"Just pin and they will come", said no communications or social media professional ever. When it comes to Pinterest – 70-million-user strong online visual bookmarks platform – it requires a lot more than just pinning nice images and waiting for the repins, likes and followers to pile up.

A successful Pinterest account for business requires a carefully crafted strategy that not only has visual storytelling at its core, but also advertising as well as search engine optimisation (or as I call it Pinterest optimisation) too.

You may wonder, "What does advertising and SEO have to do with a visual social network?" Read on to find out.

As with any comms and social media strategy, one of the most important initial steps is truly knowing your audience and understanding what makes it tick specifically on the platform in question.

As Pinterest itself puts it, the network allows people to discover ideas for any project or interest, hand-picked by other people (or brands) they like. Boards serve as to-do and wish lists or as a "walk down memory lane" of past experiences.

Of course, you always need to start with the very basics that include demographics such as age or sex as well interests. In the case of Pinterest, these characteristics are an 84% female user base among four top pinning categories: Food & Drink, DIY & crafts, Home Decor and Holidays & Events.

But what about deeper behavioral characteristics? After all, they are the ones that determine consumer buying habits.

For example, did you know that 38% of all active users bought something because they saw it on Pinterest?

Or that 30% actually prefer to surf Pinterest than to watch TV? Now that's powerful!

Furthermore, 75% of Pinterest activity comes from mobile and 30% of these mobile users use the app in-store to guide their purchase decisions.

Pinterest's new Guided Search makes this even easier. Unlike the usual text-based search engines that offer answers to specific questions, Pinterest's new feature offers multiple ideas as visual answers (guides), allowing people to explore more options.

Pinthusiasts do not read magazines nor do they browse through e-commerce sites; they use Pinterest as their catalogue for products to buy or crafts to create.

No wonder Pinterest is top e-commerce and traffic driver for retailers, better than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.

What's the conclusion here?

People use Pinterest as a search engine for shopping or creativity.

They don't really use to platform to engage (which is actually the basic idea of a social network), but to gather ideas and inspirations for their next purchase or project. They actively go on the platform and look for those objects, ideas, images, experiences, inspirations or crafts and how to make them a personal reality.

That's especially important for B2C brands and more so for those from the fashion, FMCG or creativity sector.

And Pinterest as a business is not blind to this. A few months ago, Pinterest announced launching Promoted Pins to offer brands more marketing opportunities via advertising. (Currently a small number of companies from the US are testing them, but Promoted Pins should soon be will be rolled out globally.)

Interestingly, Pinterest users seem to be OK with Promoted Pins as long as they add value through their messaging.

For brands this means that, as with anything, they shouldn't overdo it with ads. The point is not to ruin Pinterest's authentic down-to-earth artsy feel and spirit.

You might ask, "Why do I need ads?"

Social media has largely become a "pay to play" field.

We've seen this on Facebook, it's growing on Twitter and Instagram, and it will happen to Pinterest too.

So, if you want to reach lots of Pinterest users and increase user-user shares, you would need to make your content highly visible, i.e. Pinterest-optimised to appear on user's streams or on Guided Search. For brands this rarely happens organically or due to a viral effect; it's promoted content, aka native advertising, that gets it done.

How do you see it? Will Pinterest become a paid search engine for brands?

Check out the below infographic via AdWeek for more staggering Pinterest statistics: