Author-readers interaction: #4 Instagram

Instagram is another visual social medium that is rapidly gaining popularity. Since its launch in 2010, Instagram currently has an astounding 200 million active users worldwide and stores approximately 20 billion photos. For those who have never heard of Instagram, it is a fun photo-sharing mobile application. Users (also known as ‘Instagrammers’) can choose to edit the photos using filters and share them via other social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. They could also like other people’s photos by clicking ❤ , comment on the photos and/or follow other Instagrammers.

Similar to Twitter, one can find other book lovers by typing hashtags such as #bookstagram, #bookworm, #amreading. Bookstagram stands for the book community on Instagram. A lot of book-loving Instagrammers post photos of their book collection e.g. bookshelves, To-Be-Read lists. One photo catches my attention: an excited fan getting ready for a book signing session in her hometown in the Philippines (see below).

http://instagram.com/p/pdzCJpAjsn/

With so many social media available out there, how can authors benefit from Instagram? Here are some strategies that can be done via Instagram:

1. Market new books. One of the ways to do this is to reveal the cover of a yet-to-be-published book. In early July, Colleen Hoover revealed the cover of her latest book ‘Ugly Love’. The book, which is scheduled to be released on 5th of August 2014, is already generating buzz via Instagram, Twitter and Goodreads.

2. Organise a contest. To celebrate the release of Hoda Kotb‘s book, Simon & Schuster organised a photo contest titled ‘Ten Years Later’. To enter the contest, keen individuals were asked to upload original photos from ten years ago to Instagram, type the hashtag #TenYearsLater and tag @HodaKotb in the caption. Participants submitted wonderful now-and-then photos.

3. Give a visual glimpse of their personal lives. Amy Tan (author of ‘The Joy Luck Club’) shares pictures of her dog, travels, people she meets and fans posting with her newest book ‘The Valley of Amazement’. My favourite is a photo of her and Matt Groening.

4. Share behind-the-scenes of an author’s work. Jarrett Krosoczka, who is an author, illustrator and TED speaker, shares some of his sketches on Instagram (refer below).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (@studiojjk)

So authors, why not create an Instagram account now? If you would like to read more on its benefits, visit these links: Maximize Social Business and Combined Book. If you are keen to find out more about book-related hashtags on Instagram, check out this brief guide and video.

Do you follow your favourite author(s) via Instagram? If ‘yes’, then ‘Like’ this post.

ps: This is a serial of blog posts about communication methods between author and readers. Check out previous posts – #1 (Twitter), #2 (Facebook) and #3 (Pinterest).