THE POWER OF THE PLATFORM: VISUAL STORYTELLING ON SOCIAL NETWORKS 59 on exactly the right format to appeal to the Pinterest ethos: finding a visual way to represent its brand in a fun, humorous, and stylish manner. Marketers just have to think outside the box a little to find innovative ways to reach the Pinterest audience, but by getting the formula right, they can reach large, new, untapped audiences. Pinterest’s format makes it very easy to share images, and it provides excellent lead generation, especially for visual industries. Because Pinterest users can add a widget to their desktop that allows them to easily repin images from any website onto their own Pinterest boards, companies who haven’t even got a profile on Pinterest have discovered new traffic coming in from the site from fans repinning images from the company website. Images taken from a site will still link back to the original source, so as long as they come from your website, you can still see a boost in your traf- fic coming from Pinterest. It is better to add your own Pinterest button on your website so you don’t lose out from users’ finding your photos from other sources, such as Internet searches. Make it easy for fans to repin your images directly, especially if you have an image-rich site. Those who don’t think of their websites in terms of optimizing them for Pinterest are missing the chance to share their products with a brand- loyal audience with disposable income. The brand agency Digitas says that automotive brands in particular are missing the boat: “Unlike the fash- ion/retail brands, top automotive brands average 3 repins on every pin, while the community receives 10 repins per pin. One reason the automo- tive industry might be seeing lower engagement on Pinterest than other industries is because most current automotive sites are structured to use Flash, which makes it difficult for users to pin content.”25 Even for nonvisual industries, Pinterest users (generally young, female, educated, and affluent) are often a key demographic that marketers want to reach, and the site provides an excellent opportunity to interact with them in a completely different way than traditional advertising allows. The site’s community and sharing features give you the chance to have your message distributed by your followers (or their followers, or their