Pinterest takes the commercial plunge.
Up until a week ago, a business couldn’t legitimately have an account on Pinterest (though plenty did/do). In fact, having a business Pinterest account was a technical violation of the service’s rules, which forbade commercial usage. In a welcomed step forward, Pinterest formally announced this week a set of business tools and terms which differentiate business accounts from personal accounts.
According to Cat Lee, Pinterest product manager, “If your organization is new to Pinterest, sign up on Pinterest for a business account. Existing accounts on Pinterest can be easily converted by following the steps outlined on the business site.”
- 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.”
Business Terms
Pinterest has even published a separate set of Terms of Service for businesses which it says will help businesses leverage the hugely popular image-sharing site.
Pinterest Business Best Practices
Are you new to Pinterest or want a deeper understanding of how to leverage Pinterest? Pinterest has published a set of Best Practices & What works here.
Pinterest points out the impact it has on businesses based on case studies with   Jetsetter, Allrecipes.com, Etsy and more. When Allrecipes.com went ahead and overhauled its website to add “Pin it” buttons throughout, the site saw more than 50,000 recipes pinned in three months, resulting in 139 million Pinterest impressions and more than a 900%   increase in clicks on the Pinterest content.
Convinced? Converting your account is easy. Head this way to transform your standard account into a Business Account!