Pinterest, the online virtual dream board, has officially opened the doors for business. Up to now, the brands represented on Pinterest had been making due with the same user accounts as everyone else on the pinboard site. On Wednesday, Pinterest showed its love for business with a way to convert existing accounts to the new business accounts, tools, tips, and new terms of service.
“We want to help more businesses provide great content on Pinterest and make it easy to pin from their websites,” says Cat Lee, Pinterest product manager.
In her blog for Pinterest, Cat goes on to explain some of the new features:
New business terms
We now have two sets of terms—one for people and one for businesses. The business terms help guide businesses on how to use Pinterest. They also enable us to separate the provisions meant for businesses from those meant for regular people. As a result, we updated our user terms to be half as long.
Signing up on our business site allows you to specify your business name (instead of first name and last name) and get access to new tools:
- Verify your website. The verification badge helps people identify high-quality sources of content and more easily find the business they want in search results.
- Add new buttons and widgets. Integrate the Pin It button, Follow button, Profile widget, or Board widget to get more engagement from pinners and traffic back your site.
- Access to upcoming features. Receive updates on future products and services that will provide more powerful ways of reaching and understanding your audience on Pinterest.
- Case Studies.Jetsetter, Allrecipes, Etsy, Organized Interiors, and Petplan Insuranceshare metrics and describe how they successfully used Pinterest to increase customer reach, drive traffic to their sites, and engage their strongest advocates.
- What Works. We published a set of best practices with several examples for you to follow.
- Guides and Documentation. Check out new guides and documentation for the Pin It and Follow buttons and how to use the Pinterest brand in marketing materials.
Brands have already benefited from a pin presence. Pew Research estimates that 12 percent of all Internet users use Pinterest, including 19 percent of all female internet users. Recently, Pinterest hit the ComScore Top 50 Websites in the US with just over 25.3 million visitors in the month of September. For many users, Pinterest has become THE place to post, share, and shop for the Christmas Wish List.
Image Credit: Fontcrafts /swelldesigner
