Women & Infants Reaches Out to Women on Pinterest

Monday, April 09, 2012

GoLocalProv Health Team

 

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She's got the whole social media world in her hands: Pinterest is red-hot with women, and Women & Infants gets that.

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island has always put women's health and needs at the center of its mission, and now the region’s premier health care resource for women shows it gets the social media side of women as well by launching an educational and interactive presence on Pinterest.

Pinterest is red-hot in social media right now and is currently the 16th most visited site in the United States, ranking higher than CNN.com, and the fifth-largest social network. The site hit 10 million monthly visitors faster than Facebook or Twitter, according to the internet tracking service comScore. Last month, the site had 17.8 million American visitors, up 50 percent from the month before.

Women & Infants' Pinterest page was launched in conjunction with Women & Infants’ blog, created in 2011 as a forum for women writers to share experiences from child-rearing to menopause. The blog and the new Pinterest page share a name – ConnectHer.

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Reaching women where they're spending time--on social media

“We are constantly looking to reach women in new and effective ways,” said Michael Esordi, graphic design manager and social media expert for the Care New England health system, to which Women & Infants belongs. “In the last few years, social media has been the preferred way for people, especially women busy with work and families, to get their information."

This has fueled the meteoric surge in popularity of Pinterest, a site where users “pin” images and follow other people’s collections in an online scrapbook format to their own customized collection of interest boards. Pins generally have links to Web sites with more information on the pictured item or topic.

Women: 85% of Pinterest's users

The growth in Pinterest’s popularity has been fueled by women, who make up 85% of the site’s users. The average female user is age 25 to 44, and they spend more time on the site per use than on Facebook or Twitter, trackers say. This makes it a natural fit for the hospital’s outreach.

“We have focused on the needs of women who will be having a baby, since we are the seventh-busiest maternity hospital in the nation," said May Kernan, senior vice president of marketing for Care New England. "One board demonstrates our advocacy for breastfeeding, for example, and another offers a list of books that are helpful to read while pregnant."

Kernan said that the site also has boards with broad appeal "for all women," including those featuring healthy recipes, exercise tips and health information from Women & Infants and other sources.

Most popular boards

ConnectHer’s more popular boards on Pinterest include “What to bring to the hospital with you,” “Fun with the kids,” and “Bringing home baby,” which contains pins with baby clothes, gadgets and toys.

To follow the ConnectHer blog, go to ConnectHerblog.com. On Pinterest, search for ConnectHer and hit “Follow all” to follow updates to all the boards.

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