Should I use a Pinterest Business Account?

Posted on by Clare Ivatt

I frequently hear Pinterest users asking if they need to sign up for a Pinterest Business Account, or if they can just carry on using their personal account to promote their blog. 

My answer to that is: If you’re using Pinterest for business, you need a Business Account. 

Pinterest stipulates this in their terms and conditions:

“If you want to use Pinterest for commercial purposes, you must create a business account and agree to our Business Terms of Service.”

Should you use a Pinterest Business Account?

You may wonder what “commercial purposes” are, and I personally would define that as: If you’re making money in any way from your pins or the blog/website that they link to, then it is commercial.

Don’t worry though – having a Pinterest Business Account is not a bad thing – there are lots of advantages over a personal account.

Here are the great features that come with a Pinterest business account:

 

 

Full Business Name

You can have your full business name instead of “first name” and “last name” This is a great advantage over the personal account – you don’t have to try and fit your business name into the first name and last name format – you can just enter your business name as it should be written! 
A large number of red and white Pinterest logos

Pinterest Analytics

Once you have a Business Account, you will have access to Pinterest Analytics, the reporting facility that allows you to see exactly how your Pinterest business account is performing. It shows the number of people who have seen your pins (the reach), and the amount of engagement your pins are getting (closeups, saves and clicks through to your website). 

Rich Pins

These are a great way of making your pins stand out. Rich Pins show extra data on a pin over and above the pin’s description.
A rich pin with an image of a curry with rice on left hand side and recipe information on the right.
There are currently four different types of Rich Pin: app, article, product and recipe pins, which are custom made for showing relevant extra information on each type of pin.

If you have a Business Account, all of the pins that are saved from your website will be Rich Pins.

 

Pinterest Ads

With your business account, you’ll be able to use Pinterest Ads (promoted pins) to create advertising campaigns to reach targeted audiences on Pinterest.  

Audience Tracking

Once you’ve created your Pinterest Business Account, you’ll be able to track people who’ve clicked through to your website from Pinterest Ads. 

You’ll see their page visits, category views, signups, video views, searches, shopping cart activity, checkouts and more.

Two screens facing each other, each with a hand coming out of the screen. On the left, the hand is holding a credit card, on the right the hand is holding a paper shopping bag.

Should I convert my personal Pinterest account to a business one?

Once you’ve decided that you need a Business account, if you already have a personal account you may want to convert it to a business one instead of creating a brand new business account from scratch. 

Here are the things to consider when deciding whether to convert your personal account to a business one:

 

  1. Would your business account have the same name as your personal account?
  2. Does your personal account cover the same subjects?
  3. Do you have many followers on your personal account? 
  4. Are these followers going to be interested in your business?
  5. What are you planning for the future – will your personal followers be interested in your future business plans?

 

When I say “Are these followers going to be interested in your business?”, I don’t just mean would they be bored by your blog, I mean “how likely are they to engage with your pins?”.

A group of ducklings following their mother.

Pinterest notices if your followers are not engaged – you only want followers who are going to save your pins, so there’s no point in keeping a lot of followers who are not interested in your pins.

If you have lots of engaged followers on your personal account, and the business account will be closely linked to your personal activities, I would say go for it and convert it to a Business Account. 

If you have hardly any personal followers, or your business boards will be different to your personal boards, it would probably be best to start from scratch with a sparkly new business account.

When I first started to use Pinterest I had a personal account and used it save interesting things I discovered on the web, and places I wanted to visit. I had boards like “People I Admire”, “Places to Visit Animals”, “Fairytale Castles” and “Cuddly Kittens”.

 

I didn’t have many followers (mostly friends and relations), none of whom were connected with my new business.

However, my new Business Account was going to have the same name as the Personal one (ClareIvatt), so I decided to convert the personal account rather than starting afresh. 

Once converted, I had good clear out of the non-relevant boards (cute kittens etc), and my small number of pre-existing followers were soon outnumbered by the new followers I gained who wanted to learn about blogging and running their own business.

Here’s how to set up your Pinterest business account (including converting a personal account):

https://help.pinterest.com/en/business/article/get-a-business-account

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Do you need a Pinterest business account, or is it ok to use a personal one? What are the advantages of a business account? This article has the answers!