There has been lots of talk about Pinterest and its competitors this week. For instance, The Fancy announced that they will be diving into the world of mobile commerce with an update to their iOS app that allows users to purchase things directly from the app. Similarly, The Verge writes about why Pinterest rival Wists failed to become the next big social network.

Do you know the keys to affiliate marketing success? How about the things you should avoid? Boston Innovation has written a list of 5 affiliate marketing mishaps to avoid. One mistake you can make is not doing enough research, as they stressed the importance of looking into a company’s site visitors.

Google+ became more locally focused on Wednesday as they rolled out a tool that allows users to find information about nearby places. The feature, appropriately named “Local”, includes basic information like address and business hours in addition to reviews from Zagat.

We discussed this feature a few weeks ago, but Facebook has finally released more details about their pay-to-promote program. Mashable reports that when sharing a post, brands will have a drop-down menu where you can choose how much money you would like to spend to promote your post. What do you think of promoted posts? How much would you be willing to spend?

Do you monitor your social influence score on services like Klout, PeerIndex and Kred? Search Engine Watch describes how each site calculates their social influence score, and describes how to increase your standing.

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