Making pinterest work for your salon

You may already be addicted to Pinterest, which is the fastest growing social network in history, but how many of you are using it for your professional lives, too? It's ideally suited to the hairdressing industry as Valorie Reavis explains.

Pinterest is a social network where you can show off what inspires you by 'pinning' images and visual concepts to various virtual boards. What's better is that you can also easily link up with those with similar interests and swap ideas. It is, effectively, a huge, virtual mood board that takes collaboration to a new level.

There are business implications for this as well as creative. Imagine how professional and on-trend you'd look to clients showing them a style guide on an iPad as you go through your consultation.

Better yet, clients can check out your pin board for inspiration at home before their appointment, sharing their favourites on their own boards and getting their friends' opinions.

Around 80% of images are re-pins (when someone adds your image to their own board), which means if you pin an image of your latest work and one of your clients then repins it, all of their friends will see it with your name on it. It's taking word of mouth to a visual level. It also helps that many Pinterest devotees are sharing their re-pins on Facebook and Twitter.

Admittedly, there are some worried glances being exchanged over this burgeoning network, almost exclusively over copyright. But while you must be wary, it doesn't mean you should shy away from Pinterest. Stick to images you've created yourself and if you do pin something from another website, ensure you are pinning from the source and always credit all images.

And if you are worried your own images could be hijacked for some dishonourable reason, you can watermark them so they are traceable.

Pinterest drives traffic to websites, so permit your website images to be pinned to drive traffic back from Pinterest to your website.

You want to be seen as leading the trends in hair styling, and one of the easiest ways to communicate this is to be a leader in new trends with your Pinterest boards. What better way to drive brand loyalty than by being the most visible, coolest, most progressive salon in your area? Pinterest keeps you on everyone's radar and helps build a relationship that's sharable.

Link your Pinterest board to your Twitter and Facebook accounts so that your fans and friends, and their friends, can see what you've been browsing.

Don't pin anything that could compromise your brand, even as a joke.

Be aware of copyright laws and adhere to limitations on sharing.

Pin things other than hair that form part of your salon culture - books, recipes, tattoos, art and music.

Be consistent and pin every day, throughout the day. Pinterest has a smartphone app, which makes it easy to do anytime.

Keep it fun and engaging and don't stray into areas that may be offensive.