You must’ve heard of Pinterest by now, the site where daily users have increased by more than 145% in 2012 alone. Out of the time people spend on Pinterest, only Facebook and Tumblr have more time spent on their sites.

Currently 97% of Pinteret fans are female and women post 85% of the content. When surveyed in the USA, the majority of Pinterest users were upper income women from the American heartland.

Pinterest is already generating more referral traffic to websites than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined.

With the ever-changing social media landscape, be malleable and take a look at if Pinterest is right for you & your brand.

Let’s look at some of the business benefits to Pinterest.

1. Backlinks to your website help your SEO ranking.

Go ahead and check if you already have some backlinks (people may have already pinned content from your website or blog). Do this by heading to pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com. With the advent of Pinterest, it will urge blogs and websites to include great images in their posts and on their site.

Example: I shared my website’s manifesto on Facebook & within 10 minutes, one of my friends had pinned it and it got repined 11 times. That’s 12 backlinks to my website thanks to this one image I shared.

Georgia's Manifesto

2. Paint a picture of what your brand represents.

In this day and age, 50% of the equation is how a brand makes you feel (think: Starbucks). Paint the WHY of your BRAND on Pinterest.

3. People can discover your brand.

If you’re in the business of anything beautiful (houses, clothes, travel, crafts etc.) your beautiful things can be shared like wildfire on Pinterest. You can learn a lot about a person by checking out their Pinterest boards. You see a real blend of their life and interests (perhaps more than Facebook). Pinning your content allows people to discover your brand.

4. Add content to your Facebook Timeline & your Tweets.

Don’t broadcast everything you pin but link up Pinterest with your Facebook Profile (it will automatically add content to your timeline) and you have the option to tweet (do so sparingly) the items you pin.

5. Refer traffic to and from your website.

Pin the photo from your latest blog post & people may land on your blog that way. Use the 80/20 rule just like any social sharing. Don’t share/pin more than 20% of your own stuff. Share at least 80% of others.

6. If you’re in the business of selling something, your items can show up with a nifty price tag.

You can do this by simply adding a price in the comments.  It then shows up in the top corner.  I’m sure Pinterest will be involved in e-commerce more in the future.

If you’re unsure if Pinterest is right for your brand, try it out personally and then decide. Sign up for Pinterest is currently by invite only. If you’d like one, add your email to the comment section below or tweet at me & I’ll send you an invite.

Whether you decide to have an account or not, have great UNIQUE images on your blog and people will likely pin them. (If you haven’t used Instagram, try it and add those photos to your blog…it’s easy!) Pinterest has made it so easy to pin things. Get a bookmarklet for your browser at pinterest/about/goodies.

Happy Pinning!