Pinterest, Pinning, Pins. What does it all mean? And what does it have to do with not-for-profit organisations?
Pinterest is a virtual pin board. Remember the days when you would pin magazine articles, photos, recipes, all the cool things you saw and pin them on kitchen corkboard? Now you can do it online and share it with the world. Why?
Reach
Surpassing 10 million visitors last December, Pinterest is the fastest of any standalone site with 11.7 million unique visitors. Spreads awareness of the cause.
Ease of use
An image can tell a thousand stories and can inspire your supporters. People are visual. That is why this channel is so popular because of its ease for sharing.
A factor of Pinterest’s success is that it is a visually beautiful platform. When you pin your first image you’re hooked. For not-for-profit organisations it is a great way to tell a story via a strong image and drive traffic to the causes “Donate” page.
Connection
Organisations who use Pinterest have used it to connect people via their social motivations on a global stage.
Brand building
Not-for-profit organisations are pinning images for cause story telling and also for brand building by being transparent and pinning “behind the scenes” videos and pics.
Your Audience
People can learn about your organisation by what you are pinning and you can learn about them by looking what they are ‘repinning’ from your page.
Measurement
If you add a “Pin It” button (a way for readers to pin your images to their boards) to your site you can use Google Analytics to track how many people are adding your pins to their boards. There are online tools such as Pinerly, PinPuff and Pinclout which all have their measurement criteria. I suggest try all to see which works best for you.
The key to Pinterest is to pin images encompassing an interest that are likely to go viral. Boards can be created from related images. For not-for-profit organisations, boards can contain special events, campaigns, people wearing merchandise to support the cause, just to name a few. When creating boards you must remember that Pinterest was created to be visually appealing, so use images containing a consistent colour palette would create conformity across the page.
The legal side of Pinterest is a grey area and when you are pinning your organisation’s images make sure you aren’t infringing anyone’s copyright and that they are your images.
If Pinterest is going to be your first venture into the world of Social Media, I suggest choosing a platform that can start a conversation for engagement such as Twitter or Facebook. Once you have a handle in one of these Pinterest may be for your organisation.
Happy Pinning