5 Benefits for Nonprofit Supporter Engagement on Pinterest

We continue our Social Media Summer Series to increase nonprofit fundraising and engagement with a focus on Pinterest. Pinterest is a growing platform that has many benefits to nonprofits in expanding its reach and engaging supporters with an increased potential of turning them into donors. Aptly known as an online pin board, users also known as Pinners can share, ‘like’ and re-pin images, photos and videos. Founded by Ben Silbermann in March 2010 Pinterest has seen a significant growth in users, traffic and overall popularity making this a social media platform that nonprofits should consider establishing and maintaining a presence on and fast.

Earlier this year I wrote about 5 Tips to Effectively Use Pinterest for Nonprofit Fundraising and Engagement. However, if your organization is still hesitant to take the leap or is unsure how to use it effectively, the following benefits might help sway you to establishing your presence on this growing network.

1. Brand Building. A presence on Pinterest helps with establishing and reaffirming an organization’s brand including the people, culture, mission and successes behind the brand. The themed, visual boards on Pinterest allow your organization to illustrate all that makes your cause unique and important. This visual story will help engage (potential) supporters and build on your organization’s brand.
2. Increased Traffic. With over 10 million registered users and counting in 2012, Pinterest helps increase traffic to your website or blog in 2 different ways: i) via links to learn more from the pictures and videos you post on Pinterest leading back to your website or blog; and ii) by other Pinners sharing, repining and liking your images and videos with their own networks which increases your reach for more traffic back to your site. Increasing traffic to your website in particular is important as that is where a (potential) supporter can learn the most about your cause and what it represents. Increasing the traffic to your website or blog will help improve your Google ranking along with other SEO variables.
3. Increased Engagement. The platform has an addictive quality amongst users and unlike other platforms the Pinterest community is a lot more active and likely to share your content with their own networks. As a very visual platform, it is attention grabbing and attracts visitors. The ease of use of this platform also facilitates Pinners to share with their followers and visitors with only a few clicks.
4. Increased Donors. Compared to other social media platforms, Pinterest has shown the ability to quickly convert visitors from browsers to purchasers. As organizations look to expand their reach and find new supporters that can eventually become donors, a presence on this platform can be significant to nonprofits. When visitors view your content, ‘Like’ or ‘Re-Pin’ it they are more likely to click on the accompanying link that directs them to your donation form. Also, by ‘setting a price’, in this case an ‘appeal amount’ to the content that you are sharing, nonprofits can take advantage of the platforms filtering system that will display the pin into gift stream giving Pinners the opportunity to make a donation on their own behalf or as a gift.
5. Increase SEO Ranking. Pinterest still offers ‘dofollow’ links which tells search engines, like Google, to follow the destination within the link. The more links you have created within your Pins on Pinterest, the more links the search engine will pick up which will increase your ranking on a Google search page. The main advantage to nonprofits being that it increases the chances of your websites and blogs being found in a related Google search.

These are just a few of the key benefits that Pinterest represents to nonprofits in terms of engaging existing donors and appealing to new supporters. There are many more but I think these are enough to influence an organization to give it serious consideration. On Thursday I will provide tips on how to maximize the results of your Pinterest marketing efforts.

You can browse through all the previous posts I’ve written in my Social Media Summer Series for nonprofits which includes a series on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin along with other related topics.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.