Yahoo Finance Pinterest is giving creators ways to make money on the platform
Influencers can tag Idea Pins with products and disclose paid partnerships more easily.
Pinterest influencers might soon be able to make a living directly from the platform. The company has revealed its first set of monetization tools for creators.
Retailers have added hundreds of millions of Product Pins on the platform, according to Pinterest. Users who click or tap on the pins can buy those products. Pinterest is now rolling out an option for users to tag Idea Pins (its version of other platforms' Stories) with Product Pins.
The company says users are 89 percent more likely to be interested in buying an item that's tagged in Idea Pins than ones they see in Product Pins. That's perhaps because users can see how their favorite creators are using products and maybe take some inspiration from that. Creators can use affiliate links to receive a cut of sales generated though their Idea Pins.
Pinterest is adding another feature to Idea Pins — a "paid partnerships" label for creators who share branded content. Influencers who create content on behalf of a company can tag the brand in Idea Pins. Once the brand gives the tag the green light, the label will appear. The aim is to improve transparency and make it easier for creators to disclose paid partnerships.
“Pinterest is the place where creators with inspiring and actionable ideas get discovered," Aya Kanai, Pinterest head of content and creator partnerships, said in a statement. "With this latest update, we’re empowering Creators to reach millions of shoppers on the platform and monetize their work. Creators deserve to be rewarded for the inspiration they deliver to their followers, and the sales they drive for brands."
Product tagging on Idea Pins will initially be available on business accounts in the US and UK. The feature will hit other markets in the coming months. As for paid partnerships, select Pinterest users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru now have access.
Other visually focused platforms are focusing on ways to help influencers earn a living (and, crucially, to dissuade them from moving elsewhere). In April, it emerged Instagram is working on Creator Shops as well as a “branded content marketplace” amid Facebook's $1 billion push to court influencers. Instagram has also offered a paid partnership label since 2017.
