Pinterest.com is a social community set up as a virtual bulletin board. So users share images and links they like on “Boards” organized by topics. Once content is pinned, another user can then “Repin” the content.

Estimated unique visitors to Pinterest.com increased by 429% from September to December 2011, jumping from 1.68 million visitors to 7.21 million visitors.

It already ranks number 5 (based on Experian Hitwise data week ending 11/26/2011) for Social Networking and Forum Websites driving the most traffic. Facebook is number 1, followed by YouTube, Twitter, and Yahoo! Google+ ranks number 9.

HGTV, Norstrom and West Elm are just a few of the brands that are starting to build a list of thousands of followers on Pinterest.

Personally, as someone who is very visual driven, I do find Pinterest to be much more exciting for me than Twitter. Maybe it’s because it’s still new to me. I do suspect that as our society becomes less and less literary, the visual appeal of Pinterest isn’ unique to me.

I also like it for its simplicity. Which is something I hear other users saying as well. I think Twitter and Facebook have gotten somewhat complicated and personally, for someone who too often already feels overwhelmed by technology, Pinterest is refreshingly simple. And surprisingly useful.

As we try to remind you over and over again in The Social Media Road Trip Workshop, these shiny new tools can be exciting, but first you have to formulate your social media strategy before determining which of the shiny new tools to throw into the toolbox.

However, Pinterest does offer some nice strategic opportunities including Listening, Learning and Increasing Brand Awareness.

-Kevin McIntosh