Are you wondering how Pinterest can be incorporated in your healthcare marketing plan, as it is just a visual search engine? Then you’re not alone, many people think the same, because for most, Pinterest is nothing but a big visual search engine that covers a broad range of topics such as recipe articles, DIY how-tos, put-together outfits to wear, travel blogs, and so on. However, what’s interesting is that Pinterest also provides a great marketing opportunity, not only for businesses but also for healthcare providers and organizations. This platform gives a new path to healthcare marketing as it introduces your practice to a whole new audience, helps you drive traffic to your website, generate leads, and attract new patients. So, if you’re not yet using Pinterest for your healthcare marketing, now is the best time to get started. Rely on an experienced healthcare digital marketing agency with expertise in handling all sorts of social media platforms – like Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on – to boost clicks and traffic to your website.
What Is Pinterest and How Can it Help in Healthcare Marketing?
The second largest social network online – with over one billion users worldwide – Pinterest is a free social network where users share their interests in the form of images and videos. On this platform, boards are created around a certain topic, and users add or “pin” images or videos related to that topic on the board. Audiences can subscribe to these public boards, and communicate with the board creators via comments on their pins. In a nutshell, Pinterest is a visual discovery engine that is an image-dominant social network that gives users access to a plethora of creative content. What makes Pinterest a unique and powerful social media platform is that it isn’t just a space for random images or videos, but an area where businesses in many different niches have experienced great success.
If you’re still thinking “HOW”? Let’s take a look at some numbers that may help you to understand the sheer magnitude of this platform (omnicoreagency.com):
- More than 450 million monthly active users are there on Pinterest
- Currently, there are over 5 billion+ Pinterest boards
- 28% of all US social media users are Pinterest users
- 60% of Pinterest users are from the US
Similar to other businesses, healthcare providers and organizations can also leverage Pinterest to set themselves apart from the competition as it has a 50% higher conversion rate than any other social media platform. Pinterest can effectively:
- Market a practice
- Be an invaluable tool for enhancing your brand
- Engage current and future patients
- Build relationships with referring practices
- Reach colleagues and professionals able to refer patients to a practice
- Provide readers with the latest relevant health information.
- Expand reach with a targeted, engaged, and decision-making audience.
Let’s now take a look at the 6 best practices to use Pinterest for your healthcare marketing plan.
- Create Pin-Worthy Images: Pinterest is an image-sharing platform, and you have to create pins with appealing images. Unlike other social media platforms, Pinterest’s images are tall and vertically-oriented, therefore, its ideal image size is 1,000 x 1,500px with an aspect ratio of 2:3.
Once you are ready with your image for your pin, include texts in your images as it can make a huge difference, because it makes your pins more enticing and at the same time will also help users know exactly what your pin is about at a glance.
- Create Boards around Your Specialty: As a business Pinterest account, make sure that you create boards that are centered around your area of expertise. For instance, if you specialize in pain management, you could have a board that has images or details of back pain, joint pain, or muscle pain and so on- mentioning about the same. Also, make sure that you use plenty of search terms in your descriptions – that your patients would use in general conversation about the topic -because boards are found by the words in their description.
- Include Health Resources for Mothers, Spouses, and Kids: This is because 80% of U.S. moms have an active presence on Pinterest (sproutsocial.com). Healthcare practices can easily connect with mothers, grandmothers, and moms-to-be – whose top priority is to keep their kids and family healthy – by posting nutritious recipes, addressing common health concerns, promoting good breast health with pictures of what to expect during a mammogram and offering healthy lifestyle tips.
Image Source:
https://insightmg.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Fertility-Pinterest-example-2.png - Include Trending Topics to Boost Traffic: See what topics are trending around your specialty and incorporate those topics in your boards, because, according to Entrepreneur.com, pins related to trending topics witness an average of 94% increase in click-throughs.
Wondering how to find the trending topic? Simply type in the keywords on the search bar to see what’s showing up on Pinterest already – as Pinterest acts as a search engine all on its own – and use that information to position your products and services.
- Share Blog Post Images from Your Website: One of the easiest ways to promote your practice is to share high-quality blog posts images from your website, because when you share these pictures on Pinterest, followers click on your board get a closer look and it helps users to get a link to your website for them to follow.
Image Source: https://in.pinterest.com/pin/673780794250328194/NOTE: If the content is long-form, then you need more than one image.
However, reusing a blog post image usually doesn’t provide enough information to explain the article’s content, because if someone re-pins it and changes the description, the image’s meaning is completely lost. So, to avoid such situations, what you can do is use the blog post image as the background and customize it with the blog post name or contents – which would double the effectiveness of the blog post image.
- Be Social and Leave Comments on Pins that You Like: While searching for curated content to share, make sure to leave positive comments on images and videos that you enjoy. This practice of yours makes people engage more with your business.People like to create a bond with businesses and users that take the time to comment and be social. It helps you build a good rapport with followers.
NOTE: Try to comment on 5-10 posts each day to build a good rapport with followers.
Now you would have got an idea about how Pinterest should be incorporated in your healthcare marketing plan. All the above-discussed tips are tried-and-true and can help grow your brand’s presence on Pinterest, target relevant audiences, and drive clicks and sales for your healthcare business. So, without any delay, establish your practice’s presence on Pinterest. Though you can start your marketing on Pinterest yourself, a small investment (of time and money) can reap great rewards for your medical practice down the road. For that, you may seek help from a healthcare digital marketing agency that can manage your social media marketing campaign to boost your brand/business.
