Pinterest and real estate is a perfect fit. How many people do you know that used to keep magazine clippings of decorating ideas? And plastic bags filled with fabric and paint swatches?

As a virtual pinboard, Pinterest offers the ability to upload, share, and “pin” images to your bulletin boards, also known as pinboards. From the very first day of using the site, users have found an immediate obsession to the site due the various uses and images they are able to save. There are benefits to Pinterest for both general users looking for some inspiration, as well as business owners who want to further their influence.

Using Pinterest offers you a unique opportunity to influence your audience. Pinterest is free to use and since it gets over 10 million unique visitors each month, you have a large audience to reach out to. This is also an audience that has money to spend. With over 25 percent of the majority female audience having household incomes of over 100K per year and a bigger buying mindset than any other social media, it would be crazy to miss out.

Pinterest is different from a lot of social media because of its visual nature, you get to use your creative side. Creating graphics and infographics that appeal to your audience is a creative endeavor that has a big payoff. Learning what type of pins your niche market is looking for and delivering them can produce great success. If you do it right you can use Pinterest to build influence within your niche. What’s more, Pinterest is incredibly easy to use. The ease of use makes it appealing to a broad range of people and you’re sure to find an audience within your niche.

The Benefits of Pinterest

Becoming a major influence on Pinterest is more than being an everyday user; you will be taking advantage of every tool and benefit Pinterest has to offer. During which you will discover that Pinterest may be the best opportunity yet to help you build influence with your target audience. Consider these facts: Pinterest users, who are almost 70 percent women, spend more than 15 minutes a day on the site and is growing by leaps and bounds every single day. If you want to influence this audience, then you need to be there too.

• Gain Consumer Insights. Using Pinterest to test marketability of new product or service ideas is an excellent way to gain consumer insights. Using Pinterest analytics will help you know how many people pinned your information from your site, and what pins are most popular right now among all pins being pinned. If you have insight into what your audience wants and needs you’ll be that much more likely to become an influence to your market.

• Get More Traffic. There is no doubt that Pinterest, when used right is a dynamo at helping improve traffic to your online real estate. Most businesses report getting more traffic from Pinterest than any other social media.

• Make Valuable Connections. By creating a group board you can invite others to contribute to your board, creating a valuable way to connect with other movers and shakers. Even with regular boards, if you are creative enough and promote it well enough you can connect with others and become the influencer.

• Get New Home Decor Ideas. Surfing around Pinterest looking at other people’s boards and pins will enable you to spark ideas for new ways to decorate homes. People who are on Pinterest are product and service minded, therefore you will find a lot of wish lists and vision boards that can give you terrific ideas.

• Showcase Your Listings. Boards are a great way to demonstrate what you do. Real Estate is a visual business and fits right into the Pinterest model and focus your boards toward your audience.

• Develop Authority. By demonstrating your knowledge about a certain topic through your boards, and through the boards and pins that you share from others you can become a thought leader in your industry.

There are so many benefits to using Pinterest that it’s hard to list them all, but I think you get the idea. Using Pinterest can help you build the authority you need to become an influential voice in your niche.