Pinterest get down to business with the introduction of Business Pages

If you are a business and have any interest in social media, you may have heard plenty of buzz around Pinterest in 2012. Let me refresh your memory. This year, Pinterest made its services available to anyone and everyone, ditching the invitation-only approach they had adopted in their beta stage. Before long, they were launching apps and had more than 11.7 million unique users, taking them into third place for the biggest social media platform. Does Pinterest have your attention now? To some, it’s still a very new platform and for businesses, it has been a matter of trial and error to see how they can gauge the attention of their potential customers. Now, Pinterest are making a conscious effort to help businesses do just this and yesterday they announced the launch of Business Pages. Here is what the new addition brings to the table:

1. Business profiles

Previously, if you wanted to set up a Pinterest account you would need to enter a first and a last name. Well, the platform has finally acknowledged that not all of their users are individual people, and you can now sign up using a business name. Don’t worry if you’ve already set up a regular Joe Bloggs account on behalf of your business. There is an option to “convert your existing account” which you can do here: http://business.pinterest.com/

2. Optimisation

In a similar fashion to Twitter verification, Pinterest want to give your account authenticity with their own tick of approval. In addition, you can use Pinterest’s widgets and buttons on your own website or blog to encourage visitors to pin your products. Keeping business-minded, Pinterest have included guidelines for doing this to ensure you remain  consistent with their branding.

3. Advice

If you know you want to use Pinterest for business purposes but aren’t sure how, examples and assistance have been given, an indication that they want you to take this as seriously as they are. If you are interested in getting your brand on social and need some help, get in touch with the social team at Return on Digital.

Something to bear in mind:

Pinterest have been busy this past few months and business pages aren’t the only addition they’ve made to their site. Really,  it’s no surprise that they are expanding their features after unique visitors increased by 2,700% over May of last year. Secret Boards were launched last month which allow users to pin privately. As a consumer I can see the value of this, particularly if you use Pinterest for wedding or gift ideas, as many do, including myself! As a business however, it will be interesting to see if this has any impact on pinning statistics and whether there will be limited access to data regarding what has been shared. It’s something to be mindful of and something we will be watching out for, should Pinterest choose to make this a permanent fixture.
But, on the bright side, it’s a good move for solidifying relationships between businesses and Pinterest. The site are utilising rich media and graphics in a way that other platforms haven’t emphasised yet (with the exception of Instagram which is showing huge growth) and this is sure to be the content format of choice in 2013. If you think your e-commerce business want to get on Pinterest, get in touch with our social team.