Promoting your business in a digital age demands an online presence and not only through a company website. Social media and networking has become crucial for small and large businesses alike to grow their client base and let more people know about what they do. Without a social media manager, it can be a time consuming job to create content for Facebook, Twitter and a website so the news that there is now a third super-giant in the world of social media could be more than a little daunting.

Pinterest has exploded onto the UK social media scene with a vengeance and is now ranked up there with the long-established sites like Facebook and Twitter. One reason it’s thought to be so successful is because of the ever-shortening attention span of the viewer and the fact that a picture paints a thousand words.  Pinterest expands on the philosophy behind Facebook and Twitter, that as a business you can show a more personal side through social networking and therefore give people a better sense of what you as a company are all about.

Pinterest is highly addictive, just a warning so you may find yourself sucked into it for a bit. Below is a quick guide on how to get started:

1. To join up you need to be invited, either by Pinterest themselves or if you already know someone who uses the site they can invite you. If invited by a current user you can join up instantly, a Pinterest invite can take a couple of days to come through.
2. Then when you sign up and log on it will ask you what your interests are and gives you a list of categories to choose from. You can select the relevant ones for your business, depending on what the business does and how much of your own personality you want to show.
3.  You can also link it up to your Facebook and/or Twitter account. However, check that it isn’t posting a tweet or a post every time you pin something as the average pinner does 20+ pins a day so it could get annoying for your followers.
4. If you link up via one of those sites it will find your friends via the connections you have on Twitter/Facebook. If you choose not to do that and to keep your accounts separate Pinterest will generate around 50 people to automatically follow.
5. In similar manner to Twitter you then have a homepage with the latest pins from the people you follow. There is the option at the top of the screen to click ‘everything’ and that takes you to a page of all the latest pins from everyone on Pinterest, not just your network.
6. So, once you’re set up you automatically get about 6 boards with standard titles like ‘Entertainment’ ‘Film’ etc, which you can of course edit. These boards are the umbrella subject headings for the pins so for example here at Shake Social we have a personal board for each of us to reflect our interests and personalities. We also have boards about the company and the projects we are involved in.
7. You then add pins by copying and pasting in the URL of a page with an image you like into the add pin box. If you’re browsing online you can drag and drop the ‘Pin It’ button to your toolbar which will then enable you to capture the pin immediately.
8. You can also go through the homepages and like, comment and repin other people’s pins. This is what, on average, 80% of users do.
9. Then off you go, pin as much as you want, have as many boards as you want, people will repin and follow you in a similar manner to Twitter.

It is a great way to not only exhibit your product but also to show your customers where you get your inspiration from, what you do and what you love. It’s better than blog posts and tweets because people can immediately see what it is you’re enthused by and a colourful, visually interesting board says a lot about you and your company. So, send off for your invite today and get pinning!