Pinterest Updates Follow Button To Preview Brands’ Latest Pins

Pinterest rolled out a new Follow button today that gives users a visual sample of what following a brand or business will mean.

Users who click on the button will see a dialogue box with previews of an account’s latest pins, “and your visitors won’t ever have to leave your website to follow you,” Pinterest product manager Jason Costa wrote in a blog post. “Once someone follows your account, they’ll start seeing your Pins in their home feed.”

It’s another smart move by Pinterest, which is working to turn its popular image-based social network into a money maker. It’s cautiously moving into advertising, last month rolling out a self-serve dashboard to allow select advertisers to buy Promoted Pins.

Its 60 million monthly visitors (according to comScore) already show great affinity for pinning products and the new follow button — which is a free widget and doesn’t require updating on websites that had the old button — could serve as subtle reminder of that fact to businesses and brands.