Hospitals Find their Place on Pinterest

Hats off to you if you've made it this far and haven't heard of the latest social networking craze: Pinterest. To catch you up, the site is a photo-heavy content-sharing service that allows users to create and manage posts, or "pins," and place them into category collections, or "boards."

For example, you might your pin a delicious-looking photo of bacon mac and cheese to your "Dinner Ideas" board. Of course, then you might want to pin an ab workout to your "Fitness Inspiration" board.

You also follow other pinners, from your mom's cousins to your high school biology lab partner to the occasional actual friend, and their pins show up on your newsfeed, which is sort of like a grid-version of Facebook's and Twitter's feeds. While anyone can create their own pin, most people tend to largely "re-pin" (re-post) existing pins.

I swear, it is not as complicated as it sounds. You'll figure it out in five minutes.

The great thing about Pinterest, from a marketer's perspective, is that the demographics skew slightly older and wealthier than Facebook and Twitter. More than 67% of users are 25 or older and 28% of users earn at least $100,000 per year. The site averages one million visitors every day. (To learn more about Pinterest's demographic breakdown, check out the nifty infographic on Mashable.)

It should come as no surprise that mainstream brands from Whole Foods to Nordstrom have been flocking to the site, and often with great success. Of course, hospitals want to get involved too, but it can be difficult to find healthcare's place among all of the crafts ideas and wedding tips and mac and cheese photos.

Children's Miracle Network Hospitals is one of the early healthcare pioneers on Pinterest, creating its account at the start of this year. The marketing team tested the waters for a bit to get a feel for the online community before creating its first boards in March.

To date, CMN has three boards: "In the News," "Hospital Miracles," and "Champions."

"Pinterest has shown staggering growth over the past year, and we noticed our core supporters and followers were regularly posting Pinterest updates to Facebook and Twitter," says Clint Curry, CMN's senior public relations manager. "And with 170 hospitals, we are not lacking in visual stories to share."

Curry and his team first heavily relied on CMN's blog content to use as pins, but as they became more familiar with the site they began to single out Pinterest-specific stories, from special treatments or procedures happening at one of the CMN hospitals or a helpful article about keeping children healthy.

CMN's "Hospital Miracles" board features photographs of positive patient experiences at its 170 member hospitals. This board was an obvious choice, Curry says, because the organization already had a library of images to choose from.

The "In the News" board is made up of newsworthy CMN pins and re-pins from its member hospitals who are on Pinterest. (One of which, Dayton Children's Medical Center, has experienced great success with more than 400 followers.)

Curry created the "Champions" board to promote its year-long Champions program, which selects one young patient from each state to represent their hospital and state.

"Our Champions and their families have year-round community and national activities that are heavily documented, so Pinterest makes perfect sense to convey their journey," he says.

In the coming weeks and months, Curry hopes to create new boards that reflect the wide variety of fundraising programs Children's Miracle Network Hospitals oversees, from its college-driven Dance Marathon events to its Extra Life gaming fundraiser.

"Pinterest provides us the opportunity to share photos from around North America and create a sense of community for our hospitals and those supporting our work," he says. "We look forward to seeing more and more of our member hospitals getting ‘on board' and pinning!"

Hospitals do have a place on Pinterest—or any social media for that matter—so long as they understand their audience and the culture of the particular site that they are posting on. If you haven't done so already, test the Pinterest waters by creating a personal account and then decide if your organization has the ability to generate the content you need for a branded Pinterest page.

You could even share some healthy recipe tips—like garnishing that mac and cheese with turkey bacon.