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An early Side Hustle School episode featured a woman who earned $40,000 pinning images on Pinterest. Today's caller wants to know if that still works.
In the first week of Side Hustle School — Episode 4! — you told the story of the woman who got paid $4,000 a month to post pins on Pinterest. I went and looked it up, and it was true! But that was three years ago ... is this still a viable option? I'm also wondering more generally about how often opportunities come and go. If Pinterest (or whatever) is hot today, won't it be cold tomorrow?
Yes and no. Pinterest still drives meaningful traffic — it works more like a visual search engine than an algorithm-heavy social platform, which makes it fairly stable for food, home decor, weddings, and shopping content. But AI has changed the economics: basic pin creation is now cheap and easy, so simply making graphics and scheduling posts is far less valuable than it used to be.
What still works is strategy — keyword intent, seasonal trends, click-through optimization, and how pins connect to blogs, email lists, and products. The commodity part got automated; the judgment layer became more important. That pattern shows up in a lot of industries: specific tactics expire, but underlying skills persist.
So I wouldn't chase "the hot platform" as the goal. The woman in that story loved Pinterest, was good at it, and got in early — those are the characteristics to look for. Develop the skill of turning ideas into offers, and you'll be ready wherever attention flows next.
Have a question? Visit SideHustleSchool.com/questions.
