Following a period of phenomenal growth, Pinterest now holds the third-biggest market share after Facebook and Twitter. Despite this, it is often overlooked as a platform for people searching for baking recipes and home décor inspiration, and many brands still don’t consider the network to be a marketing tool. But it’s time to change that perception.

Here are a few ways you can use Pinterest to promote your business:

1. Set a strategy: Make sure you pin cleverly according to the goal you are trying to achieve. Do you want to drive traffic to your website? Boost your brand awareness? Increase your sales? Whatever it is, always pick relevant images or articles.
2. Create boards with keywords in the title: Pinterest is a great searching tool. Using keywords makes it easier for people to find your business, if it's something they are looking for. Make sure that you select a category for each one of your boards to help people find them and for Pinterest to recommend them as well.
3. Use a “Pinterest for business” account to get analytics: It is always useful to know which of your pins are getting more engagement. This way you can see what’s working really well and what’s not.
4. Do giveaways: Offering free items such as eBooks and podcasts can drive a lot more traffic to your website. In addition to this, it's also a great way to gain more followers with a similar taste to yours.
5. Share your pins and boards on other social media channels: If you happen to have quite a big number of followers on your other social media channels, using them to promote your Pinterest account is a great way to drive traffic to your pins and boards.
6. Build relationships with influencers: Every platform has influencers who stand out within their industry. Relationships with those influencers can benefit your business.
7. Make your products shareable on Pinterest: Make sure a “Pin it” option is included on your website and blog posts. This way, visitors can share your product photos to Pinterest quicker.
8. Use high-quality and vertical images: Pinterest is a visual social network. Therefore making sure your photos look professional – good quality, good lighting, and the right size - is extremely important. According to a research by Curalate, brighter, more colourful images tend to get liked and re-pinned more often, since it catches the person’s attention.
9. Like other people’s pins: Perhaps you will come across pins that you like but aren’t necessarily relevant or useful to your audience, you may want to consider liking them instead of re-pinning them.
   Every time you like someone’s pin they get a notification, this might make them check out your profile and want to follow you.
10. Use Pinterest’s mobile app: Since most of us nowadays spend almost a lot more time on our phones rather than on our computers, the Pinterest mobile app is a must-have! It makes browsing, liking, pinning and re-pinning a lot quicker!