Why Pinerest Can’t Have It Both Ways

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Pinterest’s status as the answer to many a marketers prayers is under real threat from New York start-up, Fancy, with much clearer ideas about making money.

Fancy, Pinterest’s biggest rival, is quickly making a name for itself as a serious social shopping platform. And one that seeks to quickly monetize all the sharing that Pinterest has not.

I really, really like Pinterest, because it’s built up some serious social media credibility. Since it’s launch, Pinterest has reached a critical mass of users and, more importantly, it’s been adopted by users as a place to share real content.

However, as more and more marketers have flocked to Pinterest to get free traffic, the platform is reaching a tipping point. Here’s the problem, there’s no true plan in place to accommodate both the organic social posts and the commercial/marketing posts.

On FB, there are personal profiles, and then there are pages. On Pinterest, all the content bleeds together, which waters down the strength of Pinterest as a social platform… and it leaves marketers to figure things out for themselves. In fact, we wrote the book on learning to market on Pinterest.

And as we’ve seen with Facebook, monetizing a social media platform is pretty freaking difficult, especially if you don’t have a plan. If you leave it up to marketers to figure things out for themselves, well… let’s be honest, you might not appreciate how they go about it.

In stark contrast, The Fancy, is built to monetize, from the ground up. Fancy actually rewards users for their shares in cash money. Actually, it’s digital cash money, but still.

If you recommend something on TheFancy.com, and then someone buys it, you get 2% of the transaction. That’s an affiliate marketing plan, folks. Fancy has also partnered with AMEX, so that users get $20 back when they purchase selected items over $100 and tweet #AmexTheFancyOffer.

But the most innovative thing Fancy is doing right now is definitely group gifting. Let’s say your friends are having a baby, and you want to buy them one of those high end stroller that cost as much as a used car.

Well, soon you can send all your friends to a group gift option on Fancy where everyone can chip in their desired amount. Pretty cool, right? Not only does it give you a practical way to buy a group gift… but it also exposes new users to Fancy.

Even more important, it gets them used to making transactions on Fancy right from day one.

Do you think Fancy is paving the way for social shopping?  Will Fancy eventually upstage Pinterest?

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2 Comments

1. 

   roberto

   December 26, 2012 at 7:38 pm

   great article ,,,,,thanks

   so true the rss its unable to suscribe.

   Reply
2. 

   spelletjes

   November 16, 2012 at 7:46 am

   Oh my goodness! Impressive article dude! Thanks, However I
   am going through difficulties with your RSS. I don’t understand the reason why I am unable to subscribe to it. Is there anybody having similar RSS problems? Anyone that knows the answer will you kindly respond? Thanks!!

   Reply