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03/04/2012 | Website Tips

The web is going Pinterest crazy at the moment. Pinterest is the latest thing in social media, and since its launch in 2010 has been the fastest growing social site ever.

Unlike other social media sites Pinterest is based on visuals, pinning images to your own personal 'pin board' and sharing these images with others.  It's a beautifully built site and people can spend hours browsing through images and 're-pinning' the ones they like to their own boards.

Like all good social media sites Pinterest offers web-developers the tools to integrate with their own websites.  In particular the 'Pin it' button, which is Pinterest's version of Facebook's 'like' or Google's '+1'.  The 'Pin it' can be embedded on your website and allows visitors to quickly and easily pin images from your website on their Pinterest boards.

If your website includes a lot of visuals that you'd like to share, the 'Pin it' button can be a great way to generate extra traffic for your site.  Here are some amazing stats about Pinterest:

• After 2 years the site already has 10.4 million users, growing every day
• Over 80% of pins are re-pinned from other boards
• 80% of users are female, which is in stark contrast to many sites and great for retail traffic
• 30% of users are aged 25-34
• The average time spent on Pinterest is 1hr 17mins, compared to 36mins for Twitter
• Over 1 in 5 Facebook users are connected to Pinterest via their Facebook accounts

Pinterest is a new and powerful way of generating extra traffic for your site. The site offers an exciting new opportunity for leveraging your visual assets like never before. If you'd like to discuss ways in which this might be beneficial for your website please give us a call.

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