Though Pinterest is still a relatively new social network, it has already become the subject of oft-told tales: lots of women are on Pinterest; certain brands are using it to great advantage, like Real Simple and Kate Spade; and Pinterest is driving traffic like gangbusters.

The underlying message is everyone is doing it, so get on it while the gettin’s good. But despite this fountain of information, the company’s CEO, speaking at SXSW, talked about how he made a point of going against the grain when he launched the social network focusing on a more “human way of looking at the world” rather than stressing the same real-time quality of lots of other platforms.

“You never see a tweet older than 48 hours, unless it’s ironic. I wanted to create a service that’s a bit timeless,” he said.

How interesting then that Pinterest is sending visitors to real-time platforms like Facebook and Google.

According to TheNextWeb, Pinterest is very good at driving traffic to these sites and others like Twitter, Etsy, and Martha Stewart.

Amid all the discussion and statistics, there’s one thing that stands out to us: you have to have a fully-formed idea about how you’re using digital platforms to further your branding and promotions. The different parts of the Internet work together and you have to find the formula that works best for you and your clients.

So, something is written on a blog and gets tweeted. Someone posts that on Facebook with another link. That link has a cool photo, which ends up on Pinterest. And all of that circles back and ends up on sites where the thread began, perhaps slightly morphed to include new bits and nuggets that have been picked up along the way. It’s all connected, so creating good, shareable content targeted to your interested audience on a regular basis is critical. This detailed infographic illustrates the point.

What has been revealed afresh over the past few months of Pinterest explosion is the need for great images. Between Pinterest, Instagram, and the new iPad, still photos have a renewed interest for people that goes beyond simple snapshots. They actually are worth 1,000 words. Maybe more. Ad Age digs in on this issue and we recently tackled it, from the iPad point of view.