Pinterest – Health Care Social Media

Pinterest And Healthcare Marketing

Posted on December 24, 2016December 23, 2016 by Editor

HealthCare On Pinterest

Posted on January 17, 2014January 18, 2014 by Editor

My latest SlideShare is based on an article I have written for HealthWorks Collective. There is a common misconception that Pinterest is only for women posting images of shoes, home decor ideas and recipes, but the examples I have chosen in this presentation clearly demonstrate the potential to leverage the site for healthcare marketing.

With over 70 million registered global users on Pinterest, and 83 billion monthly page views, the site drives more traffic to online publishers than Twitter, Linkedin and Reddit combined. According to a 2013 study done by ShareThis, it dominates all social sharing on iPads with 48.2% of all shares happening on Pinterest. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, women make approximately 80 percent of the health care decisions for their families today. Now combine this statistic with the same number of women on Pinterest – 80% and you can clearly see that this is a demographic healthcare need to tap into.

#HCSM

4 Essential Steps to Healthcare Social Media Marketing Success

Posted on September 21, 2013September 22, 2013 by Editor

As the Internet increasingly becomes the medium of choice for researching health information, social media has become an important channel for healthcare marketing. In today’s social media-connected, content marketing rich environment, healthcare marketeers who are not using social media as part of their strategy are missing out. In today’s post, I will outline the four essential steps required for successful healthcare social media marketing.

The first step is to gain a clearer image of who your audience is and what they are saying about you. Only then will you be able to create compelling, relevant and valuable content to fuel the social media engine.

(1) Identify and segment your online audience

Your healthcare marketing efforts will be much stronger if you can identify your target market and segment it so that you can tailor your content more specifically for them. Unless you take this first step, your social media marketing activities will remain unfocused. If you can clearly identify your target market, then you can plan the best combination of email marketing, social networking strategies, SEO, Pay Per Click, Banner ads, etc. You are looking to drill down deeper to discover their geographic location, their gender, level of education, family status, which social media sites they use, what conversations they are having online, how they are engaging with you, your competition and your online partners.

(2) Plan your social and digital media channels

Armed with this information you will now be able to plan which social media channels are most suited to your target market and direct your efforts accordingly. For example, if you identify that your audience is predominately female, you might direct some of your healthcare marketing efforts to Pinterest, a site whose rapid growth and success has been driven by women.

(3) Join in the online conversation

There is a support and community group for just about any medical condition or interest online. To further expand their reach and focus on patient care, these groups need the input of qualified healthcare practitioners to help validate the information discussed on their sites and to ensure balanced views that are in the best interest of patients. Participating in these communities by providing advice, educational podcasts, guest contributions to widely read blogs and websites can help you broadcast your brand and build your reputation, while providing valuable support to the group.

(4) Monitor your online reputation

Consistency, credibility and connection are the cornerstones of maintaining your healthcare brand’s integrity. It is important to listen to what is being said about your brand, not just to know what is going on and whether you are receiving any negative publicity or comments that need to be addressed, but also to know what you are doing right, so that you can do more of it. At a minimum keep an eye on tweets, comments and messages on your Twitter, blog and Facebook accounts. You should also set up Google Alerts for your brand and industry.

There’s no question that social media is growing in importance in the healthcare field and it is no longer an optional marketing strategy. The conversation is happening online with or without you, so for the sake of your healthcare brand, join it!

#HCSM, Pharma, Pinterest

How pharma is using Pinterest

Posted on February 27, 2013June 30, 2013 by Editor

The picture-driven social media tool Pinterest made Internet history by rocketing to 10 million subscribers in just under two years, and already surpasses YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn for referral traffic.

GE’s Cancer Pintherapy Board is a good example of community engagement (while promoting GE’s brand as a “cancer fighter”.) The board features the experiences of participants in GE’s Breast Cancer Mosaic along with information from GE’s Is My Cancer Different website. Alongside this the Pinterest board called Pinspire shares pins from cancer patients and survivors around the world. Users can pin for themselves or in honour of someone they know and features a new ‘cancer journey’ each week.

See on medcitynews.com

#HCSM, Pinterest

Pinterest Drives more Traffic than Yahoo

Posted on September 17, 2012September 17, 2012 by Editor

Bryan Nagy - Marketing Insight

Well, we knew it was coming, but Pinterest has finally overtaken Yahoo! as a top organic referrer to sites. In fact, Pinterest is now the fourth top sources of organic traffic to sites online.

Top Organic Referring Sites:

1. Google
2. Direct
3. Facebook
4. Pinterest
5. Yahoo
6. Bing
7. StumbleUpon

What does this mean? All of the content I’ve been sharing about brands using Pinterest display some of the most savvy and with-the-curve brands out there! As Pinterest grows, it will become even more critical for brands to have a presence on the social media tool, and for Pinterest to create a revenue model for themselves.

– Bryan Nagy

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How To Create a Pinteresting Healthcare Social Media Strategy

Posted on June 13, 2012June 13, 2012 by Editor

A recent study revealed that Pinterest, the latest social networking site to take the social media world by storm, is now driving more traffic to websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social networking site with a visually-pleasing “virtual pinboard” interface. Users collect photos and link to products they love, creating their own pinboards and following the pinboards of other people whom they find interesting. The site is currently invite-only, and it has experienced rapid growth in recent months (CrunchBase)

Launched in March 2010, Pinterest’s dramatic rise to become one of the top 10 social networking sites has been driven by an exponential growth in users, (a recent Techcrunch report cites 10 million U.S. monthly uniques – faster than any standalone site ever), seamless integration into existing social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter) and an elegant and attractive user interface.

When images are uploaded to Pinterest, links are embedded that users can click to drive traffic directly to a website’s page. Furthermore, by sharing these images via Twitter or Facebook or embedding them on their own website or blog, images can be shared with a wider audience. What started out as an online scrapbooking site for a demographic – most users are female between the ages of 25 and 44 – to collect and share recipe, fashion and home decor ideas, has now evolved into a prime marketing tool for businesses.

So far, so pinteresting, but the question is how can you leverage the potential of this rapidly growing site for health care social media – particularly given that success on the site is predicated on pinning visually interesting content and blatant marketing is discouraged? The answer lies in creating a strategy to promote your healthcare brand creatively so that it fits with the network’s user base and vision. Here are 9 ways to leverage the potential of Pinterest for healthcare social media.

1. Think Visually

Pinterest fits most naturally when a brand has a visually interesting story to tell. Users may stumble upon your images and share them with friends, giving your image (or video) the opportunity to go viral. So, your first strategy is to collect the best images which represent your healthcare brand. If your budget allows, you may like to consider hiring a professional photographer or graphic designer to help you.

#Pinterest Tip: For healthcare, images related to exercise, nutrition and other health care promotion resources work well, as you can see in this example from the Facing Cancer Together pinboard, which highlights healthy living tips for wellness and cancer prevention.

2. Create Infographics
With so many online messages competing for our attention, interesting graphics can help cut through the social media clutter. Infographics – graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge – present complex information quickly and have grown in popularity on the web. (Check out this recent article on Social Media Today to learn how infographic design can get more readers to click on your content). See how ecaring uses this infographic on the anatomy of walking to good effect.

3. Optimise your website

Populate your website with visual content that people will want to share. Make it easy for visitors to share your images on Pinterest by adding a Pin-It button to your site. You can also incorporate aPinterest follow button on your website to encourage users to connect with you on Pinterest.

4. Optimize your Pinterest profile
You can optimise your Pinterest Profile in the “settings” option of your account. Insert your company name as username, fill out your profile information, add your logo and include links to your website. Check that the option to ‘Hide your Pinterest profile from search engines’ is checked to ‘Off’ so your profile can get indexed in search. Lastly, check the boxes that link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts are highlighted so that your pins will be automatically linked to these accounts.

5. Optimise your boards for SEO
Default Pinterest boards are already categorised for you, but you can easily edit those names to best describe your pinboard. Categorising will help others find you and increase your chances of having your images repinned. Unfortunately there is no healthcare or health and wellness category (but this will hopefully change as more health related accounts are formed). What you can do is give your boards titles with SEO in mind. This is just the same as choosing key words for optimising your website or blog, so think about what words people will use to search for your brand. Pinterest is an effective SEO strategy because pins work as a link back to your site, and Google recognising the link, rewards your website with more SEO juice.

#Pinterest Tip: Add #hashtags to tag your pins and make your content more search-friendly (also useful for an integrated campaign across multiple social networking sites).

6. Showcase your brand’s personality
Study after study reveals that people prefer to buy from and engage with people rather than businesses. Pinterest gives you the opportunity to humanize your brand – so why not introduce your team and give your followers a behind the scenes look at the lives of those who work or volunteer for you. Pinboard ideas can range from images of daily life around the office, volunteering, award ceremonies, awareness raising activities to boards featuring “food we love” or “books we are reading”.

7. Build up followers
Start by following influencers and early adopters in your industry – there’s a good chance they will follow you back. Repin relevant content from other users and interact with them by commenting on their boards. Above all, you need to provide your followers with regularly updated content of interest and value to keep them engaged. The key to building a strong following on Pinterest, as with other social media sites, is to become a leading expert on a subject related to your industry. Become the go-to authority on Pinterest and you followers will flock to you.

8. Involve your supporters

The best marketing on any social media platform happens when your followers share their passion and enthusiasm for what you do. On Pinterest, you can invite other users to contribute their own images to your account by creating a user-generated pinboard. Don’t worry – this isn’t a free-for-all for everyone. You create a specific board for this purpose, then go to edit and choose “Me + Contributors” under who can pin, thereby allowing you to choose who can contribute. This is a great opportunity to foster community, engage with your followers, and inspire, encourage and acknowledge volunteers.

9. Have Fun!

The images most likely to be repined are aesthetically pleasing, with humorous images coming a close second. So remember not to take the site too seriously and pin with positivity.

Pinterest is growing and changes are being incorporated as it evolves. Marketers are still finding their way around the site and while it has already proven its marketing worth to businesses, the potential to leverage the site for health care marketing is clearly evident. If you haven’t yet dipped your toe into Pinterest waters, take some time to explore the creative ways it is currently used by NGOs, hospitals, healthcare professionals and pharma. Determine if it fits with your marketing plan, then incorporating the tips outlined in this article, devise a Pinterest marketing strategy that will best leverage its potential for your purposes.

Happy Pinning!

Find me on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/ennoconn/

This article originally published on Health Works Collective