Pinterest's mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the things they find interesting” — so, where does that leave those of us who have businesses that are more about “ideas (which are harder to take a picture of” than things”).   A few months ago, I would have answered “nothing” — but I've become a convert.  Pinterest is an extremely powerful way to build your visibility and customer base.  Here's why.

1. Pinterest is very effective in driving traffic to your website.  According to Mashable,  Pinterest is driving more traffic to websites than Twitter.  This is especially noteworthy because as of last February, The social media  site has 11.7 million users compared to Twitter's 100 million users.

2. Pinterest users are 79% more likely to buy than facebook users  According to a study done by Marketwatch, customers are more likely to buy products pinned on Pinterest than products they see on Facebook.

3. Pinterest provides a window into the lives of your clients.  Because Pinterest boards cover such a broad range of topics  – you can get a lot of information about your customers by paying atention to “what else” they are pinning on Pinterest.  Are the interested in travel? Pets?  How can you incorporate those things into your marketing message?

Of course visual businesses (selling crafts or recipes) will see the biggest benefits from Pinterest – but you can still take advantage of Pinterest's terrific traffic and link building power no matter your business.

Here is a list of a few things that you can pin on Pinterest:

• Videos – videos get special treatment – they are highlighted on their own page. Posting on Pinterest is a great way to get additional traffic to the videos that get posted to You Tube.

• Pictures from your blog posts.  Choose visually interesting posts for your blog and pin them on Pinterest.  The pin will create a link back to your site.  There are plug ins that will automatically do this for you.

• Integrate with Social Media  Pin your posts and Post your Pins on Facebook and on Twitter.  You can get the engagement of Facebook and Twitter and the conversion power of Pinterest by posting to both places. Again, there are plug ins that will automate this for you.

What tricks have you learned to make Pinterest work for your business?  Would you like to learn more?  Join me for my Pinterest 101 Virtual Day on August 23 and learn all the ins and outs of making Pinterest work for your business.