Writing is a hard thing to do most of the time. But, it’s even harder if no one reads it.

I know. That’s happened to me plenty of times. When I first started writing it was like every word I wrote just disappeared into the void. Like dust dispersing in the wind.

That’s why marketing is just as important as writing is most of the time. This is goes double if you’re a lone writer either self publishing books, articles, or stories.

Now, there are plenty of avenues to market your work. Most of them are known to writers.

Facebook, a given.

Twitter, nearly automatic.

Reddit can be good tool.

But some writers are reluctant to use social media like Instagram as it’s a primarily visual platform and writing is mostly the opposite. People hear Instagram marketing and think Instagram models and D-list celebrities hawking fit tea and the like. But it can help get the word on your writing as well.

And I assure you I’m no Instagram model.

But there are some strategies that work.

Let’s get the most obvious one out of the way.

Use A Picture Related To The Article

I realize this is rudimentary advice.

But, it doesn’t hurt to cover the basics.

Say you want to write an article about someplace you went. You know you had your phone out and took a million pictures. Pick a good one and then maybe put a little snippet in the caption.

Besides, it’s an excuse to brag that you went somewhere and did something fun and that’s what Instagram is really about. Making us feel superior to our friends and family.

Now, it doesn’t have to be a travel article but that’s the easiest to do.

You can also have something that relates to the article in some way. For instance, I had an article about writing with a fountain pen.

Now the caption could have been done a little better. But you get the idea.

Screenshot A Series

If you want to just take a picture of your article, you can do that. but it never looks that good.

For instance, I did this here has an example:

Now, this works but it isn’t the best. This one happened to work out okay, but it can be hard to make the title and image work well together, and it still looks kinda boring.

What I like to do sometimes, if have made a series for article the cover image often looks decent. So I will screenshot and use that as the image before putting it up on Instagram.

Like this:

It’s a pretty quick and dirty way to make something a little different.

But there are other options if you want something more involved.

Use Canva To Make Make Interesting Posts

Canva is one of the most useful tools out there.

Within a few minutes you have have a good looking image that features your words and makes it look much more interesting.

Now this can be especially effective if you have something short to want to just get out there and aren’t worried about linking back to anything.

I’ve used Canva several times for poetry. And it works pretty well.

You can also do it to show snippets of articles, stories, or books, and that works as well.

Matching Your Articles With Drawings

Most of my Instagram revolves around my artwork, but it can also help you promote things you’re working on.

Instead of using a photo, if you have a drawing you can post that as well.

This is my favorite and it sticks out among the throngs of pictures of books, and pens, and socks for some reason? (I’ll never understand writing Instagram.)

For a review of Aquaman I posted this:

For an article about World Wildlife Day I posted this.

And to be honest, I don’t remember what this article article was about that was associated with this post, but it was obviously something to do with elephants.

So if you want to try something other than Facebook and Twitter then maybe give Instagram a try.

Plus, it’s an excuse to draw.