The latest hot social network on the block to which I’ve become quite addicted is Pinterest.

Pinterest is a social network that enables you to create ‘boards’ of ‘pins’ on whatever themes you like. Pins are represented by images and are links to interesting content on the internet.

It’s like a giant scrap-booking tool for useful things you find on the internet. If you use social bookmarking sites like Delicious, StumbleUpon or Diigo, think of Pinterest as being the same but with pictures representing the links rather than text. You ‘follow’ people on Pinterest in the same way you follow people on Twitter. You can follow a person and all their boards or you can choose to follow one particular board on a topic of interest to you.

The site has a beautiful user interface and integrates really well with Facebook and Twitter. If I were recommending someone to get started on a social network I think I would suggest Pinterest as it is so intuitively easy to use.

Here is my short guide to Pinterest that includes some ideas for how businesses can use it.

Don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest! Please email me if you would like an invitation to the site if you haven’t joined yet as it’s still ‘invitation only’.