Earning money from your Pinterest pins

There’s been lots of coverage of Pinterest’s use of affiliate links on user’s pins, with reaction veering from outrage to shoulder shrugs. But regular users can also use affiliate links, to earn commission on products they recommend.

Affiliate links work like this: You sign up for a service such as Amazon.com Associates or Skimlinks, which is reportedly what Pinterest is using. When you include a link to the product you’ve mention, you use an affiliate link and if somebody buys as a result, you get a small commission.

As Forbes says in their article “Move in now to cash in on your own pins“:

Any user can go in today and make their own affiliate move on Pinterest,” Keath says. “If you want to go in and find awesome products and get that kick-back, by all means go ahead.” For the time being, then, disgruntled Pinterest users can look to turn their own profit with an Amazon affiliate partnership and some minor link-changing of their own.

Advocates say it’s a great way to earn a little from your carefully considered recommendations. Detractors say it can turn good-old natural content into a big sell.

We say, if people love your great taste and want to buy it for themselves, it makes sense you might get a little commission on that, especially since it doesn’t add to the overall cost. Recommendations via social networks are becoming more important and influential, whether they are about what to read, how to dress or what to buy.

Do you use affiliate links or are you considering us? Do you buy things recommended by other bloggers or people on your social networks like Pinterest? Tell us about your experience.

Follow BritMums on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/britmums and pin to our boards!

You can also follow BritMums co-founder Jennifer at www.pinterest.com/jphowze, Michelle at www.pinterest.com/michelloui and Karin on www.pinterest.com/karinjoyce.

About Jennifer Howze

Jennifer Howze is the Creative Director and co-founder of BritMums. She blogs about family travel at Jenography.net, tweets at @JHowze and Instagrams at @JHowze. Previously, she wrote the Alpha Mummy blog at The Times and as a journalist has contributed to The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Wall Street Journal, Travel & Leisure, Budget Travel, CNN.com, Allure, SELF and Premiere, among others. She won The Maggie Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for a health article in Seventeen magazine.

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