Let’s face it: Few of us have the time or the inclination to use every single social media tool available to us. As a result, most of us pick a few sites that seem to have the most traffic, and we spend most of our time and energy trying to work with those sites to the best of our ability.

From a straight metrics standpoint, it makes sense to choose Facebook over Pinterest. After all, 2014 stats from Digital Insights suggest that Facebook’s 1.28 billion monthly active users totally overpower Pinterest’s “measly” 40 million. If you’re looking for sheer numbers, Pinterest seems like a bad investment.

However, diving deeper into the metrics can deliver some sweet surprises that could change your mind about Pinterest. Here are 3 compelling stats on user demographics and site interactions that could push Pinterest to the top of your marketing plans for 2015.

It’s a Better Tool to Reach the Female Audience

If your business sells a product that’s made just for women, you’ll need to go where they like to go, and push your products on the sites they like to use. Similarly, if you’re trying to handle a reputation management problem that has, for some reason, taken hold in a largely female audience, you’ll need to push your alt message on the site women visit most.

That site is, without a doubt, Pinterest.

According to research from RJ Metrics, 80% of Pinterest users are female, and 92% of all the pins (or shares) on Pinterest are made by women. Sure, women also enjoy other social media sites, too, and they might be very active on those sites. But if you need to reach out to women and you’re not using Pinterest, it’s clear that you could be leaving at least some of your audience in the dark.

It’s OK to Post on a Weekend

Chances are, your workdays are filled with meetings, phone calls, deadlines, and other pesky details associated with handling a full-time job. If you struggle to find the time to post on social media during the day, you might be tempted to handle those tasks in the evenings or during the weekends, when your time isn’t so cluttered with tasks you must handle.

Unfortunately, that could mean you spend a great deal of time talking to people who just aren’t listening. And that could mean you’re just wasting your free time and not reaching your goals at all.

On Pinterest, however, everything is different.

Get this: MediaBistro suggests the best time to post on Facebook is between 6am and 8am, Monday through Friday. But on Pinterest, the best time to post is Saturday morning.

Clearly, if your only open time is on the weekend, you really should be using Pinterest.

All You Need is a Nice Photo

You could chat up almost anything on Pinterest. As long as you have an image, your post is more than halfway complete. But, there are some types of content that seem especially sticky on Pinterest, and if you’re working in those sectors or you’re dealing with keywords that intersect with those topics, Pinterest could be the go-to solution for you.

RJ Metrics suggests that these types of content tend to have the most interactions on Pinterest:

• Food
• Drink
• DIY projects
• Crafts
• Home décor

In other words, anything having to do with something a person could make or could conceivably do at home with a few skills and a little talent is popular on the site. Anyone working in those fields should be using Pinterest.

How to Start Pinning

Now that I’ve convinced you that Pinterest should be your new marketing BFF, you’ll need to know how to use the site properly in order to get the best results. There is some good news and bad news to share.

On the good-news side, it doesn’t take long to create a post on Pinterest. In fact, I can pop up a post in a little less than five minutes. There’s very little content to write, aside from a very tiny little blurb, and I can use the same image I’ve already pulled together for my content. A photo from a blog entry, a snap for a website home page or an image I’m planning to use in a product catalogue could all make for great posts. And that’s content I’ve already generated.

As an additional plus, I can also share content that’s made by other people. I can add a few snappy little comments of my own to the images I like, but it’s remarkably easy to keep pinning content others have made. Within minutes, I could have a great deal of information to share with those who want to follow me.

Unfortunately, there is a bit of bad news to share. And that news concerns images.

Since Pinterest is a visual site, the images you share simply must be top-notch. Research from Curalate suggests that the best images are taken at close range, with very little background information showing. So don’t show more than you must. And, your photos should also be heavily colored. Black-and-white photos, or those that aren’t saturated, simply don’t get shared as often.

That doesn’t mean your photos should be professional quality. After all, not everyone among us is a photographer. But it does mean you should invest in a good camera, decent lighting and rudimentary color-correction software. That’ll help you get the snaps you need that will make your time on Pinterest worthwhile.

Get Started

If you’ve never used Pinterest before, take a spin through the site and look at what others are doing. You might get inspired by sweet boards your competitors have created, and you just might find you could easily do something similar, or maybe even better.

If you’re already a Pinterest master, I’d love to hear from you. What are your secrets to getting noticed? Share you tricks with me in the comments.