When you're a property manager for a large community, pictures will play a big role in helping you get renters.

At some point you’re going to use them in a listing to try and attract tenants. You might even pay to get more exposure for the listing, and you’ll most likely rely heavily on those pictures to create an eye-catching first impression.

So what if those pictures were being spread across the entire internet…for free?

By now you already know social media is important, but here’s why Pinterest is going to be your most valuable marketing tool in the future.

Pinterest began as a place to store aesthetically pleasing images across the web, but it’s become a much more useful tool. Users often create boards to bookmark a collection of items they plan on buying or to gather photos for crowdsourcing.

Naturally, they’re also using Pinterest boards to keep a visual diary of places they want to rent. If you’re not already, you should be taking advantage of that.

Every time you add a listing, pin it.

Instead of uploading photos straight to Pinterest, make sure you are clicking on the actual listing and then pinning it using the ‘Pin It’ button you’ve added to your browser. That way, when people click on the picture, they will be taken back to the link for your listing.

Make your captions generic.

When you’re pinning pictures of your place, make sure you add captions that entice people to re-pin. Instead of writing a sales-pitch or specific pricing information, try using a universal caption like “Love the kitchen layout in this place.” Doing this will make it more likely that people re-pin your picture, even if they’re not necessarily apartment hunting at the time.

Create a variety of boards.

With more than 10 million registered users and 12 million visitors each month, you can potentially get thousands of views per day on Pinterest. One way to drive traffic to your Pinterest is the create multiple boards. When creating boards, think about topics that are broad enough to appeal to Pinterest users, but are still related to renting.

For instance, we would create a board about neighborhoods in the area, decorating an apartment, dream home features, tips for finding a new place…the more boards, the better!