- Like Instagram and TikTok, Pinterest is creating ways for its users to monetize their content.
- The platform's Creator Fund offers a $25,000 grant to help underrepresented creators grow their reach.
- Style and travel influencer Oyin Edogi says joining the fund helped her land multiple paid partnerships.
While many content creators focus on platforms like Instagram or TikTok, Pinterest is emerging as another place where they can make money. Pinterest's new Creator Inclusion Lead, Zeny Shifferaw, has joined others in the company setting goals to "uplift and empower historically marginalized creators."
One influencer who's found their piece of the Pinterest pie is Oyin Edogi. She's a beauty, style, and travel influencer who began monetizing her Pinterest account in December 2020, when she only had several thousand followers.
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"I had about 5,000 followers before I received my first paid campaign on Pinterest. I honestly was pinning for fun and didn't know the power of the platform," Edogi told Insider. Over time, Edogi says she was able to position herself as a 'top pinner '— someone who pinned other creators' work as well as creating her own pins — which caught the eye of Pinterest's partnerships team. Edogi says they reached out to her directly to offer her that first paid campaign.
In October of 2020, Pinterest had made an open commitment to amplifying creators and businesses from underrepresented communities. And in May 2021, the platform rolled out the Creator Fund, which offered selected creators from underrepresented communities a $25,000 grant, a four-week training program, and creative strategy consulting. Oyin Edogi and other creators were hand-selected by Pinterest to join the fund.
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Edogi told Insider the experience helped her network with other creatives, learn new tools of how to build and scale her personal brand, and understand in more detail how Pinterest's analytics work.
In April 2021, Pinterest also ushered in the Creator Code, a content policy that aimed to minimize trolling, hateful speech, and negativity across the platform. The code says that creators must be kind, fact-check, be aware of potential visually sensitive material, and practice inclusion.
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Once simply a place to go for fashion ideas or DIY arts and crafts, Pinterest now include more travel hacks, entrepreneurship tips, daily motivation, parenting inspiration, and even live shows.
In a few months since joining the Creator Fund, Edogi says she went from having 100,000 monthly views to over 600,000 in less than a few months. Besides the Creator Fund, she says she's also begun creating pins with brands like Ulta.