The ultimate guide to Pinterest for Book Bloggers

The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest for Book Bloggers

Hi friends! I am really excited about posting my Pinterest for Book Bloggers guide. A few weeks ago I saw some book bloggers talking on Twitter about how they haven’t figured out Pinterest yet, so I thought I’d write a blog post about it.

I’m not claiming to be an expert, but my Pinterest does pretty well and it’s one of my biggest blog referral sources. I get about 370k impressions and 1.7k link clicks a month. Some of my top pins get over a thousand link clicks, which relates to over a thousand blog post views. Let’s jump in!

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Why use Pinterest for book blogging?

I only started using Pinterest at the end of 2020, and since then my monthly blog views have tripled. I was intimidated by Pinterest, as it doesn’t work as a normal social media platform. That’s because it isn’t. Pinterest is a search engine, like Google.

That means people can find your content much more, as Pinterest has over 335 million users! It takes a while for your blog to rank on search engines such as Google, but you can instantly get clicks and views from Pinterest.

Overall I think it’s a must-have for book bloggers (or any blogger). Especially since it’s completely free as well. You can drive thousands of new visitors to your blog just by making a few pins.

And I’m going to show you exactly how, step by step.

Pinterest for Book Bloggers

There are a lot of paid courses and Pinterest scheduling platforms out there. You can definitely take a course, it helps a lot to understand how the platform works. But I’m going to give you the strategy I use, for free, and you can try it out and see if it works.

Step 1: Create a business account

Having a business Pinterest account lets you see insights and other valuable information you might need. Pinterest’s terms of service also require anyone who is promoting a brand (i.e. your blog) to have a business account. So just sign up for one straight off the bat, or turn your personal account into a business account.

Starting out with a brand-new business account offers you a clean slate, but the downside is you won’t have any followers. If you convert your personal account into a business account, you might have to do a lot of board clean-up. Your existing followers also might not be interested in your blog. Ultimately it’s up to you to decide which route you want to go.

Create a new business account

1. If you have a personal account, go to pinterest.com/logout to log out
2. Go to pinterest.com/business/create/
3. Fill out your email, password, and business name then select a business type
4. Click Create account

Convert a personal account to a business account

1. Log in to your personal Pinterest account
2. Go to pinterest.com/business/convert/
3. Fill out your business name and website then select a business type

Step 2: Claim your website

This is another useful feature of a business account. Claiming your domain will help Pinterest to identify any content from your site as yours. Even if someone else pins it. This will come in handy later.

You can simply click on “get started” on your business hub and follow the instructions to claim your domain.

Step 3: Complete your profile

There are 5 sections you will need to complete here: your photograph, your display name, your username, your bio, and your location. I’ve found that using your blog name as your display name and bio works well. People are more likely to search for your blog name than your real name.

{Want more blogging and reading resources? Check out my resource library!}

Step 4: Create (and clean) some boards

Boards are an essential part of Pinterest. If you’ve converted a personal account into a business one, I suggest deleting or making your old boards private. That way you can start off with some new boards to keep your pins organized.

The first board you need to create should be a “blog posts” board. This should be your mainboard, and this is where you’ll pin all of your blog posts. Because Pinterest works more like a search engine, you need to keep keywords in mind when creating boards. Keywords should be specific, but also not too specific. Go for something like “thriller reviews” instead of “thrillers with murder reviews”.

Here are some board names you might consider:

• Book Recommendations
• Fantasy Book Reviews
• Romance Book Reviews
• Bookstagram Inspiration
• Young Adult Book Reviews
• Middle-Grade Book Reviews

After you’ve created the boards, Pinterest will ask you to add pins to them. Skip this step for now, we’ll get to that later.

Step 4: Head on over to Canva

You’ll notice from the photo above that all of my boards look the same. That’s because Pinterest is a visual platform (like Instagram) and aesthetics count. I made covers for each of my boards on Canva.

I used the Instagram-sized photo for the covers since you can see that they show as a square instead of Pinterest’s usual rectangle shape. You can select board covers only from existing pins in that board, so let’s cover creating pin graphics first.

If you’ve ever read any of my other blog posts, you’ll notice I add a graphic at the end of my post that looks like this:

This is my pin graphic, and ultimately the thing I post on Pinterest. You can use Canva for this as well. Canva has a bunch of free templates you can use. The most important thing: make sure it fits your overall aesthetic. You’ll see that I generally use the same fonts and color schemes for everything. Consistency is key, and it’ll make your pins more appealing and instantly recognizable as your pins.

Step 5: Create some pins

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. You’re ready to make your first pin. Head on over to “create” and select “create pin”. You’ll see the following screen:

The first thing I do is add a title. It’s usually the same as my blog post title, so I know it’s optimized for keywords. I also write the caption (usually similar to my meta description). At the top left you can select which board you want it posted on. I use the image I made on Canva, and lastly, add my blog post link. Here’s how it looks:

Step 6: Finish your boards

Now that you’ve made a pin for your board covers, go into your board and edit it. There you can select the board cover and write a short description.

Step 7: Planning and Scheduling

Now that you’re finished with your boards, you can plan and schedule some pins. Pinterest has a free scheduling service, but I prefer to use a website called Later.

Later lets you schedule content on multiple social media platforms, including Pinterest. The free version only lets you schedule 30 pins a month. I schedule much more, so I use both Later and Pinterest to schedule.

Now here’s the thing about Pinterest. Like regular social media, it matters when you post. How do you know when to post? I’ll give you a tip. Sign up for a free Tailwind trial. Tailwind is a Pinterest scheduling app that gives you the optimal times to post and how many times to post a day. Then simply copy out the times that Tailwind gave you and use them when your trial ends.

The times will be different depending on your timezone and such, but my times look something like this:

Sunday: 4:18, 4:53, 18:33, 22:50

Monday: 4:44, 5:30, 23:00

So that means that I should be posting 4 times on a Sunday at those times, and 3 times on a Monday at those times, for optimal reach.

It works like a bomb.

How do I schedule content? Let’s take a look

Let’s use my review for Girl, Serpent, Thorn as an example. I have three graphics ready to go: my bookstagram picture, my Pinterest graphic, and the book cover.

I schedule them according to the times I got from Tailwind, and usually according to these boards.

Bookstagram pic – Bookstagram board

Pinterest Graphic – All Blog Posts board, and All Book Reviews board

Book cover – All Book Reviews Board, and Fantasy Book Reviews Board.

That means I have a total of 5 pins for one blog post. You’ll notice there’s some cross-pinning happening between the boards as well. Unfortunately, you need to pin a LOT with Pinterest, but I schedule them all in one go. It saves a lot of time.

Step 8: Join some group boards

Another way to boost the number of times you pin is by joining group boards. A group board is basically what it sounds like. Instead of having only one person being able to pin to a board, a whole group of people can do it. I usually find them by looking at other book bloggers’ boards and joining their group boards. You can find one here too!

There you have it! That’s basically my Pinterest strategy in a nutshell. If you have any questions or need any additional advice, please feel free to DM me! Also if you like this post, please consider buying me a coffee! Thank you for reading!

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