Canadian Startup Pinbooster Allows Pinners to Monetize Their Followings on Pinterest

Pinterest now has over 32 million users and is valued between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, according to Pinbooster’s Canadian cofounders, Dave Weinberg and Ariel Remer. Weinberg, a Toronto expat, chatted with me over the phone last week about his exciting new startup.

Pinbooster, which was bootstrapped, connects advertisers with Pinterest users. Advertisers will be able to connect with millions of the most engaged Pinterest users. They are able to promote a hashtag or event with the help of Pinbooster’s network.

Advertisers can pay top pinners to share photographs, videos, links, and hashtags of products. If successful, they will grow their brand’s following and establish themselves within one of the fastest growing social networks. There’s one catch: the hashtag “#ad” will have to appear at the end of a sponsored pin. And the higher the potential pin’s reach, the higher the price.

Pinners will finally be able to monetize their followers. They will always be able to decide what to post, who they work with, and how much they want to charge. They can cash out once they reach $100.

We have seen Twitter come out with a few advertising solutions such as “sponsored tweets.” There are also “pay-per-tweet” third party services. Users can install Toronto-based web app Hovr.me to participate in Pinterest-based e-commerce.

Pinbooster offers the kind of value advertisers are used to, but warns you should take your time for the best results. That makes sense because advertisers have always been careful of which popular content and platforms to sponsor. Pinboosters should consider beyond the most heavily followed users.

The company has already signed up over 3,200 advertisers, 500 of which are agencies. Some of the pinners signed up have followings into the hundreds of thousands or millions.

The company came out of private beta in late October. Weinberg has a solid reputation as a serial Internet entrepreneur. Save Darfur Coalition, Jewneric.com, and Freedom 25 are some of his past pieces of work.