For the last year-and-a-half I’ve been presenting a talk at various O&P state meetings called “From Apps to QR Codes: Digital Marketing for O&P Providers.” I love it because I get to talk about all kinds of easy-to-use apps and give an overview of new digital marketing tools.

Take Pinterest, for example. The very first presentation I did, I brought up Pinterest and got a roomful of blank stares. That is until I asked the women in the audience if they’d ever heard of Pinterest — 100% show of hands. Pinterest is hot, hot, hot. Although it started out as a virtual bulletin board that was used mostly by women for posting pictures of things they aspire to have or do, like home decorating photos, fashion, DIY projects and dream vacations, it is perfect for O&P.

Create visual interest

What do pictures of Manolo Blahniks, (they’re ridiculously expensive shoes, for the uninitiated) or St. Regis Bora Bora photos have to do with O&P? Pictures are literally worth a thousand words, or ten words, or one hundred thousand words. I could talk all day about the white sandy beaches and the overwater bungalows but it’s not going to have nearly the same impact as a photo.

In this digital age, pictures are everything. Facebook. Instagram. Snapchat. Twitpic. Flickr. With cameras on practically every mobile device and snapshot tools for grabbing a picture online it has become impossibly easy to take a photo, or acquire a photo, AND do something with that photo.

 

Elizabeth Mansfield

As of December 2012:

• 15% of online adults say they use Pinterest;

• 13% of online adults say they use Instagram;

• 6% of online adults say they use Tumblr ;

• 67% of online adults say they use Facebook;

• 16% of online adults say they use Twitter.

Pinterest has practically caught up with Twitter, with 15% and 16% of adult US Internet users on each network, respectively. Pinterest, which launched in 2009, has experienced explosive growth, especially with a white, female and affluent user base. Women are five times more likely than men to use Pinterest (25% vs. 5%) and almost twice as likely to be white and college-educated.

 

© Shutterstock

Show what you do

So, if I’m interested in making/posting and/or pinning photos that means I’m interested in looking at photos. If my baby has to wear a cranial remolding helmet, I want to see pictures and I want to see what colors they come in. If I have to wear an osteoarthritis brace, I want to see pictures and there better be pictures of all the colors it’s available in. If I am going to be fit with a below-knee prosthesis, I want to see what it might look like when it’s finished and I definitely want to see what other people are wearing.

We already know that women make most of the health care decisions for their families. They may not choose the screaming eagle Harley lamination for their son’s prosthesis but they may be the final decision maker when it comes to where Junior has his prosthesis made. Show me what you’ve got!

Are you pinning yet? If you weren’t before, you should be now. Pinterest has just launched their Web Analytics. Now you can see how many people have pinned content from your site, what content is most popular with pinners and more. A good thing just got better.