Three years after their humble beginnings, Pinterest has made the leap to the big time. That’s right, on November 14, nearly 3 years since launching the site as a closed beta Pinterest has opened themselves up to the business world. No longer do we have to “pretend” to be a person within the photo sharing site.
For those of you unfamiliar with Pinterest, it is a pinboard photo-sharing website that allows users to create individual “pin boards” based upon their interests, and share specific photos from around the internet to their followers. And for the past year, businesses have begun to use Pinterest to increase their global reach through this visual medium. Brands like Macy’s have been using Pinterest to showcase products found within their stores organized by category and holiday. But, they have been doing it without direct sanctioning from Pinterest themselves. Brands had no more abilities within Pinterest than individuals.
Now, things are different. These new business pages now allow users to specify their company names, as opposed to using a “First Name Last Name” system. In addition, companies can now verify their accounts and add new widgets to their websites (these widgets will offer the opportunity to display Pinterest content directly on your website), to help increase engagement among their followers.
Pinterest has made it fairly simple to convert your personal page to a business profile, simply by visiting www.business.pinterest.com and clicking the “Convert your existing account” button, and then answering a few questions about your business. Nothing could be simpler.
In addition, Pinterest has created a “Best Practices” section of their website to help users best use this site to promote their business goals. This section covers:
- telling your brand story,
- building a community on Pinterest,
- how to send traffic to your site, and
- how to analyze your Pinterest presence to improve.
Pinterest also offers businesses a full set of case studies about how different organizations are effectively using this platform.
It is my belief that Pinterest will slowly move towards a monetization scheme which would allow users to create advertising within the site. In addition, I anticipate Pinterest will begin to offer an analytics platform similar to Facebook Insights, so that users can gauge the interactions within their accounts.
Are you looking forward to an easy way to use Pinterest for your business? Will you be converting your personal page to a business page? Where do you see Pinterest going in the future? Feel free to join the discussion below!
Resources:
Pinterest Introduces Business Accounts and Tools
Pinterest Finally Rolls Out Business Accounts: How to Set Yours Up Today
New Tools for Businesses in the Pinterest Community
Pinterest Makes a Brand Play with New Business Toolkit
Wikipedia — Pinterest
Craig,
Once again we are on the same page. This new development with Pinterest caught my attention as well. A real deja vu to the facebook evolution. But having that as its predecessor, I think Pinterest’s transition may go smoother.
I think the addition to Pinterest was inevitable since most people were using it as a business tool anyway. So instead of having to work around personal accounts, users can get right down to business.
By the way, the minute I heard about the change, I converted my Pinterest Passionista page into my business name, Alison*s Art, Inc. It was a breeze to do. I am not sure it will make a difference for me. I did it mostly out of curiosity to see what would happen.
Since I have another Pinterest account for socially conscious issues that will likely not convert to a business account, I can compare the two approaches, personal and business.
Thanks so much for your immediate attention to this topic. You know it is a favorite of mine since I wrote several posts about it on this blog several months ago.
Thanks, Alison. I knew this would catch your attention. I think it would be an interesting article to compare the use and benefits of the personal v. business page on Pinterest, and I look forward to reading that article when you write it!
Have a great day!
Everybody just LOVES to give me homework. I will have to see what I can do. Great to be chatting this way again. I have missed our weekly interactions after we unknowingly write about the same topic.
I am not planning to become a weekly feature but at least once a month. But then who knows when the inspiration will hit me or someone so thoughtfully comes up with an idea for me that I can not refuse!
Assignment acknowledged. Take care and have a good Thanksgiving.
You, too!
Dear Craig,
I’m conducting additional research about the impacts Pinterest (visual journalism) and social media marketing are having on each other. Here is one of the most exciting examples I have found. Of course, I pinned it right onto my Alison*s Art, Inc Pinterest Account.
http://pinterest.com/pin/61572719877058167/
Thanks for sharing!