Hospitals are starting to pay attention to the virtual social media platform Pinterest. Better known for sharing wedding images, decorating ideas and recipes, Pinterest allows users to create their own custom pinboards, such as "Places I want to travel to" or "Clothes to buy." Much of the appeal is the visual aspect, which draws mostly women as its core consumer base. And as Hospital Impact blogger Jenn Riggle, associate vice president and social media leader of the Health Practice at CRT/tanaka, noted, more hospital marketers are thinking like graphic designers and focusing on images to get their messages across.
But should hospitals be using Pinterest? Nancy Cawley Jean, senior media relations officer for Lifespan, explained in a Hospital Impact blog post this week that Pinterest, although being the fastest growing social network, lacks the "kind of interaction with others that you can have with Twitter and Facebook." Cawley Jean also noted that most hospitals have limited resources to manage and monitor social networks and might be wise to dedicate those resources to networks that give hospitals the most engagement. Blog post