Pinterest launches a fund to pay influencers
Pinterest - of all social media platforms - is perhaps the least dependent on the type of influencer culture associated with Instagram, YouTube, and more.
But that seems to be changing now, as the platform launched the Creator Fund to pay money to a small group of influencers to create content through the platform.
The fund is providing $ 500,000 in cash and media to small groups of influencers throughout 2021, starting with eight creatives from unrepresented backgrounds.
The platform plans to add more people to the program throughout the year, and with this fund, Pinterest has become the latest platform to attract influencers with direct financial support.
TikTok also launched a $ 200 million fund last year, and Snapchat's Spotlight initiative has paid out millions of users who create the most popular videos.
Compared to those efforts, Pinterest's approach is more modest, but the platform makes clear that it is also trying to build a different kind of influencer culture than other platforms.
Alongside the fund, Pinterest has also introduced a new set of policies for its creators, which go beyond existing community guidelines.
The new policies called Creator Code require all Pinterest users with access to Story Pins to agree to a set of guidelines that include fact-checking and creating an inclusive environment.
In practical terms, the Creator Code does not change existing Pinterest policies, which prohibit things like wrong health information and hate speech.
Sarah Bromma, Head of Policy at Pinterest, said: Creator Code aims to encourage creators to understand the spirit of our content policies. And intellectual property.
The Creators Fund comes after the platform introduced the Story Pins feature and Creator Creator accounts last September, both of which aim to facilitate the presentation of projects at the highest level through users and build followers across the platform.
Pinterest has also revealed new comment moderation features, which encourage users to write more positive comments and warnings when violating the platform's rules.
This feature is similar to the tools used by Instagram and TikTok, which also have the ability to proactively warn users before posting rule-breaking comments.