Social media for charities 101: Pinterest

 

Founded in 2009 by Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp, Pinterest is a ‘visual discovery engine’. Pinterest describe their mission as “bringing everyone the inspiration to create a life they love”.

 

There are 444 million global active monthly users and 16.7 million UK users. It’s ranked the 14th largest social media platform in the world and, while it’s smaller than Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, it is larger than Twitter.

 

Although it’s a mature social media platform at 12 years old, Pinterest shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, in 2020 it grew its users by 46%, compared to the previous year, and more than doubled its Q3 revenue in Q4 of 2020.

 

Traditionally Pinterest’s users have been predominantly female. In 2020, however, the number of male users increased by almost 50% – narrowing the female/male divide.

 

 

Should your charity be on Pinterest?

 

As with every social media platform, if your audience is on there and you have the time and resource to create content and manage your account – then yes.

 

In terms of audience demographics, around 60% of users are women, and women aged 25–34 represent around 30% of their advertising audience. Gen Z (people born after 1997) Pinners grew by 40% between 2019 and 2020 and Millennial Pinners (people born between 1981 and 1996) grew 35% last year.

 

 

How to use Pinterest

 

Pinterest is a search engine and can therefore drive traffic back to your charity’s website. It differs from other social media platforms in that it doesn’t need much community management. While people can leave comments on Pins, it’s not very common as Pinterest is about finding new ideas, shopping trends and finding inspiration, rather than being a community-based platform. It also means that your content has a much longer shelf life than on other social media platforms.

 

Pinterest is made up of Pins and Boards. A Pin is an image or video, which then directs the user to a webpage, blog post, product page, etc. Boards are where you can collate Pins around different topics. For example, Macmillan Cancer Support has a ‘Recipes for people affected by cancer’ board, which consists of a number of recipe Pins. When a user clicks on a pin, it takes them to the recipe on the charity’s website.

 

 

Why use Pinterest?

 

Pinterest can be used to drive traffic to your website as well as sell products from an online shop.

 

It’s a great marketing tool for charities who have online stores. According to Pinterest, there was a 300% increase in ‘add-to-cart’ and checkout attributed conversions between January and August 2020.

 

If you’re selling products, aim for seasonality if possible. According to Pinterest data, seasonal-specific Pins … ‘drive 10 times higher aided awareness and 22% higher online sales.’