In 2012, the virtual bulletin board Pinterest secured over 10 million active users establishing the site as the latest social media giant right after Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Pinterest is therefore a remarkable marketing tool, a perpetually growing online community that is benefitting businesses using it in a number of ways:
1. More referred traffic
2. More quality leads
3. More sharing on the social sites like Facebook and Twitter
4. More sales
As a business owner, you are probably already on Pinterest. The real challenge is to successfully market on Pinterest. The real question is how do you become a real “pinner”. To help you get started pinning like the big kahunas on Pinterest, here are a few tips and pointers.
1. Organize Your Content
On Pinterest, it is not enough to share things. The whole point of the social site is for people to discover things in a fun and very visual way. Organize your boards and pins in a way that makes sense. Each board should tell its own unique story. Each board should convey a unique message. Don’t dump all your content onto a single board. Sort it out for your audience. Note that using different boards also helps you expand the impact and reach of your brand because you can then reach out to the different segments of your audience in a personal way.
2. Image Quality is Chief 
Pinterest is all about sharing, collecting and organizing images. Therefore it follows that image quality matters a great deal. On Pinterest, blurry, small and images that have a watermark are simply not acceptable. It is true that each and every image you share does not have to be museum-grade but the images should at least look professional. The more effort you invest in your pins, the more you can expect in return.
3. Give Back to the Community
Social media marketing is not about self-promotion and spam. Your success will rest upon how much you give back to the community. On Pinterest, things are no different. Although it might be very tempting to just push content out in a self-promoting way, the challenge is to find the time to be an active member of the community. At least once a week, find half an hour for doing nothing but being a good citizen of Pinterest. Re-pin things you like, follow boards whose pins are good, connect with people who have the same interests as you.
