Once you’ve determined that Pinterest is a good match for your nonprofit, you’ll want to get acquainted with the site before going on a pinning frenzy.

Business Page vs. Personal Profile

Whether you’re a newbie to Pinterest, or an avid pinner on your personal time, you’ll find it fairly easy to create a business page. And you really should create a business page to use Pinterest as your organization and raise awareness about your programs and impact.

If you’re already on Pinterest, you do have the option of converting your existing personal page to a business page. But be forewarned, if you convert your profile, you have to go whole hog and convert the entire profile, not just individual boards. If you have a board on kittens dressed in lederhosen that you’d rather keep personal, you’re out of luck.

If you are completely new to Pinterest, or loathe to sacrifice your personal space, you can create a new business page at business.pinterest.com

What are the benefits of establishing a business page?

  1. Account verification to avoid impersonation
  2. Access to a special Pin It button and other widgets
  3. Exclusive access to new features like Insights
  4. Setting it up correctly to begin with will give you access to more features for your organization as the platform continues to evolve

Getting Started

  1. Carefully and strategically fill out the About Us section of your business page. Time to get savvy – this is more critical than you may think.
  • Use specific SEO keywords – think about how people will search for you and your cause
  • Verify your website
  • You’ll also have the opportunity to link to Facebook or Twitter, but we generally don’t recommend replicating content on social media. Each platform has its own niche and type of messaging that resonates, and you’re often speaking to different audiences on different platforms.

2. Add Pin It buttons to each page of your website and to each blog post (each post should include an image or a video) at http://about.pinterest.com/goodies/

3. Add Pin It bookmarklet to your browser for easy pinning.

4. Add Pin It button to every single campaign you launch or vivid photo you share. If you happen to have an online store, affix a “pin it” button there too. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to  pin and share your stuff.

Now that we’ve covered the nitty gritty, read up on 11 Best Practices for Using Pinterest for Nonprofits.