What is Pinterest?
It seems as though the web has recently been awash with Pinteresting articles regarding the new social media / shopping wishlist / web content sharing phenomenon that is Pinterest, even though the site has been around for about a year now. Whilst many people resisted exploring it thinking that it could possibly be just another passing web craze it seems the web has decided it is quite the opposite… and when respected social media Gurus such as Mashable report that Pinterest is driving more referral traffic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined (http://goo.gl/Rzmfu) it’s certainly time to pinvestigate the possibilities for charities (ok I will stop with the puns now!).
Many organisations may be unsure what exactly the site is, mainly because site registration is still limited by invitation so it’s certainly understandable. In the simplest sense it is very much like a tiled wall, except each tile is a large vibrant image which links to a web page, the tiles you will see are subject to the people/organisations/interests that you follow and are what seems like a never ending vertical wall. The interface is unique and feels contemporary and luxurious, almost like a watching all of your satellite TV channels on one screen before you choose the one you want to watch. If you are familiar with Stumbleupon it’s not dissimilar in the sense that the purpose is to share things you like on the web, except it is much more organised, structured and manageable. Each user has their own boards which relate to a variety of different interest streams and each afore mentioned ‘tile’ can be repined to you own board, can be liked or can be commented upon. The site allows you to sign in with Twitter or Facebook and you can automatically push each pin out to both platforms which make it a central point from which to spread content easily.
4 Ways for charities to benefit from using Pinterest
- Grab attention – The interface is based around visuals with minimal text. Compelling images will help to pull people to the content driving increased traffic through to the website, the format is better suited to get the maximum from rich media. Getting attention is an especially difficult objective in the modern web context so anything that helps has to be bonus.
- Facilitate word of mouth – The subjects that users fill their boards with are on the whole very personal, for example; ‘my dream home’, ‘places I’d love to visit’ and ‘charities I love’ are not uncommon themes. With this in mind Pinterest can be used to help make campaign communications go further as users pin and repin content throughout their networks.
- Showcase merchandise – For some organisations the merchandise which support their fundraising can be the most substantial revenue stream. Pinterest provides the opportunity to showcase objects, helping to aid revenue generation.
- Share success stories – Since any kind of web page can be pinned all media can be shared on the site. This could be particularly useful for sharing success stories or moving content around appeals to inspire audiences towards onsite calls to action .
Whilst not all of the possible uses of Pinterest have been explored as yet it does seem to show all the signs of becoming a staple medium. Where Twitter has found its area in sharing up to date news, Youtube in videos, Facebook in facilitating social conversations and LinkedIn for B2B networking it seems that Pinterest is where you share what you love and since that links very closely with your favourite charitable cause it’s definitely one for NFP’s to get to grips with.
There are a number of organisations already on the site with their own user profiles. They can have a number of different pinboards which can all be followed or followed individually such as ‘success stories’, ‘2012 merchandise’, ‘campaign progress’ etc. Even the organisations who have not created their own accounts may already have a presence on the site as their marketing work and aspects of their websites have already been shared by individuals who support their causes.
How to check whether your site’s content has been pinned
As one final parting top tip: anybody can check if their website content has been pinned (shared) on Pinterest. The simple way of finding out what is on the site as well how many repins, likes and comments your content has had is to type: pinterest.com/source/YOURWEBSITEURL.COM (or .co.uk/.org as appropriate) into your browser bar, with the name of your website replacing ‘YOURWEBSITEURL’ (For example for Apple it would read: pinterest.com/source/apple.com) . This will not only tell you what people are pinning, it’s also a potential indicator of which of your content makes the greatest impact too.
