6 Characteristics of Awesome Nonprofit Pins

If your nonprofit doesn’t know about Pinterest, it’s about time it caught up.

In terms of adult U.S. Internet users, Pinterest has almost caught up with Twitter!

Nonprofits are actively using Pinterest to connect with new donors, raise money and accomplish their missions.

There are several characteristics that separate awesome nonprofit pins from the mediocre.

Awesome nonprofit pins:

Are visually compelling. This is Pinterest, after all! People use Pinterest for creative ideas and inspiration. The more visually interesting, unique or compelling the pin, the more it will be liked, commented on and re-pinned. Getting engagement on your pins is key!

Tell a story. Research estimates that you have two seconds to capture someone’s attention before they move on to the next thing. Your nonprofit pins should say what you need to say in one image – enough to capture someone to click on the pin to learn more, or re-pin it to one of their boards to share with their followers.

Educate and inform. A big part of your mission to create social change around the problem you are passionate about solving. Your pins should easily educate and inform people about the problem and get them talking – make them angry, make them happy, elicit an emotion and that will translate into Pinterest engagement!

Have clever, descriptive captions. These captions should be short (no longer than 200 characters) and descriptive of the pin and what is going on in the photograph.

Use hashtags sparingly. Did you know you can use hashtags on Pinterest, just like on Twitter and Instagram? They are a great way to filter pins relating to a topic. Do your research before adding hashtags to your pins. What are the popular hashtags in your industry and related to your cause? What are your followers using? A good hashtag is relevant, short, popular and memorable (such as “savetheoceans”, “pinning4good”, “animallove”, “equalitynow”).

Are of interest to the nonprofit’s online community. This should go without saying. It’s not about you and what you want to pin. It’s about what your followers, your online community, wants to see, share, comment on and re-pin. Granted, they like you and follow you on Pinterest (hopefully), so they want to know more about what you do, who you serve and the change that you are making in the world. But I’m willing to bet they have other interests too. Find out what those are, and get pinning!

What else makes an awesome nonprofit pin on Pinterest? Please comment, like and share this post. Thanks for reading!