Pin it on PinterestDriving Traffic to Your Brand

What is Pinterest? Pinterest allows you to organize and share images you find on the web or

upload from your computer.

Pinterest is the fastest growing social network. Number of users in May 2011: 418,000. Number of users in January 2012: 11,716,000.

Pinterest drives more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined.

Right now, Pinterest is available via invitation only (it’s not that difficult to obtain an invite).

Who uses Pinterest? Pinterest stats: 13% of users are male; 87% of users are female.

Age group of most users: 25-54 years of age.

Most users live in Midwest, South, or Central United States.

Some companies who were early adopters to Pinterest: Whole Foods, Etsy, Real Simple, and West Elm. Each have over 10,000 followers.

Book publishers on Pinterest: Random House, Scholastic, Crown, Vintage, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins.

I’m in! Now what? Lingo for Pinners. Pin: An image or video added to Pinterest either from a website using a “Pin

It” button or uploaded from a person’s computer.

Repin: Similar to “Retweet” on Twitter, users can repin items they come across that other users have pinned, adding them to one of their boards.

Board: A set of pins. Users can create boards on any topic (favorite books, recipes, quotes, tech gear, etc.) and can add as many pins and they like.

Tip: follow some big names on Pinterest to get a sense of how they’re using it. Watch and learn.

Marketing Strategies for Pinterest Profile: use a headshot or logo; make your name easy to find; add links to

social networks, use Facebook and Twitter to find friends, top 3 people you repin appear on upper right corner.

Pins: use creative pin titles; tag others using @ symbol; make it beautiful and visual; always credit source for pins.

Boards: Use creative, fun titles (or book titles); mix content (yours & others), Repin supporting images; latest pin is largest image.

Contests: Monthly board contest; pin image of contest rules.

Did you know? You can highlight text and pin quotes to boards on pinterest? Check out the

free version of http://www.shareasimage.com/

You can measure campaigns on Pinterest by using Pinerly. It is in beta testing right now. Sign up for early access.

“Books” is one of the most pinned words on Pinterest.

Always aim to write “likeable” content rather than “commentable” content for repins. Keep descriptions to about 200 words and they are more likely to get repinned.

Follow the discussionFOLLOW TODAY’S PANELISTS ON TWITTER: Kathleen Schmidt:

@Bookgirl96 or @KMSPR; Katherine Rosman: @katierosman; Bethanne Patrick: @JustBethanne; Rebecca Joines Schinsky: @Rebecca Schinsky

USE HASHTAG: #BEA12Pintalk