Pinterest rolls out new monetization features for creators

Dive Brief:

As social media platforms form deeper partnerships with users, Pinterest has introduced new monetization features for creators on its platform, the company announced on Tuesday. Creators can make Idea Pins — a video-first feature introduced this spring — shoppable, earn commissions through affiliate links and partner with brands on sponsored content.
Users can now tag products in their Idea Pins, allowing shoppers to purchase products from those pins. Creators who have partnered with brands can denote Idea Pins with a "paid partnerships" label, the company said.
Pinterest is launching the Idea Pins tagging tool for business account users in the U.S. and the U.K. first before rolling out the feature to other countries. The paid partnerships tool is already available for select Pinterest creators in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Ireland and multiple other countries, per the announcement.

Dive Insight:

Pinterest's new features expand the capabilities of creators on its platform. The paid partnerships feature helps creators disclose their sponsorships to followers, so they can authentically engage with users, while the shoppability of Idea Pins will allow them to take advantage of a space on Pinterest where users are increasingly going to make purchases. The company noted that users are 89% more likely to "exhibit shopping intent" for items tagged in Idea Pins compared to Product Pins, per its internal research.

"With this latest update, we're empowering Creators to reach millions of shoppers on the platform and monetize their work," Aya Kanai, Pinterest head of content and creator partnerships, said in a statement. "Creators deserve to be rewarded for the inspiration they deliver to their followers, and the sales they drive for brands. Creators are central to our mission to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love, and we'll continue working with them to build their businesses and find success on Pinterest."

In addition to these creator tools, Pinterest has released other features in recent months to enable shopping, including launching a shopping list in June, which allows users to save product pins in one place and receive price drop notifications, and expanding a Verified Merchant Program. The social platform debuted a shop tab and style guides last year, and has been improving its augmented reality try-on tools.

The rollout of Pinterest's creator tools comes as multiple other social media platforms debut creator-centric features to help influencers monetize their brand partnerships and online audience. Behemoths like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat have also recently expanded monetization tools or otherwise invested in creators on their platforms.