of2 On last week’s LIL show, #author @TeresaFritschi asked us how she could use #Pinterest to market her new book – http://j.mp/ICf3EE. ☛
2of3 @carol_mcmanus and I challenged @TeresaFritschi to create some boards, and then come back on today’s show to share her experience. ☛
3of3 Join us on TODAY’S show (http://j.mp/ivnYHk) as @TeresaFritschi shares what she did on #Pinterest, what she learned, and the results!
12:18 PM – 11 Apr 12 via web · Embed this Tweet
Like many writers I am mighty particular about ‘presenting myself in fullness of being’ – that is perhaps a little more true for me because for 23 years I have been a marketing communications professional (authorship is my latest, mid-life incarnation) – so learning a new social media technology platform in less than a week, thinking about the content from a strategic perspective, and then speaking of it to a satellite radio audience, was not exactly on my bucket list in the midst of tax season!
I spent 12 of those years working with ridiculously smart men and women in start-up environments who developed enterprise level technology solutions – as a result ‘Beta’ doesn’t mean a type of fish to me. In my humble opinion, despite its rapid growth and 35 million Pinners, Pinterest is still very much a Beta product.
Following you’ll find my Live Tweets during the show related to my Pinterest experience – so you, dear reader, understand my perceived limitations of the platform.
Warning: Pinterest is not intuitive.
Teresa Fritschi @TeresaFritschi
@carol_mcmanus @pinterest lessons: 1. Like any good art direction, copy writing, this about your brand – think strategically about content
5:44 PM – 11 Apr 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® · Details
@carol_mcmanus @pinterest lessons: 2. Hate scrapbooking? This #smm platform is not going to be a good fit 3. You cannot use your Blackberry
5:47 PM – 11 Apr 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® · Details
@carol_mcmanus @pinterest lessons: 4. GUI is not intuitive, very Beta in function, complicated by multiple steps instead of easy navigation
5:49 PM – 11 Apr 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® · Details
@carol_mcmanus @pinterest lessons: 5. “Unpin” means “delete” – how about “delete pin”? 6. #tags #SEO I hope r built in b’cuz no place 2 mark
5:51 PM – 11 Apr 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® · Details
@carol_mcmanus @pinterest lessons: 7. Pins r loaded in reverse order, u cannot rearrange (like eBay images), ur board may NOT look as plan’d
5:59 PM – 11 Apr 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® · Details
@carol_mcmanus @pinterest lessons: 8. I don’t want to discover what’s on #Pinterest & select others boards before I do mine, can I do later?
6:02 PM – 11 Apr 12 via Twitter for BlackBerry® · Details
@carol_mcmanus @pinterest lessons: 9. Finally, enormous POTENTIAL 2 supplant #FB & Twitter, would LOVE 2C integrated “newsletter” function
After you request, and subsequently receive, your invitation to join Pinterest you would logically assume that the next screen will allow you to create your ‘boards’ – not so! You will initially face a list of topics of interest to check off – which is really annoying because all I wanted to do was make my deadline for The Linkedin Lady Show!
If there is a way to skip this I couldn’t find it, so I ticked some categories (only delete the suggested boards to follow at the end of this exercise) and moved onto the tasks at hand. Thanks for the suggestions Pinterest, but I prefer to go about the discovery process later.
Writers paint with words. If we aren’t writing illustrated children’s books we count on the intelligence of our readers to translate our words into personally meaningful visuals. So just posting text in a very scrapbook/memory board like digital environment will fall very short in utilizing the Pinterest platform to your best advantage.
Really THINK about the content of your book. Pinterest is based upon uploaded JPEGs (single page) and URLs, please note, there’s no ability to shuffle the pages into the correct order so, you must upload in reverse order to have your text read correctly.
In the case of chapter 3 entitled “Duncan” this also required my washing and hand waxing, tire glossing and the removal of brake dust from his aluminum alloy wheels in 38 degree weather, driving to someplace scenic, getting the camera out, ensuring just the right amount of light, take his picture, and then get to my computer – uploading this image prior to page 8, then page 7, and so forth. It’s the very reason I had my Pinterest invitation for more than six weeks. I uploaded the two chapters which have been up on SlideShare since December.
Here’s the thing, to view image each must be clicked on – there’s no advance to the next screen navigation (yet). I will likely be redoing the font size of each of these chapters because quite frankly they are unreadable in 12 font, which will take the 8 pages and very likely make them 14 pages in length. You might want to format your pages using a larger font in advance as a result of my experience.
Do NOT reasonably assume you can do this with a glass of wine to accompany the uploading of your text pages, nor answering the phone or engaging in a conversation, anything which will distract you should be avoided while you reverse upload. I can only offer this warning you will see what I mean later. To be noted, if you have more than one board do make certain that you use the pull down menu each time you are uploading a new page because, as I discovered, Pinterest doesn’t have a memory algorithm built in returning you to the same board you have been working on.
I decided it might be a good idea to create a separate ‘board’ to share visually some of what readers will find inside the 23 chapters of ‘all that i need, or live like a dog with its head stuck out the car window’. This aspect of Pinterest – its original intent, to share images, into a kind of wish list/marketing tool with the magic which Neiman Marcus or Harrod’s offers before the holidays (which I embraced to highlight products from my company Thistle & Broom and images of Scotland where it’s based) . As long as there wouldn’t be taxes to pay on it, who wouldn’t want the contents of one of the more over-the-top boards to be delivered to us by the FedEx truck?
What I don’t like about this is based upon my art direction background and the general belief that anyone with a proclivity for scrapbooking or memory boards (which I do not) or ‘refrigerator art’ (which I do) rearranges all that stuff so that each item supports the one next to it to tell a compelling story and looks handsome. You cannot rearrange! Can you imagine if we were once again forced to write long hand using precious vellum and quill and not be able to swap a sentence or paragraph or chapter at will? Argh. It’s startling that the user interface, in this day and age, does not function as even eBay does but…
Once you upload a couple of images you’ll see what I mean, and going back to my point about ‘being mighty particular’, I wound up deleting and then rearranging mentally before uploading a second, (again in reverse order of hoped for viewing) and then a third time to get this board to look compelling.
The result of my images is likely as confusing as my indicating that my book is like “Led Zeppelin meets Mary Poppins”.
In the ever dynamic landscape of Social Media Marketing we must embrace new technologies as we become aware of them – remember how shocking the idea of self-publishing was until two years ago? But, as a communications professional I can reasonably counsel that like any marketing effort there is no guarantee Pinterest will actually help you sell books or increase your name recognition.
For that reason alone it should NEVER be considered one of your primary marketing efforts but, rather something to be done ‘in conjunction with’ an overall marketing plan. And, once you have an account, make the effort to keep updating your content to ensure Search Engines happiness and your online presence is dynamic and viable.
You can visit all of my Pinterest boards here: http://pinterest.com/teresafritschi/
And my book, ‘all that i need, or live like a dog with its head stuck out the car window’ is available on Nook, Kindle and iTunes as well as print-on-demand.
Happy Pinning!
Teresa Fritschi is an international award-winning marketing communications professional. All That I Need, or Live Like a Dog With Its Head Stuck Out the Car Window is her first book. Ms. Fritschi splits her time between Rochester, NY and Edinburgh Scotland.
