As a writer, your livelihood is all about applying your power of description to paint a picture for your reader, to set them in the scene and arouse all the emotions you need them to feel to connect to your story. With Instagram, the focus is more on the literal picture, though your words are certainly significant as well.
As a marketing tool, Instagram is invaluable, offering the highest audience engagement compared to all other social networking platforms. We have an abundance of information on how to use Instagram as an author and if you need some visual motivation we gathered some authors that are really mastering their Instagram game.
In addition to sharing glimpses into her day-to-day life, Amy is really remarkable about promoting herself. She shares giveaways for her book, shots of new media coverage and updates on book signings. She doesn't stop at promoting herself though; she shares a considerable amount of love for other writers as well.
Laurie Buchanan, Ph.D. | @tuesdayswithlaurie
Laurie travels frequently, sometimes explicitly for the purpose of writing. She shares her views and unique finds on these trips, allowing her followers an inside glimpse at her personal life. She also incorporates her love of flora with motivational quotes that really seem to resonate with her audience.
Ingrid Rojas Contreras | @i_rojascontreras
Looking through Ingrid’s feed you can not only see little snippets of her life but also how she has creatively shared the progression of publishing her first novel. You’ll see the outline pages splayed out on the floor to the excitement of the final cover and all that follows after that.
Richelle Mead | @reallyrichelle
Richelle often re-posts photos that her fans have created (giving photo credit of course). One of the most clever things she does is post things that represent specific characters from her series. She’ll capture a few items and have her followers guess which character they would belong to; an excellent way to get loyal readers engaged.
Angie’s humor and realness are major selling points on her feed. In addition to her media wins, she shares good times with friends, stories of friends asking to be put in the film adaptation of her book and things that make her happy.
Nancy is a pro at utilizing the right hashtags to reach the right Instagram users. She also shares parts of her writing process from her frustrations while writing, books she reads for motivation and even what she eats to get her brain powered.
Glennon writes about embracing your messy, beautiful life and her feed is the personification of that. She shares the obvious; appearances, articles and mentions. What really resonates with her followers is the shared bits of her life which come across as witty, real and yes, a bit beautiful and messy.
Instagram is a great way to really connect with your readers. Marketing yourself is important, but connecting with your audience in a way that they can relate to you can be invaluable. Be authentic, share the parts of yourself that you feel comfortable with and your readers will appreciate you for it.
Great to see you featured here, Laurie.
How FUN to find MY name on this list. Thank you!