As a relatively latecomer to pinterest, I was surprised to find that my invitation request to join the site was delayed for a close to a week. While waiting eagerly for my invitation from pinterest to arrive in my inbox I pondered, what could be taking them so long? After a little bit of investigation I concluded that its 10 million monthly visitors and the fact that pinterest has grown over 4000 percent since its beginning days might have something to do with the delay.

With a new addition to the social media world it seems almost every day, it’s a wonder that any site makes their debut to the net with little more than a flicker of public interest. But pinterest has managed to step out of the social media crowd and capture the attention of millions of web users in only a short amount of time. It is without a doubt the fastest growing social network site on the internet.

As a marketer, it leads me to wonder what does this latest phenomenon mean for business. How can a scrapbooking site enable business owners to best leverage their service or product? Well for those business owners that actually sell a physical product, there is obviously an advantage. Pintertest is a predominantly image based site, whereby users can upload images and pin or repin these to a serious of categorised boards. Once users view boards, the origin of the product or site is displayed and here is the obvious marketing appeal. Pinterest works in a similar way to twitter or facebook, where the more people you follow the more followers you will receive. There is also the technology available now to track if and who is pinning your products. Once you know who is pinning your products, it’s important to interact and engage with these users.

Like any social platform pinterest offers businesses the ability to connect with its clients by liking, repining or mentioning other pinterest followers. Social media coach, Eydie Stumpf, writes in her article “ADVICE: Pinterest offers benefits to small business owners” published online at “The Press-Enterprise” that pinterest offers a great way to engage and foster online relationships with your clients. But the real charm of pinterest lies in its ability to teach consumers more about your brand, not just through your products but through your interests.

By being creative with your boards, Stumpf says that company’s can consider what topics best convey the personality of their brand. Along with consumer products, pinterest users can pin news articles, artworks, videos and websites onto their boards and give consumers an insight into who and what they are about. And given the sheer volume of consumers signed up to pinterest, this may just be a very valuable and might I add free…

So while pinterest may not be for all business owners Stumph argues, it’s certainly worth a try. And after becoming totally hooked myself, I couldn’t agree more. In today’s social media saturated world I suggest business owners step onto the pinterest train while it’s running. You never know what social media site is hot on its trail.

Kiri White