The social media space, even when there’s talk of some saturation creeping in, actually continues to evolve at a rapid pace and in different ways. A prime example of this is Pinterest, a site not even two years old, now climbing up the popularity ladder by leaps and bounds. It has already found place among the top 10 sites in the category of Social Networking & Forums by the Hitwise.

Having firmly established itself as a niche player in the competitive social media landscape, Pinterest is likely to dominate it in future owing to its unique attributes. As we have already mentioned in an earlier post that it will be a major phenomenon to dominate the social media mainstream in the year 2012 so marketers will be keen to leverage it to help share their content and find prospects. And the data seems to suggest so…

•    Estimated user visitors went up by an impressive 429 percent in span of one quarter (September to December 2011), signifying its rising popularity that indeed has taken the social realm by storm.

•    Total same-store referral traffic from it to five specialty apparel retailers was boosted by a whopping 389 percent (July to December 2011).

•    Pinterest now drives more referral traffic flow than Google+, Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube – combined, according to the latest referral traffic report from Shareaholic, on basis of aggregated data from over 200,000 publishers, reaching over 260 million unique monthly visitors every month.

Here are a few pointers to this peculiar social phenomenon

1. The innovative platform terms itself an online pinboard so designed as to compile, organize and share your personal and professional interests. Just to explain the way users can operate on it, here are a few pointers:
2. You can use pinboards for so many diverse things – to seek artistic inspiration, plan events, collect quotes, gather decorating ideas, compile your favorite recipes, and so on.
3. The dynamic social site also lets you check elaborate pinboards generated by other multi-faceted members.
4. What’s more, getting started on it is so very easy and quick. It just takes a few simple steps to set up an account. Once you have done so, you can start populating your pinboard with useful, albeit authentic info and images to draw traffic.
5. You will need some skill and experience to get used to pinning, but once you clear the initial hurdles, you will be readily able to tap its immense branding and marketing potential.

No surprise companies like Baudville, operating in the domain of recognition-award solutions for staff, are launching interactive events (Employee Appreciation Day Gifts, in this case) on Pinterest. Indeed, by reaching out to like-minded Pinterest users, you can popularize your ideas, concepts, business acumen, novel products and innovative services. And all this ultimately will translate into better margins and higher profits.