Pinterest's popularity is soaring, so you probably know someone who uses it, but you may not know about big brands using Pinterest. Realizing a unique marketing opportunity, to connect with consumers through the things that interest them, many large companies have jumped on the bandwagon, creating and effectively utilizing their own Pinterest accounts. If you are considering whether this opportunity is right for your business, you might check out this list of big brands using Pinterest.

According to Zoomsphere, the biggest brand on Pinterest is a wedding blog called "The Perfect Palette". This makes sense, because a site that helps people choose colors for a wedding, and also provides other wedding resources, is a perfect fit with the visual posting on Pinterest. Other topics that lend themselves easily to Pinboard display are food, fashion, and fitness, and in those categories, big brands using Pinterest include Whole Foods, Kate Spade, and Jillian Michaels.

However, a glance at the top ten big brands using Pinterest reveals the real sensibility at the heart of Pinterest success: the nesting instinct. Real Simple, Better Homes and Gardens, HGTV, and Etsy all feed the homemaking urge beautifully, as do many other sites, like Michaels, West Elm, and Apartment Therapy. Any business that appeals to homeowners and homemakers would do well to follow these examples, and use Pinterest to its full marketing potential. But what is it that these big brands using Pinterest are doing so well? In this social media training post, we talk about how the big brands not only use it well, but thrive:

• Birchbox falls into the fashion/beauty category, and uses audience segmented content, cross-promotion, and both direct and indirect marketing, in order to stand out from the crowd. A beauty subscription service, the company pins and repins beauty-related content, while using clever gimmicks like "unboxing" videos to cross-promote content and create a wider audience base.
• Whole Foods is also publishing diverse content, in order to reinforce its brand. With Pinboards for food, recycling, green living, holidays, kitchens, and food art, Whole Foods uses its own content as well as content from across the web, and actively pins, repins, and follows other members, thereby broadening its network.
• Scholastic uses Pinterest for indirect marketing. While it does feature books in its product list, there is so much more to the way Scholastic uses Pinterest. By providing content that appeals to readers, parents, and teachers, like "Bling for Bookworms", "Teacher Appreciation", "Vintage Scholastic", and "Libraries we Love", Scholastic draws people in and generates good will that translates into brand loyalty, without ever being boring.
• Better Homes and Gardens is one of the best examples of a lifestyle brand that is perfectly suited to Pinterest. It is not surprising, then, that its Pinterest is full of recipes, entertaining, decorating, crafts, and related Pinboards. What may surprise you, though, is the way they dedicate pinboards to other online publishers. By creating pinboards like "Blogger Twists on BHG Recipes", Better Homes and Gardens is able to indirectly market their brand.
• Michaels Craft Stores are perfect for Pinterest. With pinboards dedicated to a wide variety of craft projects, Michaels not only gives insight into craft classes and events at their stores, but also pinboards that share projects from the brand's followers. This is a great idea, and a wonderful way to inspire brand loyalty.

Seeing all of the big brands using Pinterest might give you some insight into ways Pinterest is a perfect fit for your business. As with any social media site, Pinterest can be extremely useful for those who use it to its full potential, to build their brands and grow their audience. For more helpful marketing tips and ideas, visit Splash Media U.