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Pinterest, a 2-year old social media site that allows users to collect and share their favorite photos from the web, is beginning to drive a significant amount of traffic to retailers websites, according to tech blog Mashable. 

The number of unique visitors to Pinterest.com increased by 429 percent from September to December 2011, jumping to more than 7 million unique visitors a month.  Accordingly, total same-store referral traffic from Pinterest to five specialty apparel retailers rose 389 percent from July to December 2011, according to online marketing firm Monetate. The site now ranks fifth behind Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Yahoo in terms of social networks and forums that drive the most referral traffic to retailers.

Pinterest is especially popular among women, who account for 58 percent of the sites traffic, posting or pinning photos in popular categories such as home dcor, food and wedding inspiration.