The bigwigs ‘Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus’ have dominated the social media scene for quite some time now. Yet, Pinterest is definitely making its presence known with an amazing growth in popularity. In just the past few months, the number of visitors went up to 11 million; equal to 1/3rd of all Twitter followers! (and only in a few months) That’s huge!

What exactly is Pinterest? – Pinterest is a new social media site described as… “a website that functions much like an online scrap book“. It’s a photo sharing site that allows users to create collections of images that they can also share with other people that ‘follow’ them. The images can come from someone else’s website or your own.

How does Pinterest Work? – How you categorize your images are called ‘boards’. These boards can include a variety of media such as videos, images, text and even items for sale. You can add to your boards with new links, images and text on an ongoing basis. You can also re-pin anything you like, to one of your own boards. The cool thing about it is the images you ‘pin’ will keep track of the website that you pinned them from, which helps you (and your followers) trace the origin of the image! How amazing is that!

Benefits of Using Pinterest –

• Pinterest is easy to understand and use. The design is clever and simplistic.
• Pinterest can increase the number of visitors to your site greater than any other social media site!
• If you carry a product line – you can market and sell your products there.
• As an Interior Designer, it’s a great way to show off your work, your taste and your style for clients and potential clients to see.
• Another benefit that’s a biggie… Pinterest is equipped to deal with copyright issues for images and other posted material. Content owners can complain about the use of their material and ask them to withhold the display of any such material. However… until now this has not been an issue.

Set up your Account – To get started with Pinterest, you have to set up an account with the site. Without an account you only have the liberty to browse through the activity of the users. You cannot participate in any of it. There are two ways to set up an account. You can either receive an invitation from a friend who is a member of the site or you can ask for an invite directly from Pinterest (or just send us an email and we’ll send you one.)

The registration process requires that you integrate your new Pinterest account with your Facebook or Twitter account. If you choose to log in via Facebook be sure to use the “Timeline” format. The sites homepage displays a “Pin Feed” to view activity among boards.

Pinterest is beneficial for the marketing of many different products. Interior design business owners can add “Pin-It” to their websites. This allows your readers to pin items from your website to their boards.

Finally, integrating your Pinterest account with your other social networking sites is definitely a great way to draw more traffic to your website.

Pinterest truly is a great social media site not only for your interior design business but also for sharing the things you like, letting potential customers get to know you, and to stay current w latest industry trends. If you’ve not hooked in to this yet, its time you did!

If you’d like more detailed help and information on how to set up your Pinterest account for your interior design business, check out our “How to Become a Pinterest Superstar” where you can learn how to use this amazing new social media powerhouse at your own pace.