There is a flash new kid on the social network block that is proving to not only be an engaging social pastime, but a powerful new digital marketing tool for businesses as well. Pinterest has taken the online world by storm. Growing by a whopping 400% from September to December 2011, it registered 1.6 million users in this short amount of time. Even more notable, statistics show that referrals from Pinterest grew from 2.5% in December to 3.7% in January topping the well-known Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn sites. 

Yes it’s true, everyone is striving to make it to the top; the top of Google that is. This multinational internet search engine is known to process over one billion search requests each day and has been estimated to run over one million servers in data centres worldwide! It only makes sense to want to be the first candidate to pop up and be revealed to curious browsers and potential clients. But this highly used tool is a relatively new phenomenon that has taken hold of our culture since the late 90’s.

Google+ hopes to be a major alternative to Facebook, but the nascent social network is still deciding on some of its key elements.

A member of Google+ can sort acquaintances and friends into Circles, use Hangouts for conversations, and share Sparks with other members. Circles are groups of people such as coworkers or family members. Hangouts invite a group of people into the same text or video chat, and Sparks show people what links, videos, or websites are popular.