The third most-visited social site is Pinterest

The third most-visited social site is Pinterest

Think back six months. You probably never had heard of a little website called Pinterest.
Pinterest is the third most-visited social-networking site in the United States, according to a report released Thursday by Experian Marketing Services, a digital marketing firm.
Pinterest, which lets its users “pin” photos and info from the Internet onto virtual boards, ranks behind only Facebook and Twitter in terms of total visitors, according to the analysis, titled “The 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report.”
The ranking is based on the total number of U.S. visitors during March and does not include mobile traffic, according to Experian spokeswoman Jennifer Marshall.



Last month, Facebook had more than 7 billion total visitors; Twitter had 182 million; and Pinterest had 104 million total visits from people in the United States.
That ranking puts the newbie site ahead of heavyweights such as LinkedIn, Google+, MySpace and Tumblr.
Since the data doesn’t include mobile traffic, sites such as Twitter, which sees much of its traffic from smartphones and tablets, may take a hit in this ranking, Tatham said.
Pinterest’s traffic jumped 50% between January and February. The report calls the site “the hottest social media start-up since Facebook and YouTube.”
Those stats add momentum to a site that already had become one of the hottest topics of conversation on tech blogs and was known to be one of the fastest-growing networks.
In February, Pinterest was the third-fastest-growing site on the Internet in the United States, with 17.8 million unique visitors that month, compared with 11.7 million in January, according to a report from another Internet tracking company, comScore.
Pinterest launched in March 2010, but it has grown rapidly only in the past six months. Unlike many social-media darlings, tech bloggers in Silicon Valley largely ignored the site until they noticed that it was growing like mad.
The site skews female — about 60% of users are women — and to the middle of the country, according to the report from Experian. Pinterest is most popular relative to other social networks in Missouri, Utah, Alabama, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Pinterest!

Pinterest!

It’s the best thing since sliced bread.
OK, lies. It’s better than sliced bread. On Pinterest you virtually” pin” pictures associated with links to the best ideas and products in every corner of the web.
You can find great new sites, organize them on your pin boards, and share your own products across a platform driven by a female audience (the buyers of the world!).
Sounds pretty perfect, right? Now, you just have to learn how to get the most out of this site.
How to get an account?

Pinterest technically is still open to invited users only. But, you can request an invite at www.pinterest.com/  and one should be sent to you very quickly. It took just a couple of days for mine.
Understanding the terms:
# Pin:
A pin is an image added to Pinterest. You can link to an image from a Web site or upload an image from your computer. Pins can include captions, like “A great way to reuse a coffee creamer bottle.”
#Repin:
Once something is pinned, it can then be repinned by other Pinterest users. This is how content spreads virally. If you see something you like on Pinterest.com, repin it to share it with your friends.
#Board:
This is where your pins live. You can have separate boards for subjects such as a wedding, rooms in your house or favorite recipes.

How to follow:
Just like on other social networks, you build a list of people to follow on Pinterest. This will impact what appears on your homepage.
Users can follow all of a user’s boards or just a single board. Linking Pinterest to Facebook lets a user see quickly which of his or her Facebook friends are on the social network.
Browser bookmark:
By adding a bookmark to your Web browser, you can also pin images from other sites, such as a table at Pottery Barn. When you’re on the retailer’s website, you can click the bookmark to create a pin of that image.
This will automatically link that photo to the website, so someone can find out more if they want.
Adding the price:
When you pin something, try adding the item’s price in the description. Doing this will automatically place a banner over the image with the price listed.
You can also search event themes, such as “first birthday party” for a whole array of ideas.
Instead of explaining:
Perhaps the best use of Pinterest is to paint a clearer picture of what you want than you could ever with words. What wedding planner hasn’t heard something confusing from a bride like: “I’m picturing a kind of classic modernism”?
If you have a board for wedding ideas, just send your planner that link. It will instantly tell exactly what you’d like.
Be careful:
Each page of pins on Pinterest is designed to be seemingly never-ending. As a user scrolls down, more images are loaded so that they can just keep going and going.

And the act of finding such great ideas can be addicting. There are always more good things to see on Pinterest.