5 Tips to Maximize Your Impact on Pinterest

At this point, most of you have heard the buzz about Pinterest. Since January 2012, the social network has experienced a 145% increase in unique visitors. If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, what are you waiting for?! Not only is Pinterest completely addictive, but it has some huge benefits for nonprofits and social good campaigns.

By having a Pinterest that accurately represents your brand, you will be able to articulate your mission and values to a wide and involved audience—a mostly female audience between the ages of 25 and 54 (the most likely demographic to donate to causes). It’s the ideal place to tell your nonprofit’s story and get people involved with your mission.

If you’re ready to launch or expand your Pinterst activity, here are five tips to help you along the way:

Humanize Your Brand
Use Pinterest to provide insight into your brand’s mission and an understanding of what goes on behind closed doors. Pin pictures of the daily activities at your organization and of your programs in action. And make sure to get all of your employees involved in pinning and developing the boards on Pinterest. Letting users see the faces behind your organization by engaging your staff will allow your brand to connect more authentically with the public. Any employee can pin photos of projects they are working on or other campaign efforts in your field, or even just fun finds around the web. Don’t be afraid to let loose and show users your fun side.

Raise Money
Pinterest can be a great platform to raise awareness for fundraising campaigns. There is a function that allows you to put a price tag in the corner of a pin (type $ and the amount in the comments and it will appear in the top-left corner). You can use this to indicate to users that they have an opportunity to donate by adding details about the fundraising campaign into the comments sections and using the photo to show users what a good cause they are supporting. Pin pictures of merchandise that supports your cause. Products circulate quickly on Pinterest because of its consumer culture.

Pin Videos
PInterest isn’t just for pictures! Don’t forget about videos. Share video content on Pinterest and generate more views by dedicating one of your boards to your YouTube channel. If you have video content on your site, pin it on one of your boards so you can generate more views and drive traffic to your website. Video content is also a great way to grab attention and spark interest in your organization.

Highlight Sponsors and Partners
Like Facebook or Twitter, you can follow other people and brands and “repin” their content onto your boards. Engaging with sponsors or partners on Pinterest is a great way to build relationships and highlight the larger community working in support of your cause. You can also tag people or organizations you follow by typing @[name] in the comments.

Inspire Users to Share
Pinners want to be inspired. Pin content that encourages users to get involved or share, like pictures of a success story from your nonprofit. Colorful, creative, funny or inspirational pins will get the most attention and circulation—translating to a big bump in traffic to your website (Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube, combined). When pinning your own original content, make sure you’re telling a personal story that reflects your mission. Some companies make the mistake of thinking the image has to say it all and will just post a picture from Google images. Pinners do not like being directed to Google image searches, so make sure your pins are from actual sources that can provide context for the image.

As a relative newbie on the social media scene, Pinterest offers the opportunity for nonprofits to be creative and innovative with campaigns and user engagement. What are some of the best Pinterest cause campaigns you’ve seen? Let us know in the comments!