Pinterest is the latest rage.  Even for those who don’t own a business. Currently in the US, the majority of users are women but a split decision in the UK.  I have been pinning since about November when a client asked me to add it to her website.  I cutely mistook it for “Pininterest” and she politely correct me!

Now it is everywhere and more and more stats are showing that more time is being spent on Pinterest rather than Facebook.  Now don’t rush out and start pinning your things online — self promotion on Pinterest is a No No!  So I want to give you tips for using it first.

Definitions of Pinterest

Pin – An image added to Pinterest
Pin Board – A group of pins, generally named after a category or theme.
Pinning – How you share content.
Pinner – The person who is doing the pinning.
Repin – When someone else shares a pin already posted to Pinterest.
Pin It Button – What you add to your site to allow sharing.  This will link back to your site automatically when someone pins something form your site. Click here to grab yours!

What Is Pinterest?

Directly from Pinterest – Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.

Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests. Keep reading to find out more!

Still confused? I like to describe it like this…  In my home office — I have a wall dedicated to cork boards that I pin things I love for inspiration — words from magazines, images I printed off the internet, goals I set for myself and fortunes I have received from fortune cookies. Pinterest is this same idea only you can “pin” images, videos, recipes, craft projects, style design ideas, and so much more to multiple boards that do not take wall space. Make sense?

Pinterest is NOT for self promotion.

I am going to repeat this again just in case you missed it above. Maybe you should say it with me one time too? You can (and I encourage you to) include a Pin It Button on your website for others to pin your content but please don’t do it yourself. It is all about what you are interested in and are you really that interested in yourself? 🙂

Social Engagement

Pinterest is a great gathering place to connect with others’ likes, design style, fashion style and more. Much like Facebook, you can like and comment on pins which allows for social engagement and interaction. I think people forget that social networking is about finding people you can connect with based on interest.

You can easily allow potential or current customers to engage together with your content and products via Pinterest and their love for your shit! This is perfect for the obvious companies if you have a clothing line, hand bag collection, anything fashion or artsy! But even if you are an author or realtor or even a home builder, you could use Pinterest to socially engage with ideal customers by creating boards that do not directly market your own products but things you love that could inspire the future customer too. The home builder could create boards that include interior design ideas or home color palette samples to get the buyers thinking and engaging!  A wellness-health coach would potentially post boards around healthy living, recipes, and possibly recommended books to read.

 Traffic

Most brands and businesses have been reporting huge increases in traffic coming from Pinterest.  In January alone, Pinterest had over 10 million unique visitors!  Wow! Did I mention this site is still an Invite Only network? So that number really is amazing!

When you add a Pin It button to your site, it links back to your site automatically, driving traffic from Pinners to your site. Please also know that when you add a Pin It Button, you are granting others to share your work, images, and content on Pinterest.

Pinterest has integrated with Facebook and Twitter to allow pinners to share on their own social networks driving even more traffic to our site!

Image Driven

Remember that Pinterest is Image Driven so you want to always makes sure to have images that are relevant to your products, blog posts or whatever you want your pinners to put a pin on. This will encourage others to check the pins and hopefully want to repin, like and comment!  Images inspire and motivate so keep that in mind when selecting your images. Keep size in mind when you are creating the pinable images too! Most of the time they will be viewed in a thumbnail size.

How are you using Pinterest to find things you love and that interest you? Leave a quick comment below!  Make sure to also follow my boards for inspiration here – http://pinterest.com/alirittenhouse.  Need an invite? Email me and we will hook you up!  And of course – don’t forget to “Pin It” if you dig it!