Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers [INFOGRAPHIC]

5 Crucial Steps for Marketing Success on Pinterest Pinterest is no longer invite-only, so if you don’t have an account, there is no better day than today to sign up. Here are five crucial steps to take to ensure Pintrest becomes a successful marketing activity for your brand. Step 1: Create your product boards with subletly A great example of subtle product board on Pinterest comes from Express.com. Add a description to your Pinterest board to set the tone. The board itself does not only include product shots of the fragrance. Placed strategically within those lifestyle images is a product shot that links back to the website where it can be purchased: Example of a board where the product pin is subtly added among lifestyle pictures. This is a subtle but effective way to do marketing on Pinterest. Step 2: Search by your URL After setting up your account and creating your boards, you should filter pin results by the URL of your website. Example of searching by URL on Pinterest to help find your community. Commenting on a pin once is nice.

Pinterest Use Is On The Rise: Here's Everything You Need To Know About The Internet's New Darling NEW YORK — Oh, you pretty things. Just look at the mama giraffe nuzzling a baby giraffe, that lovely idea for an indoor planter made of mason jars and those perfectly cooked bacon strips cooling on a plate. This is what people are circulating on Pinterest, the latest website-of-the-moment for sharing things you love. Clean and simple to use, Pinterest attracts people who need to organize the chaos of Internet-age information overload. The site's popularity has exploded in recent months, making it one of the fastest-growing websites in history. What makes Pinterest's surge unusual is that it's driven not by the usual geek crowd of young men from New York and San Francisco, but by women, many of whom live in the Midwest and the central U.S. Angela Bitz, a secretary at a hospital in Davenport, Iowa, says she was drawn by the site's layout and ease of use. Much of Pinterest's appeal is about displaying your plans and hopes. Librarians are using the site to "pin" reading suggestions. Online:

The 10 Most-Followed Men on Pinterest When you think of Pinterest, what kind of user comes to mind? If you answered "a woman who likes crafts and chocolate," you're not alone. However, men represent an influential presence on the social network, too. In fact, 10 out of the top 45 Pinterest users are men. We utilized social analytics tool ZoomSphere to determine the most-followed men on Pinterest. SEE ALSO: How Pinterest’s Female Audience Is Changing Social Marketing Do you think more men will join the Pinterest craze?

5 Food Brands Building Social Buzz on a Budget Bob Marshall is a social media strategist for SociaLogic Marketing. SociaLogic provides social media strategy, community management, and content development for clients in the food, CPG, and automotive categories. Follow him @Bob_SociaLogic. By now, most brands are rightly viewing social media as an integral piece of their overall marketing strategy. In reality, there are several standout social media marketing tactics that can mobilize an enthusiastic audience while remaining cost effective, and the food industry has consistently been a leader in this department. SEE ALSO: 8 Best Practices for Food Brands on Pinterest The most successful brands are discovering three truths about social media marketing. Here are five food brands that prove a company can build social media buzz without draining the marketing budget. 1. Chobani Greek Yogurt is an innovator among health food brands. 2. Whole Foods shines when it comes to giving users something to talk about. 3. 4. 5.

8 Best Practices for Food Brands on Pinterest Janet Helm is the chief food and nutrition strategist of North America for Weber Shandwick. She is the author of the blog Nutrition Unplugged and co-founder of the Nutrition Blog Network and Healthy Aperture. She has been a contributor to Cooking Light magazine and is currently partnering on a book with Cooking Light. Pinterest has become the fastest growing website ever, now with nearly 12 million monthly users. The site illustrates the evolution from the “social graph” to the “interest graph” – or the shift from friend-based networks to those that connect people based on their shared interests. Food is one of the major niches or shared interests on Pinterest. Not surprisingly, food bloggers have also become Pinterest power users. SEE ALSO: What Paula Deen's Cookin' on Pinterest , Y'all While the Pinterest terms of use prohibit commercial use of the site, Pinterest's lack of enforcement means that marketers are rapidly turning to Pinterest to help visually curate their brands. 1. 2. 3.

Top 10 Alternatives to Pinterest There is certainly no denying the ever-growing popularity of Pinterest. With over 2.5 million users participating in the beta, Pinterest provides a new and unique way to discover and share the web. This growing popularity has, of course, spawned numerous sites that utilize a variety of Pinterest elements. If Pinterest doesn’t seem to be quite what you need, you might consider trying one of the many alternatives. Gentlemint The front page of Pinterest definitely doesn’t scream masculinity, so “manly” alternatives are always arising. Price: Free Developer: Brisky Business, LLC AppStorm Review: Gentlemint: Pinterest for Men We Heart It While Pinterest is popular with a variety of ages, teens are not really its target audience. Price: Free Developer: We Heart It, Inc. Knack Registry Finding items to purchase or make is definitely a very popular way to use Pinterest. Price: Free Developer: Knack Registry Jux A large part of the focus of Pinterest is sharing images. Price: Free Developer: The Juxers

13 'Pinteresting' Facts About Pinterest Users [INFOGRAPHIC] It's no secret that the Internet loves Pinterest. Now, most users are even spending more time, on average, pinning than they are on hanging out on Facebook. Here's what you need to know about Pinterest user demographics. With an average of 1.36 million users daily, the social photo pinboard has taken the web by storm, and top online retailers are following suit. Who are these feverish pinners? SEE ALSO: 10 Most-Followed Users on Pinterest Using stats from comScore and a few other analyses, full service agency Modea has put a few interesting facts about Pinterest into visual form with this infographic.

How Pinterest Will Transform the Web in 2012: Social Content Curation As The Next Big Thing The most interesting wave hitting the social web in 2012 is social curation. This was kicked off in 2011 as Pinterest's growth was noticed by Silicon Valley and a number of companies quickly followed suit - Snip.It launched as a social information curation platform, Quora adopted boards for a similar purpose, and Fab.com launched a structured social commerce feed. In this blog post I will discuss the evolution of social media from long-form to push-button, the emergence of social curation on sites such as Twitter and Tumblr, and the move to structured sets of curated content on Pinterest and its brethren. But first, the meta-trend.... ...Social Media: Evolving From Long Form To Push Button In the evolution of social media over the last decade, the trend has been a move from long form content, which has high friction of participation (both on the production and consumption side) to ever lower requirements placed on a user to participate in a conversation.

Oh, How Pinteresting! Why Pinterest Could Point To the End Of Twitter (Opinion) You’ve probably heard of the new social bookmarking experience Pinterest – but are you aware of just how it can change the current landscape of the Internet? As things stand, large companies like Google and Facebook are cosying up to their users, intent on becoming a fixture of the World Wide Web and being de facto choices for users for search and social networking. Google is even keen on moving into the social side via Google+, although this is really little more than a competent exercise in data mining. Traditional social bookmarking services such as Digg and the dominant method of sharing links, Twitter, are both at risk from the polished presentation and simple features of Pinterest. Pinterest is More Powerful Than Digg Many websites continue to rely on the tried and tested success of services such as Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon, useful online services that allow web surfers to find and share websites and articles that interest them. Pinterest Is Not Another Google+