Pinterest Marketing and More

An extremely popular website defined by pictures. It’s a great concept.

I personally love Pinterest and enjoy finding new cooking recipes, fashion pairings and workouts.

My Pinterest profile is just for my own interests and I pin in my free time. Of course, there are companies that have Pinterest accounts where staff are hired on to pin as part of their job. Sounds pretty fun, huh?

Well, I just read an article in the New York Times about websites that pay users to pin. Companies are paying users to post their products to social media sites in order to generate clicks and revenue. These pinners get paid when their links are clicked. The Federal Trade Commission says bloggers must specify all paid endorsements.

Advertisements are surreptitiously getting squeezed into our everyday lives. On one hand, endorsed pinning is against the rules because it isn’t being clarified as advertisement; however, businesses that have Pinterest accounts are technically doing this same thing- paying an employee to pin certain items for marketing and sales purposes. One could easily argue for or against this marketing strategy.

This new advertising idea is just one of many that are developing to appeal to the masses in their natural habitat. Are these sly and explicitly paid pin advertisements really any different then a billboard on the side of the highway?