How to Use Pinterest to Reach New Patients

How to Use Pinterest Today

Interested in getting started with Pinterest today? We’ve created a quick list to help you get your practice going on the 3rd most popular social media platform. Read more about what it is and how to determine if Pinterest is for you.

Create Patient Profile and List of Keywords

As I mentioned in the previous post above, Pinterest is currently attracting a female-centric audience. As you consider jumping into the social network, think about those patients that fall into that category and create a patient profile: what procedures do they typically want, what are some common concerns these patients express, what are questions they ask during the consultation process?

Once you have the answers here, think about how those relate to the procedures you want to promote and develop a list of keywords to help drive traffic back to your site.

Identify Procedures with Strong Visual Imagery

Once you have that list, think about how each one can be visually displayed. The Pinterest platform is more visual than the other social networks, so accounting for this will help grow your audience here.

Develop List of Boards Based on Practice and Patient Interest

Take a second look at the keywords and think about how to best organize the accompanying images into categories. Should you do it by procedure? Area of the body? Surgical and nonsurgical? That’s up to how you believe your patients will want to digest the information. Typically, a straightforward and easily understandable arrangement is best so visitors don’t have to first decode your methods.

Announce Your Practice’s Arrival

Be sure to promote your new social network on existing social networks. Just as Pinterest won’t work for every practice, or even the majority, it won’t work for all patients either. But spreading the word will let them make the decision.

Start Pinning to your Boards

Interaction is essential here just as it is on your other networks. Again, think of the patient profiles you’ve created and pin accordingly. If some patients are always interested in skin care products, pin some of your favorite products. Know of a celebrity that has a smile you happen to like, or a pair of lips your patients often ask about? Pin some images and offer your thoughts with creative descriptions and calls-to-action.

Note: If you do pin images from other sites, be sure to track down the original source online to ensure you are giving credit to the correct source.

Is Pinterest Worth the Effort?

The only way to tell is to get started and see what sort of impact the social network has on the amount of traffic coming into your site. Again, this is not a network for the faint-of-heart. Pinterest requires a great deal of forethought, quality optimized content, and time in general.

Unless you are actively looking to branch out from Facebook or Twitter because you believe your audience wants something a little different, a little more visual, you may want to continue with the current set up and remain focused on building your practice’s community on your established networks.