Pinterest (Photo credit: stevegarfield)

Everyone should already know just how important social sites are when it comes to finding new ideas for the home. Following people on the two largest sites, Facebook and Twitter can lead to many great ideas and designs that you may never have found through the old methods of searching through catalogs or even looking through your favorite home design websites. Although the top two social networking sites are great for getting new ideas, there’s a new arrival on the scene that is quickly becoming the go-to place for home improvement and all related living topics. I’m talking of course about Pinterest, which while it is only a couple of years old is already the number three ranked social networking site in the world, and it’s not hard to see why.

First a quick primer on what Pinterest is and how it operates, then we’ll look at how best to use it to find new home improvement ideas and other lifestyle tips that you may not have thought about.

For starters, Pinterest is an image based social network where users can share or “pin” images and sites that catch their eye. Those shared items can then be re-pinned by other users or commented on. Taken down to its bare essentials, it is a wholly image based version of twitter. The explosion of users means that every day more and more things are getting shared, and there are far more people to interact with and discuss whatever the hottest topics of the day are.

Now that you know what it is, you must be wondering how to leverage this great new site in order to make your home beautiful or add new décor to it.

Obviously the first step is signing up for an account, which is a simple and quick process. After that, you will want to fill out your profile to include such important details as your age range, interests and hobbies, and location. This will help others in your niche to find you and share stuff that you are likely to find interesting or helpful.

The best thing to do to really dive right in to all that the site has to offer is to browse the extensive home page and click on whatever catches your eye. From there you can follow the person who posted it and read the comments and interact with others who found it helpful.

You also might want to immediately start posting your own stuff; it can be funny, informative, or merely personally valuable to you. The best way to get the most out of this or any other social site is to contribute as much as you take away. For instance, as soon as you start a new home improvement project, consider taking some photos at each step of the process and making a guide on pinterest as you go. You can even track the amount of interest by seeing how many more comments you get with each pinned post.

As one last idea, you should try to find grouping of pins that are in the niche you’re interested in, this is a great way to narrow down the focus of what is a huge and growing site.

Sam Gerald is a writer for Do My Own Pest Control. When he's not writing about topics such as ants, he likes to figure out ways to use technology for better home improvement and home decorating.