People all over America have been “jamming out” over one of America’s oldest licensed brands – Ball Home Canning – Mason jars. The brand, owned by Jarden Home Brands, has a 96% brand awareness but has struggled in the past to get consumers to try their product. That was until two years ago when the Mason jar had renaissance, all thanks to social media and one key player – Pinterest. Within one year of establishing its presence on Pinterest, Ball’s fans approached over 4,000 and had boards dedicated to the many uses of the Mason jar including – chandeliers, terrariums and soap dispensers. What was the Pinterest activities result? According to a recent article in Ad Age a 20% increase in sales for 2012 and one of the best sales years on record.

While Pinterest does not have ecommerce capabilities yet – it remains a major social media sales driver. In a recent article on Mashable.com, Waiyfair, a home goods company active in Pinterest, found that those shoppers referred to their site were 10% more likely to make a purchase than those who were referred by Facebook or Twitter. Waiyfair did not include non-social users – those who browse but do not have an account or pin. On average it was found that those social/non-social users referred by Pinterest spent 70% more than those who were not.

So how do businesses use Pinterest to their advantage? The first step is to pin! Many successful brands on Pinterest don’t just pin their own items but create inspiration boards for customers allowing them to more fully engage in the Pinterest community. A great example of this is a recent marketing campaign by Kotex, in which they took 50 women that inspired them on Pinterest and created items on their Pinterest board. The women were then sent packages filled with their wish list or pinned items and Kotex branded products, when they received their packages the women then pinned images of the packages. As a result Kotex was able to get 2,284 interactions and 694,853 impressions due to the active users of Pinterest.

So get pinning, find your customers and building your brand!!