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(Image source: Pinterest)
BY NATHAN BYRNE
A social media platform is going to test promoted ads. Why is this news?
Because it's Pinterest, which — like Facebook and Twitter before it — experienced exponential
growth before dipping its toe into the trial waters of monetization.
Pinterest's position is a powerful one, according to a ZDNet writer who says, "As a smaller
but growing platform, Pinterest has the benefits of learning from the successes and failures
of its predecessors."
The promoted pins will come from a select group of businesses on Pinterest. TechCrunch
says the first tests will be seen in search results and category feeds, citing an example:
"When you search for Halloween, you might see a costume on sale at a local shop that
had pinned the outfit."
Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann made the announcement Thursday in a blog post promising promoted
pins would be tasteful, with no banners or pop-ups; transparent, meaning sponsored content
and locations would be clearly labeled as such; relevant, or determined by your expressed
interests; and improved based on your feedback.
It's been a when-not-if situation for the site, which is nearly 4 years old and 70 million
users strong. The San Francisco-based startup has an estimated value of $2.5 billion — and
that's before the implementation of this planned revenue stream.
Mashable notes Pinterest eventually needs to pay back $338 million to its investors
and that it tried making a little extra cash when it partnered with affiliate-links-provider
Skimlinks back in 2012 but stopped after a negative backlash from users who found Pinterest
was profiting from their pins.
At the time, Skimlinks CEO Alicia Navarro told WebProNews her company had a "happy relationship"
with Pinterest, although from this interview, it sounded like that good thing was about
to come to an end, "probably because they raised a lot of money and now have a luxury
of being able to take the time to break out their longer-term revenue strategy."
And if you think you've heard about promoted pins before, you probably have. They're just
not from Pinterest itself, but from the user base via services like Pinbooster that help
individuals make money off their pins.
But this plan is clearly business-driven. USA Today points out how companies such as
Lowe's have already established a merchandising vehicle by driving clicks through their Pinterest
presence to their online stores.
According to AllThingsD, the ads should start showing up on Pinterest in the next few weeks.