By Lauren Cherry, STYLE Intern

It seems like everyone uses Pinterest in their spare time and why wouldn’t they? With great recipes, easy crafts and helpful organizing tips, what’s not to love about the super visual site? Every day more and more brands are using Pinterest to promote their products and engage customers. Some brands do a fantastic job at utilizing the site while others have fallen short. Here are three easy ways to increase interaction and sell your brand.

1. Define Your Audience
Who are you trying to reach? Each product or brand has a target audience. Think about how you can use Pinterest to further your image to that audience. Come up with a strategy before you even start to pin. Your focus must be clear and consistent for the Pinterest page to be a success. If you are a sushi restaurant then your audience is anyone who likes to eat sushi. Think of boards and pins to showcase your product.

2. Be Creative
How can your brand standout from everyone else? Be creative with your board’s names and make sure your captions are accurate descriptions of the photos. Make sure you are pinning clear and artistic images. If people find the image appealing then they are more likely to repin. Using the sushi example, take cool shots of your food, restaurant atmosphere and chefs. Upload them to a gallery on your website and the pin straight from your site. It is important to make sure that your boards are supporting your product. Don’t let your brand’s Pinterest page become your personal page. Make sure all pins reinforce the brand’s image.

3. Update Regularly
A lot of brands get in the habit of only updating one morning a week. Pinterest is like Facebook and Twitter in the sense that the flow of content is constant. If you want your images to be seen then you have to regularly update your boards. If you are in-between projects and have 15 minutes to kill get on Pinterest. You won’t have to spend hours at a time on the site if you are constantly updating.

STYLE Advertising’s public relations team recently attended the Midfield High School Career Fair, where they met with students from grades 9-12 to educate them about the exciting career opportunities available in the communications, marketing, advertising and public relations industry. Public Relations Director Audrey Pannell and Public Relations Coordinator/Social Media Specialist Jamie Brooks represented STYLE at the event and showcased a variety of the firm’s client portfolio including posters, magazines, newsletters, brochures, print advertisements, product packaging, websites, logos and press releases, as well as the associated news articles and interviews garnered from them. Other Career Fair speakers included representatives from Dreamland Holding Company, Virginia College, 95.7 JAMZ, The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Miles College and the Miss Alabama Pageant, among others.

The ultimate St. Patrick’s day experience in Birmingham occurred during

Shamrockin’ in Five Points South March 11-17 where residents ATE and DRANK local!

Hosted by REV Birmingham (REV) and Five Points South Merchants Group, Shamrockin’ in Five Points South was a seven-day St. Patrick’s Day celebration featuring food and drink specials, events and live music at Five Points area restaurants and bars.

The celebration also included REV’s 29th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade on the day before St. Patrick’s Day from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. The procession made its way through Five Points and ended at Cobb Lane. Following the parade, live music, Irish dancers and bagpipers entertained guests as they ate and drank at Five Points businesses.

We are proud to introduce these sweet girls to the world – our spring 2013 interns, JaQuisha Hudson and Lauren Cherry. They are fabulous and talented young women, and we are glad to have them aboard! Welcome to STYLE, ladies!

To find out more about Lauren and JaQuisha or the rest of the STYLE team, check out www.styleadvertising.com/team.

We just want to take a minute to brag on our team and all their hard work! Style was recently named as the largest Public Relations firm in Alabama. The news was published in Top Rank, Alabama’s only statewide book of business listings. Way to go PR team!