As many of Pinterest users know, they have unveiled a new profile option that includes a few new features called a “Business” account. But what is a business account? From my first hand look they maintain the same format, they still look consistent with the ‘regular’ Pinterest user’s page and the benefits of the usage aren’t immediately clear.
We will give you a first-hand breakdown of the new Business Account look, features, how-to’s in addition to explaining the interconnection of social media profiles that go into this. This is an awesome tool to utilize for a business, if well executed. There are a few ways to enhance the user experience within your Pin Boards dependent upon your business, but before getting into that let’s look into converting our current pages. Looking back into the announcement of Pinterest for Business profiles we can see it was originally discussed on February 22 in a blog post found here. It has nearly been a year and Pinterest has finally started to allow us to use the pages. As of November 13, 2012 users have been able to convert their personal pages that they have been utilizing for a business purpose to an actual Business page. Visually there are very few differences. When converting your page you can categorize your business for better search results within Pinterest and within their categories.
The business category optimizer allows you to select a pretty generic sector in which to place your Business page. The most popular today would be the retailers or online marketplace due to sites such as Etsy.
The next step is to verify your website. But what does that even mean? We already have a business page and can connect that URL with a hyperlink, but what does it mean to ‘verify’? It’s simple! If you can verify that your website is legitimate AND connect it to Pinterest, your main profile heading will include a nice checkmark and a full URL to your website. See Image:
This shows you how it looks. You register your page within your Pinterest settings. You need your website listed within that account’s settings to begin with. Pinterest will then prompt you to ‘verify this website’. Follow the instructions that look like this:
From here verifying your website will vary from user to user. We are using a WordPress platform and needed to paste the special HTML code into the Footer section of our code. Refresh both pages (your website & Pinterest). The code only needs to be apart of your website for as long as it takes Pinterest to catch the registration. We immediately removed the code and it is still recognized as verified. Ta-Da!
Why bother though? Everything still looks the same, acts the same and smells the same – It MUST be the same. Pinterest has yet to release a lot of information in regards to the differences this will make in the future, but due to the sheer usage of this site it’s decidedly not to be overlooked. Pinterest has also already found a few tried-and-true methods of utilizing this social media outlet properly that are dependent upon your business and industry. Through your board you can let your business have a personality. You can share your values, offer special deals or incentives to get them in the door and increase traffic to your main website. Logging onto Business.Pinterest.Com will offer you many ideas, best practice guidelines in addition to case studies of different businesses that have taken advantage of this opportunity.
Keep in mind – you should already have your Pinterest business page connected to all of your other social media profiles and vice versa. You can list everything you are apart of on the top heading of your Pinterest profile (located next to your newly verified website URL). Facebook even offers a special Pinterest Application so your Facebook visitors can check out your boards without leaving the comfort of Facebook. We know we hate to leave our Facebook too often. We look forward to showcasing any new Pinterest additions as soon as they occur!
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