11.72 million! That’s how many unique U.S. visitors Pinterest experienced in January of this year. What’s more important, those users averaged nearly 98 minutes of time spent engaging with the website. As Mashable points out, that’s about the same amount of time as users spend with blog hosting platform Tumblr. Oh, and now Pinterest also generates more referral traffic than Twitter. Over the past few months, I’ve seen many college and universities begin to take advantage of the opportunity on Pinterest. Evidenced by some of the examples compiled below, institutions are quickly feeling their way through the site and identifying the most effective ways to use it for them.
Aaron Jaco, Digital Media Specialist at Drake University, states many reasons your institution should consider Pinterest, and in a follow-up post, shares several best practices for using the service. After you’ve looked through the examples below, I definitely recommend reading these posts if you have yet to do so.
Let’s get on to the examples!
There’s no better place to start than the account Aaron oversees at Drake University. With 14 Boards, 391 Pins, and 26 Likes at the time of this writing, Drake’s Pinterest presence is one of the most highly maintained and engaging I’ve seen.
The Boards are fun, creative, and clever, with names like, “Rad room decor,” “Adorbs bulldogs,” and “Ran out of Bulldog Bucks?”. If you’re up for shortening adorable to “adorbs” in a Board name, you’re definitely keeping things loose! I love it. On Pinterest, showing off some personality adds the always craved ‘human element’ to your content that helps your audience relate. Remember, you aren’t out to be a marketing voice here – you’re a participant.
There’s an excellent variety of content, too, which includes products, animals, photography, food, clothes, quotes, and sports, to name a few. Pinterest is a network that provides an opportunity to connect via a huge variety of interests (which really equals people), so the broader the content appeal the better. Most impressively, Drake understands how to involve its community. The “Drake Alumni: Pin Your Pride!” Board encourages alumni to contribute and offers clear instructions on how users can pin to the Board. And numbers don’t lie, as it has a whopping 1,802 followers! Overall, Drake University’s Pinterest account is a fantastic example to be inspired by if you’re looking to get your institution’s Pinterest presence off the ground.
With 228 followers, there are plenty of eyeballs on what Duke University is pinning. With 14 Boards, 139 Pins, and 29 Likes, the numbers suggest they’re doing a very respectable job. With Boards such as “Duke Faces,” “Duke’s Lemurs,” and “Sportsmanship,” Duke is creating an environment that represents themselves well, while still pinning interesting content. What’s this mean? Everyone wins.
Concordia College in Minnesota has amassed 79 followers and has created 16 Boards. My favorite of those are probably the “Why Liberal Arts Matter,” and “Concordia: Who We Are” Boards. The former Board offers an opportunity to pin a unique and very wide variety of content, which is an advantage since you can appeal to many different kinds of users. The latter is a fantastic way to show off what the brand stands for in an open, sometimes interpretive way. What’s pinned to the “Who We Are” Board can encompass many, many different aspects of Concordia College.
With 543 followers, Miami University is the most followed institution I found on Pinterest (if you have seen a larger following, let me know!). I wonder how they’ve been promoting it?
Currently, Emory University has chosen a different approach, and I’d say it’s a misstep. While they have 101 followers and 208 Pins, they only have 2 Boards – and 0 Likes. They have a primary, generic Board called “Emory University Pinboard” and another Board that simply contains other institutions on Pinterest, which multiple institutions are contributors of.
“School spirit” couldn’t come to mind any quicker than when I saw Texas A&M’s Pinterest account. Every Board, while unique in its own right, certainly looks the part! This is what the higher education community has come to expect from Texas A&M when it comes to social media.
Oberlin has created a significant amount of Boards: 21. And they’re very actively pinning to those Boards, with 505 Pins. Is this too many boards? I think it’s a fair question but I also think it’s too early in Pinterest’s existence to really tell. I definitely recommend checking this one out!
SCAD – Savannah College of Art and Design
Leave it to the college of art and design to get fancy! (see above) Like Oberlin, SCAD has a large amount of Boards: 19. Topics range from fashion, to student work, to Kickstarter projects, to “Flat out interesting” – which has almost double the amount of followers as the main SCAD account. And these folks know how to pin, with 699! I wonder what their 700th pin will be?
22 Boards, 372 Pins, and 13 Likes. Seeing a trend? Certainly looks like at least a few institutions are comfortable creating many Boards. Marquette’s standout Boards include “Dear Marquette,” “100 things to do before graduation,” and “Marquette Weddings.”
“Creative Thought Matters,” is the perfect example of an open-minded Board where a variety of content can be pinned, while everything being in sync with what the College stands for.
Orange, orange, and more orange! In addition to the unique Boards, like “Citrus Dishes,” “Orange is the new pink,” and “Stress Relief,” what I like about Syracuse’s account is they invite people to send board and pin suggestions to @SyracuseU in their bio.
Like every institution’s Pinterest account, Nazareth College’s is still growing. At this time it only has 12 followers, but I’m not sure that’s the result of a lack of content. They are pinning a decent amount (144) and have a very fun selection of Boards.
How About a Directory?
I’ve tried to quickly put together an alphabetized list of colleges and universities on Pinterest. While most of the institutions below have been active on Pinterest, please note that some have not. Feel free to click through on the college or university you’re interested in! If I left your college or university out of this list, be sure to add it in a comment below.
Illinois Institute of Technology
Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing Bloomington
International Language Academy of Canada (ILAC)
ISU Dining Iowa State University
Kelley School of Business at Indiana University
MiTalk @ The University of Michigan
Princeton University Career Services
Samford University Web Services
Savannah College of Art and Design
St. Joseph’s College (Wellness)
The School of Music at Cardiff University
University College at the University of Denver
University Housing & Dining Services (Oregon State University)
University of Central Missouri
University of Central Oklahoma
University of Denver Graduate Studies
University of Maryland Wrestling Team
University of New Haven Graduate School
University of Texas at Tyler (Teach for Kids)
University of Texas McCombs School of Business
University of Wisconsin-Madison
USC Rossier School of Education
Wake Forest Employer Relations
We’ve started an account at SUNY Oswego, so far with an emphasis toward prospective students. But hey, we have only just begun. http://pinterest.com/sunyoswego/
Also check out Liberty University’s Pinterest! We have 324 followers, 13 boards and 161 pins. Many great boards on study tips, dorm room decor, wear red, recipes to make in your dorm room, alumni, school pride, etc. http://pinterest.com/liberty1971/
Thank you, Tim and Andrea for commenting with your institutions!
University of Virginia (http://pinterest.com/viewUVA/)
We have 467 “all” followers, but each board has an average of 1045 followers!
Wake Forest Employer Relations: http://pinterest.com/wakeforest/
UW-Madison: pinterest.com/uwmadison Has much more followers than anything you’ve shown.
UW-Madison has 523 followers, second to Miami – according to this post. We average about 1100 followers per board. WE’ve got 18 boards, 230ish pins. Working to develop more – we’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from campus and from other higher ed peers. Love the platform. http://pinterest.com/uwmadison/
Please add Elizabethtown College -www. pinterest.com/etowncollege — we’re still toying with it and haven’t promote much, but I think our “shell” is a good example of types of board. – Donna
We’ve started a Pinterest account for Babson College (http://pinterest.com/babsoncollege/) and have found that, like others, our specific boards (Entrepreneurship Of All Kinds) have more followers than our overall account.
We’ve started a pilot project at the University of Victoria.http://pinterest.com/uvic/ – so far we have 13 boards and 223 pins. We’re just starting to get the word out.
Hello! The Babson College link is broken and looks like there is a parentheses ) at the end of the link. Please fix for us? Excited to be added to the list!
Hey Vanessa, the link has been fixed. Thanks for bringing it to our attention and thanks for letting us know about the Babson Pinterest account.
Hey there! We’re on it (Providence College) http://pinterest.com/provcollege/
Wayne State University: http://pinterest.com/waynestate/
Hofstra University http://pinterest.com/hofstrau/
Would love to have Bucknell Career added! We are the University Career Center here (as the name implies)
! http://pinterest.com/bucknellcareer/
We’ve updated the blog again to include the newest additions, so thank you for commenting with your accounts Bucknell Career , Angelo Cannella , Nick DeNardis , and Alana Riley !
If you’re just seeing this post for the first time and your institution is not included, share it in the comments and we’ll continue to update the list. Thanks to all for making this list more comprehensive.
Hi! It’s so great to see so many colleges and universities on Pinterest and we love the idea of the directory. Could you please add us? Purdue University is on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/lifeatpurdue/
Great list and write-up. Please add http://pinterest.com/trineuniversity/
Benedictine University in Lisle, IL has been active on Pinterest as well. http://pinterest.com/BenU1887/ Thanks!
Purdue University , we’ve added you to the list! Thanks for letting us know.
Niclas Hulting and Benedictine University, thanks for your links – you’re in the list!
Great article! Thank you for compiling this list. Here’s another one: University of Oklahoma -http://pinterest.com/uofoklahoma/
You can see the USC Rossier School of Education account at http://pinterest.com/uscrossier/. We have 27 boards with 456 pins devoted to teacher resources and inspiration. Though we have 49 people who follow all of our boards, some (e.g. Apps for Education) have over 100 followers. Perhaps some non-Trojan fans don’t want to follow our USC board?
Don’t forget the Rensselaer Alumni Association Pinterest account, we have RPI memes!! http://pinterest.com/rpialumni/
It’s great to see all these colleges! Please add Folsom Lake College, a community college in northern California:http://pinterest.com/flcfalcons/
This one is University of Alberta, for prospective international students: http://pinterest.com/uofastudyintnl/
Hi! Thanks for putting together such a great list.
We’ve been pinning at ILAC (International Language Academy of Canada) and we’d love to be included in your directory as well!
http://www.pinterest.com/iloveilac
Thanks for the shout-out!
Hello we are on Pinterest too!
Widener Law http://pinterest.com/widenerlaw/
Thanks for putting this list together! Northern Illinois University has an account as well: http://pinterest.com/niuhuskies.
I’m amazed at how many institutions have jumped on this opportunity! Thanks all for sharing…
Hi there,
This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing, everyone!
We have one that I manage: http://pinterest.com/alliedfamily/
Cheers!
Non
Marketing Copywriter
Allied Schools
We have been seeing more traffic and interest with our Pinterest account than with Google+ . Also, since we were able to better integrate our Pinterest account with our official Facebook Page, we have also seen additional traffic to it.
One suggestion, all the links above could you correct the URL’s. It looks like you are embedding some web code in addition to the Pinterest URL.
Thanks to all of you who have commented most recently!
We’ve updated the list with your institutions and all links function correctly.
Thanks to *everyone* for making this a solid one-stop-shop resource for those interested in what higher ed institutions are doing on Pinterest.
Binghamton University is on Pinterest as well!
http://pinterest.com/binghamtonu/
We’ve added you to the list, Binghamton! Thanks for letting us know.
The School of Music at Cardiff University has a Pinterest page at http://www.pinterest.com/cuschoolmusic . It’s new & still very much a work-in-progress. Thanks for this directory, it’s an extremely useful resource!
The Graduate School at University of New Haven is on Pinterest as well. Check us out! http://www.pinterest.com/newhavengrad
Love the directory and thanks for the inspiration!
Marcus, we’ve added The Graduate School to the directory! Thanks for letting us know and best of luck with the new Pinterest account.
Virginia Tech is at http://pinterest.com/imahokie/
Thanks!
No problem, Shay – thank you for sharing! We’ve updated the list.
Hey – don’t forget us, too – Saint Anselm College on Pinterest:
http://pinterest.com/saintanselm/
We’ve added you to the list, Jack – thanks!
Can you add St. Norbert College to the list?
http://pinterest.com/stnorbert/
Thanks in advance!
We have you covered, Nina – thanks for submitting!
We just started our Pinterest account.
We’ve added you to the list, Pat. Good luck with your Pinterest account!
We launched our Pinterest account this past May as a “graduation gift” of job-seeking and life-after-college resources for the Class of 2012 and recent alums (how to ace an interview, pay off your student loans, cook a cheap but delicious meal that’s good for you). We even have a Board that’s guest pinned by one of our Class of 2012 grads called “What’s Lydia Up To?” where she shares Pins about her ideas and adventures after college. Our next phase is for new students this fall, with a new round of welcome to the ‘Burg boards. We’ve gotten great feedback on our unique approach to specific audiences, and making our Boards as resourceful as possible for Pinners.
Can you please at Champlain College in Burlington, VT to the list?
http://pinterest.com/champlainnews/
Thank you.
Champlain College has been added, Kayla. Thanks for letting us know!
Illinois Institute of Technology – 29 followers, 113 pins, and 17 boards. For as small as we are, I think we’re doing alright
https://pinterest.com/illinoistech/
Elyse, we’ve added your institution to the directory. Thanks for telling us of your page and keep up the good work!
Hi Stephen. Great directory! I’m the communications manager at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, which has its own Pinterest account. http://pinterest.com/kelleyschool/ It’d be great if you could add it.
We were looking for a way to make Pinterest more interactive and came up with a campaign that’s running right now called Kelleys At Work — students and alums email us a photo of themselves in front of their company logo, we pin it on Pinterest and send them a Kelley School pennant for their workspace. We’ve gotten a good response! A great way for Kelleys to show pride in their school and their company. And we can show the types of companies who hire our students.
Cheers!
Jeni
Jeni, that’s an impressive idea! Thanks for sharing it. 53 pins from students and alumni (at the time of this comment) who have taken the time to take an image of themselves and email it to a particular address is fantastic. Hope you keep getting submissions. Thanks again for sharing this background on your Pinterest campaign with us. I’m sure others will appreciate seeing what you’ve done, as well.
Oh, we added you to the directory, too. Have a wonderful week!
Thanks much, Steve! You have a great week, too!
St. Mary’s University in San Antonio has been on Pinterest since March. We have 64 followers so far. Thanks for the great examples and ideas!
http://pinterest.com/stmarysu/
No problem, Andrew! We’ve added St. Mary’s to the list.
The University of Central Missouri has a great Pinterest page with nearly 400 followers: http://pinterest.com/ucentralmo.
Thanks for compiling this list of university Pinterest pages!
UCM has an impressive variety of boards! I noticed that for several boards you’re utilizing multiple contributors, with as many as 30 for Followers’ Favorites. How have you gone about getting those (and other) contributors? Are most of them current students helping out with the institution’s social media?
Thanks for sharing UCM’s Pinterest page, Heather.
Thanks for this great resource! It’s inspiring to see what other schools are doing with their Pinterest pages!
We recently created a Pinterest page for the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing. Our boards feature fun things of interest to technology students – geeky humor, quirky and fun gadgets, pictures of cute animals at computers, as well as more serious boards about women in technology and career resources.
http://pinterest.com/iusoic/
Here’s our Pinterest account: http://pinterest.com/uttyler/. Ours is new, but it’s pretty large. Our followers are growing. We are excited about our new Pinterest account!
Thanks for the great list!
Robin Kelly
UT Tyler
The Education Department at the University of Texas at Tyler created a board last year and is currently creating a second one on classroom management. Please see our board at: http://pinterest.com/teachforkids/
I’ve helped on particular office on campus get some boards going. I happen to think they’ve done a nice job. Their office lends itself rather nicely to the visual appeal of the pins and boards. Please take a look at St. Joseph’s College :: Wellness Office here
http://pinterest.com/sjcnywellness/
Thanks and the list above is also very helpful when looking for examples.
Brian
Brian, you have a wide variety of wellness content and it looks great! And you’re right, the subjects of wellness do lend themselves well to being visually appealing, but you still have to earn that by choosing striking content, which the office has done. We’ve added your page to our directory.
Question for you: in what ways have you promoted it?
Thanks for leaving a comment, Brian.
The SJCNY Wellness Office started a blog with one stated goal of using that as the hub of the social media information. So they bring the Pinterest boards, Twitter & FB content, and Flickr images into the blog posts, pages, and navigation. They literally just formally launched this week and they’ve not really gone out and promoted one social site over another. Promotion is hard here because we are a commuter based college with two very distinct campuses 50 miles apart from one another.
Part of their plan is to continue to work on boards and create timely ones, like a board for stress relief right before mid terms and finals. Then, they’ll share links to the specific boards in a timely manner with the students/faculty/staff. That’s kind of a phase 1 approach with phase 2 being getting the students more involved with their own pinning and content curating.
-Brian
Great points Brian. Using the boards in a timely fashion is key. In collobarting with Brian, we also send a wellness survey to see what the current needs of our students are along with what they would like to see. In addition, we are currently in the process of reaching out to key student groups like the Peer Health Educators, Psychology Club, LGBTQA, Love 146 and Habitat for Humanity to draw a following of student leaders who will be able to pass the message along. We are looking to create boards that are in line with the student clubs. We have seen that students reaching students tends to be one of the most successful strategies to use. One last point – collaborating with other Student Life Offices and setting up stations at various events that lend themselves to wellness to get students to sign-up on the spot. More to come on how these strategies pan out since we are in the beginning stages.
~Jacqueline
Thanks for the mention of Syracuse! We have 958 followers, and this infographic might be helpful for you in terms of ranking by follower numbers: http://socialimplications.com/college-social-networks/
Great Lakes Christian College is on Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/glcccrusaders
For a very tiny Christian College in Michigan, we are doing quite well with followers so far. Pinterest has been added to our official Social Media schedule and we hope to get a lot more pins up soon.
Thanks for the article – lots of great examples!
Here is Humboldt State University’s Pinterest Page:
pinterest.com/humboldtstate
Thanks for sharing Humboldt State’s Pinterest profile with us! We’ve added it to the list.