In the vast array of social media platforms, Pinterest is an often overlooked but extremely powerful marketing tool. Ranked as the 5th most popular social networking site, it’s surprising that many businesses are reluctant to incorporate Pinterest into their marketing strategies despite having no hesitations in using lower-ranked platforms such as Instagram (ranked #8). No offense at all to Instagram – it’s also an exceptionally worthwhile tool – but if you’ve passed up on Pinterest, now’s the time to give it a second chance. After all, Pinterest is one of the most efficient social networks at generating traffic to your company’s website. Deep within a jungle of crockpot buffalo chicken dip recipes, melted crayon canvas art and wedding inspiration (burlap, chalkboards and rustic barnyard centerpieces galore) lies a hidden fountain of potential for your business to tap into that will generate traffic to your site and accentuate your products and services. Here are a few of Pinterest’s advantages that may help you reconsider using it:

More Attentive Audience. People browse Pinterest in a similar fashion as they shop online; they look at things carefully and don’t mind spending more time looking at content. This means you can share more details without having to worry about losing your audience’s attention like you would on Facebook or Twitter. It’s fairly simple – create a few boards with different product and service categories. Pin images of your products and write descriptions with links to your company’s catalog or website. You’ll be surprised at how many people will start pinning, re-pinning, and eventually turning their interest into sales!

One of the best ways to use Pinterest is to take advantage of its platform dimensions and share infographics – you can combine pleasing visuals with detailed but digestible information about your company’s offerings. Infographics take up a lot of space, but that’s good on Pinterest because it attracts more attention towards your pin and ultimately directs traffic to your company’s website.

Great Prospects. Recent studies from Millward Brown Digital prove that people go on Pinterest to do a lot more than browse.

• 93% of Pinners use Pinterest to plan purchases.
• 87% of Pinners have made a purchase after seeing a product they liked on Pinterest.
• 75% of saved Pins come from businesses. Promoted pins drive 5x more incremental in-store sales per impression.

Not only does Pinterest attract lots of consumers, it also attracts consumers with money to spend. Millward Brown’s Study found that nearly 40% of Pinners earn over $100,000 a year. Another interesting finding is that 47% of active Pinners are likely preparing for a major life event, such as a wedding, having a baby, buying a home, or throwing a party. What did this mean for your business? It means these Pinners are ready to make some purchases and open to new ideas and new brands – like yours.

Better Engagement. People tend to scroll past advertisements in other social media feeds, but on Pinterest they actually click and save them! When you create a pin, an automatic link to the image source (your website) is generated. Pinners can then save these pins to their own boards, where their followers can see and re-pin them. Each time your audience likes or re-pins one of your pins, they are circulating more links to your website. An estimated 80% of Pinterest pins are re-pins – that’s a lot of free advertising! Research from Oracle Data Cloud shows that this engagement leads to strong buying behavior.

Take Advantage of Re-pins and let your followers do some of your work for you. Create your pins and let your pinners do the rest. Maximize the potential for pins and re-pins by adding “Pin It” buttons to your company’s website, blog and any other content you share elsewhere.

As you can see, Pinterest is a highly-effective asset that allows your company to connect with your audience and create meaningful engagement with them. Not only can it spread your advertising and media impressions like wildfire, it can also ignite your audience’s offline behavior and increase sales!

New to Pinterest? Here is an excellent guide for beginners. If you’re already familiar but want to learn more about Pinterest’s marketing strategies, Forbes has some great tips for success.

Once you have mastered the fine art of Pinterest marketing, celebrate by choosing from Pinterest’s plethora of cupcake recipes to bake, or try your hand at one of their some three-ingredient peanut butter banana “nice cream” recipes.