While it's intuitive to build a local following on most social outlets, doing so on Pinterest is a bit more complex. After all, Pinterest is a place for dreaming, driven by keyword searches. Locality isn't at the forefront of the platform.

But you certainly can use Pinterest to market and promote your local business or event. Learn five ways you can use Pinterest for local marketing.

1. Establish yourself as a local expert

Pinterest is a dreamer's paradise, so naturally lots of trips to beautiful places and cities are planned here.

Create a "City Guide" board to share a local's take on a big city. Include both the standard tourist spots and the hidden gems in your area. Celebrate favorite local spots, businesses and natural paradises. Doing so establishes your business as the go-to expert in your area.

Plus, by creating a local city guide, you can connect with other local businesses. By repinning their content, they'll be more inclined to share yours, too.

2. Integrate place pins

Place pins are relatively new to Pinterest. Created through Foursquare, place pins create an interactive map. Since there aren't a ton of place pins yet, your business can really own this local, digital space.

Using place pins gives you the opportunity to create pins from scratch. Grab your camera, venture to your city's hot spots and snag stunning pictures of your favorite places.

Creating pins means you have few (potentially no) pins to directly compete against. Nice, huh? Be sure to maximize keywords here to optimize your chance of getting repinned.

3. Load Pinterest with keywords

For Pinterest users to find your new place pins and boards, you need to fill 'em up with keywords. Plus, Google displays pins and boards in both their Web and image search results, too.

So, yes! Using keywords is incredibly important to your Pinterest success. Use a free SEO keyword tool to pinpoint the most common local terms in your area — and within your business's realm.

Once you've determined your SEO terms, include them in all your Pinterest board titles, board descriptions, pins. Even if it takes time to edit past pins, it's worth the time investment.

4. Find and connect with local pinners

Even though Pinterest can feel more like an inspiration board, it's still a social platform. You need to find, connect and engage with the top pinners in your area as well as those in your target demographic.

You can find local pinners by searching Pinterest boards, pins and pinners using local keywords. If you're a small, local business, plan on devoting about an hour a week to engage with local pinners. Comment on their pins, repin their content and follower new users.

The more you connect with your local audience, the more they'll want to connect with you.

5. Use promoted pins to geotarget users

Of course, the best way to pinpoint and reach customers in your local area is to advertise with promoted pins. Using Pinterest's promoted pins, you get to target local areas, demographics and interests.

If you're promoting a specific event or item, promoted pins work great. Or, if you already have a pin that is performing well with your target demographic, give it that extra boost and promote it.