April 25, 2012

How Pinterest makes its money

I apologize from the outset at using the most overused social media buzzword of 2012, Pinterest, but I just wanted to divulge a little known fact about this latest, hottest site on the web.

I admit that I have experimented with Pinterest for several months now to see what all the fuss was about and have managed to find the sweet spot in terms of content type that generates repins, among what is a predominantly female user base.

But here’s how Pinterest makes its money – they have partnered with a company called Skimlinks which scans every link of every post on the site to see if it goes to a retail site with an affiliate program.

If it finds such a link, it will add an affiliate code that ensures Pinterest is paid for that online lead! A fascinating and seemingly fair monetization model actually, but not entirely transparent on the part of Pinterest.

I’m intrigued as to when they will become a little more ‘pinteransparent’ about their use of our pins and repins.

In the meantime, happy pinning everyone.