11 Things You Need to Know about Pinterest

1. How does it work? You join, you surf the web, and you "pin" things you're interested in. Then Pinterest helps you choose the best image, and voilà... it becomes a “pin” on Pinterest.com for those who share your passion to enjoy!

2. It's a very visually oriented social media tool. It’s a social bookmarking tool with pictures and a wicked layout.

3. You could call it "pine-" terest. Members pin pictures of things (and people) that they pine over - think Ryan Gosling, chocolate cake and those great new yoga jeans.

4. It's growing very fast – Pinterest had 104 million visits in March 2012, putting it in third place for most popular social media site behind Facebook and Twitter (and ahead of Google +, LinkedIn, Flickr, Picassa).

5. Pinterest has achieved 10,000,000 members faster than any start up in US history.

6. Recently, 97% of all Pinterest fans on Facebook are women, and about 60% of Pinterest users in the US are women.

7. Pinterest drives more referral traffic to websites than Google+, YouTube and LInkedIn combined.

8. It's used by brands such as Gap - Pillsbury - Whole Foods - UNICEF.

9. You can use it for your brand to promote your best (and most photogenic) products and services.

10. If you’re going to use Pinterest, be careful to add value to the Pinterest user experience through what you’re advertising. You’ll turn Pinterest users off with shameless self-promotion.

11. You can give your brand personality with Pinterest. Pin stuff your brand is interested in. Design company? Pin beautiful art and design. Travel company? Pin images of remote locations.