The Perks of Pinterest for Veterinary Practices

Your practice is on Facebook and Twitter (hopefully), and even maybe on Instagram, but are you taking advantage of Pinterest as a mechanism for engaging with new and prospective clients? Pinterest is a highly engaging social media platform that most practices overlook. But the fact is that “pinning” articles, pictures, websites and videos can really help your practice grow!

Free Marketing

Social media platforms, including Pinterest, are a free way to have clients, friends and family share your business with their friends (and acquaintances and even complete strangers).

When someone repins one of your pins or starts following you on Pinterest, their friends and followers are notified, which sends those folks to your Pinterest page without much effort on your part.

When your practice adds pins regularly (at least a few per week), these new items engage your followers and keep them paying attention to what you’re up to online.

You can add a Pinterest board that connects to your website pages, blogs and more — which adds up to another way to drive traffic to your website and other social media platforms without any cost to you.

Education

Most clients come in with questions about their pets during an exam. Common questions might be about diet, exercise, parasite prevention or new pets — all of which can be answered easily via Pinterest.

By creating a “board” for each popular topic, reputable information in the form of articles, blogs, videos and websites about each subject can be posted and organized for your clients to access. That way, when you’re through with an exam and the client still has a few questions, you can simply point the client to your Pinterest page as a resource for information that he or she can access anytime via phone, tablet, or computer.

Engagement

Practices that get the most out of Pinterest are those that add new pins with both educational and fun content on a regular basis. Pet-related items can easily go viral on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and it’s the same with Pinterest. It’s just another place to share cute pet pictures, videos, memes, and stories.

It’s important to use your Pinterest page for educational purposes, but you’ll also want to make a few boards with adorable and engaging posts about pets and other animals. These fun and interesting pins keep people visiting your Pinterest pages on a regular basis.

Personal Connection

Everyone loves a pet photo, especially if it’s a pet they know. Pinterest can be used to upload and share photos of your patients in much the same way you can on Facebook or Instagram. (Just make sure you have your clients’ permission to share photos of their pets.)

The benefit of using Pinterest for patient photos is that photos don’t get buried in social media feeds, so they’re easier to access over time. If you post something to a board on your Pinterest page, it’s easily accessible by clicking on that particular board at any time. Pins are listed from newest to oldest.

Local Character

One thing unique to your Pinterest page is that you can easily share the tone, feeling and vibe of your veterinary practice. When someone clicks on your Pinterest page, the first thing they’ll see is a list of your boards. Let’s say you offer a service that’s unique, such as holistic medicine, laparoscopic surgery or acupuncture; the viewer is going to see not only those services but also the fun, engaging and informative boards you’ve created.

Conclusion

Pinterest is like a big, blank bulletin board for all of the things you wish you could hang on the walls inside your practice. Take the opportunity to use Pinterest to your advantage, and decorate it with all of the things that make your practice special.

Amy Jensen is a freelance writer, blogger, social media manager and nutrition coach living in Tucson, Arizona. She has always been a pet lover; her fur baby is a pitbull named River who she found — where else — at a river. Amy regularly manages social media for veterinarians through Beyond Indigo.