I just checked my Gmail account and saw that CarWasher is now following all my boards on Pinterest.

What’s Pinterest? It’s been described as the coolest (or should that be the hottest?) online social media platform around. Users can create their own pinboards and share the contents by uploading images, pins from other sites or re-pinning photos from other user’s boards.

And just like Facebook you can comment, share, like, email content and search for stuff that you find totally amazing.

Pinterest attracts 1.5 million visitors a day and has more than 12 million users. What’s more, the take-up rate is growing at a faster pace than Facebook did in its infancy.

So what’s the point of being on Pinterest?

Traffic! Traffic! And more traffic!

According to research by Shareholic – a website sharing platform, Pinterest delivers more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined.

If you’re considering Pinterest, below are a few suggestions that will drive extra traffic to your website. Or, if you’re like Cyclonix, a design boutique based in LA, you can move your entire website to this social media platform.

• If you’re going to tell a story, tell it visually.
• Post customer comments and testimonials
• Showcase your awards
• Create a visual history of your company
• Promote your company’s community involvement
• Become the go-to company for expert advice
• Talk about your clients’ successes
• Run competitions

Honda used Pinterest to launch their 2013 CR-V with the theme ‘Pintermission’ and gave some of its most active pinners $500 for participating.

To make their publication more interactive, House Beautiful now allows readers to post photos on their pinboards by scanning barcodes with their smartphones that are printed in the magazine. 

Time Inc’s Real Simple magazine has over 100,000 followers and now its website gets twice as much referral traffic from Pinterest than it does from Facebook and Twitter combined.

I’ve also been pleasantly surprised by the number of dealers following me. These include Gullo Ford, Edmond Hyundai, Toyota of Manhatten and NeSmith Chevrolet just to mention a few.

So if your website hits are starting to make you see red, start pinning.