As the latest social media star pupil, Pinterest has been gaining popularity steadily and looks set to confirm this status as the fastest growing social media platform of 2012. Think of a virtual pin board where users pin items of interest and make a real connection with someone else who may well share the same pastimes, interest or hobbies. And that’s Pinterest. But why should you consider Pinterest for your business?

You could say it is almost the most human of social networks. As it has been set up to let you organise items of interest to you in the form of images. It has been used to plan weddings, decorate homes and organise recipes (which is a personal favourite of mine).

The guys at Pinterest are also pretty clear in what they’re trying to do. Their mission states…“Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people. With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests”

What’s so great about Pinterest?

• Helps build your brand online and increases exposure of your products
• Cross platform collaboration with Facebook.
• Great analytics – you can easily see your activity and others activity on your boards etc
• Pinterest also provides two pin it buttons. The Pin It Button, allows your site audience to click on that button and could even pin your articles or content to their pin-board. The other button which is the “Follow me on Pinterest” button allows you to send people to your own Pinboards. This really is very beneficial for a website or even a blog.
• Each image links back to the page the image came from originally
• It’s so easy to use … re-pinning and sharing is simple.
• You can overlay your price. You can simply put the price in the description field and the price overlays the image, allowing pinners to see how much the item costs and click back to where they can buy it (Only working with $ and £ at the moment but we hold out hope for the €)

So, can the images on your site be pinned? If you don’t know you need to find out – and fast. Download the Pin In plugin for your browser and start pinning your own images http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/

And if you’re not on it yet, just let me know and I can send you an invite…

Check me out on http://pinterest.com/sandrahennessy/#