Pinterest Is the New Black: A Quick Info-Guide for Pinterest Newbies

Unless you’ve been living underneath a rock, you know that Pinterest is the fastest-growing form of social media. Users are able to organize and share inspiring online images. These images, or “pins”, are put into Boards.

The reason that Pinterest is so big? People want to be organized and inspired. With Pinterest, you can build a virtual library of ideas and items that you would have in your ideal world. And it’s catching on fast…there were 11M users in the month of February 2012, up from 1.2M in August 2011.

Pinning is easy. In order to register, you must either request an invitation from the site itself or from another user. Registration is easy and free. Once you are on the site, you will need to download a “Pin It Button”, which allows you to “pin” the items you see on the web into your boards.

Because Pinterest is an open social network, you can follow any boards that you like.   You can search for pins by using hashtags.  Imagine you are planning a wedding, and you are looking for dresses. By searching for #weddingdress, you will be able to bring up any tagged images of wedding dresses, and not just of those of people whom you follow.  This makes for a giant resource pooling…and it’s what makes Pinterest so much fun!

What’s the best way to build a presence on Pinterest? Be creative, all-inclusive, and connect to people who share the same inspirations as you. And allow yourself the time to explore the community…the more you “pin”, the more you will find!

And don’t forget to use YouTube to improve your social presence… it’s perfect for pairing with Pinterest!

What’s your favorite aspect of Pinterest? Why is it important to your branding?