Looking for décor ideas for your kitchen? Love the shoes in the picture you found online, and have no idea where to even begin looking for them? Or how about food – you see a picture of a delicious piece of cake, but what are the ingredients? The site for all your decorating, shopping, and cooking needs is Pinterest – a social media site where people upload and share photos by “pinning” them to themed boards.

The layout of Pinterest is so very simple – think of a virtual corkboard with photos of different sizes and mixed content arranged in columns. Categories range from crafts, quotes to live by, books, pets, photography, and gardening to name a few.  Being a social media outlet, Pinterest allows users to follow people (no, not stalking…though this can be tough for some of you Pinners), and you can see what your friends are pinning.

Once a “pin” is clicked on, the photo pops out to a larger view. My favorite thing about a social media site like Pinterest, and something many people do not know about, is that once the photo is expanded into the window, if clicked on again, a new browser tab will open into where the photo was found – a product page, an instructional blog, or maybe a recipe.

Pinterest acts as a referral site that leads traffic into retailer websites. Say you find a pair of rad shoes and fall in love with them – click on the expanded image, and it will take you to the product page where you can purchase them. Throw those puppies into your checkout cart, and bam, they are yours. Although Pinterest etiquette states not to use their site as a “platform to brand your products”, Pinterest does promote to subtly show the user how that product can fit into their lifestyle.

Consider Pinterest to be your virtual window shopping tool– you have an immense array of products one click away that you can purchase. It’s like taking every store you love, and merging it into one. Genius? Absolutely! Chances are, whatever you’re looking for has been pinned by someone!