Pinterest for Business - Blogs worth a read

*Please Note - Save this page! I will be adding to it as I find more blogs that you need to read!*

Currently I am working with a lighting company. Visual design and imagery is a really important marketing strategy within the interiors industry. As an avid user of Pinterest for personal use, I felt very comfortable with the prospect of setting up a business page. With the shear amount of content on there, it seemed a natural part of the marketing strategy.

I inherited the page in June last year and started adding pins, liking and repinning with enthusiasm. Over the last year I have completed a professional certificate in social media marketing and discovered a huge host of blogs and helpful guides.

It was an important realisation when I realised there was a lot more strategy to operating this effectively then I had realised.  Figuring that I can't be the only person to find this out, I thought I would start collecting all the useful Pinterest blogs here.

Enjoy at your leisure.

1) How to start a Pinterest Board that Succeeds by Kesley Libert - 31st March 2015. Social Media Examiner.

This blog contains something that is often overlooked - especially by independent traders - Keywords. Having the correct keywords will have a direct impact on your target market's ability to find you.

Kesley takes you through some really simple and easy to follow strategies for developing your database of keywords. These can be used for all of your social media channels. In addition, if you are a retail store, you can also use them to optimise your products and your site's meta data.

A Magical Book Review - The Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Book: 

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Part 1 of the All Souls Trilogy

Length: 

688 pages

Published: 

2011

Diana Bishop is a descendant of the Bishop witches - a powerful witch lineage. After her parent's murder when she was a child, she has gone out of her way to deny her supernatural heritage. She is now an academic visiting Oxford university. She is putting together a study about Alchemy - the point at which magic starts to become science.

This is a world where Witches, Vampires and Deamons exist in a universe with humans. They are part of the society around them, but also have their own separate existence.

Talking of vampires, Matthew is a 1500 year old vampire with a mixed and intriguing past. He is also an academic and studying genetics. He specialises in looking into the origins of witches, deamons and vampires and their interlinked genetics.

The problem starts when Diana summons an ancient manuscript from her study paper. This is an manuscript that has been lost for centuries. Suddenly, everyone wants to know what it says and denying her heritage starts to become more difficult.

This book can be read as a modern, supernatural, Romeo and Juliet story.  There are hints within the novel that this was a foretold match. However, their love is not as simple as it originally seems.

One of my favourite plot concepts in this novel is the use of genetics. I studied some genetics at university and I fully appreciated (and enjoyed) the integration between genetics, Darwin's theory of evolution and supernatural ideas. If you like science and supernatural stories this book is worth taking a look at.

Around 2/3^rds of the way through this tale I began to realise that the story would not be finished by the last page of this novel. Which was slightly disappointing. However, it is exciting to have the opportunity to spend more time with the characters. Deborah definitely leaves you wanting to know what happens next.

Overall, the book was something I was really looking forward to reading. It definitely lived up to my expectations. 

Reading Challenge Points

-          A book with more than 500 pages

-          A book with non-human characters

-          A book by a female author

-          A trilogy (Part 1)

-          A book with magic

-          A book by an author you have never read before

-          A book you own but have never read

Book Review: Twisted Wing by Ruth Newman

Twisted Wing was one of my many charity shop buy bargains. It's a murder mystery story set at Cambridge University. However, the twist at the end makes it a little different to the norm.

Ruth Newman is a psychologist and uses this to great effect as a plot tool. I think I can safely say she uses her knowledge of multiple personality disorder to create a very twisted love story. The main character, Olivia, is as scared and frighted as the rest of the students. However, she has no idea about her significance to the plot. Her boyfriend gets arrested after graduation and she's shocked and horrified.

This is a fantastic murder mystery novel which uses novel plot concepts and has some great characters. Well worth a read.