Burnt Hills Optical's Pinterest Boards include "Latest Trends," "Sun & Athletic Wear" and "His," "Her," and "Kid's Style."
Last month, CLICK introduced Pinterest to our readers (or those who might not be familiar with the platform) to show that setting up an eyecare practice Pinterest profile can be quick and painless. This month, we took it a step further with three practices that are using Pinterest in an engaging way and are successfully showcasing their business’ personality with Pins, Boards and curated imagery.
A takeaway from all three businesses was that an eyecare practitioner’s approach to Pinterest should be distinctly different from their strategies on other social platforms. Please join CLICK in investigating the “Pinteresting” possibilities for eyecare with these optical professionals turned Pinterest pros.
Burnt Hills Optical
Burnt Hills, N.Y.
Burnthillsoptical.com
Pinterest.com/bhoptical
Also uses: Facebook, Twitter
Top 3 Reasons to Pin:
1. Patient education
2. Trends
3. Versatility
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Kristen and David Cameron, opticians
and co-owners at Burnt Hills Optical. |
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Kristen Cameron, co-owner of Burnt Hills Optical, said that her optical uses Facebook as their “main” social media site and for social campaigns, but finds Pinterest useful for its visual aspect.
“It’s a simple way to share information with patients,” she said. “It is a more visual platform and a good portion of the population prefers visual information to the written word.”
In addition to including the Pinterest icon at the bottom of each page of their website, a small “Pinterest Photostream” gallery is embedded displaying small thumbnail images of the latest updates to Burnt Hill’s Pinterest Boards.
Among Burnt Hills Optical’s audience of young professionals and families, Cameron said, “the posts regarding eye health and fashion trends seem to be the most popular.”
EYE-Q Vision Care
Fresno and Selma, Calif.
Eyeqvc.com
Pinterest.com/EYEQvc
Also uses: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Top 3 Reasons to Pin:
1. Connect with patients and ECPs
2. Make education fun
3. Cross promote content
Eye-Q Vision Care, based in Fresno, Calif. with a second location in Selma, uses Pinterest every day to cross promote content on Pinterest and Twitter and to pin new content a few times a week. According to Audrey Clark, community manager for all of Eye-Q’s social properties, Pinterest grants the practice “one more way to connect with patients and fellow eyecare practitioners.”
“Our patients are always top of mind when pinning, but we also like to pin things that other eye-care facilities could share,” Clark said.
Shareable content makes cross promotion easy to accomplish and has an added bonus of driving up traffic to the company blogs and website, said Clark, which is a key element of Eye-Q’s Pinterest strategy. According to Clark, “fun fact” graphics tend to get the most “repins” or interaction. “The content on Pinterest is very shareable,” she said. “We can find great new frame styles or a useful infographic and share it on all of our social platforms with ease.”
Another Pinterest plus for Eye-Q is that education can be entertaining. “Pinterest allows us to educate people in a fun, visual way,” said Clark. “There are constantly new things happening in the vision care world, whether it’s new technology, facts, styles, DIYs, etc. Pinterest is a great aggregator of all of that information. Also, Pinterest is very infographic-friendly as well, which is great. Instead of reading a boring article about how cataract surgery works, an infographic can make the same information visual and entertaining.”
Capella Eyecare
Fountain Hills, Ariz.
Capellaeyecare.com
Pinterest.com/capellaeyecare
Also uses: Facebook
Top 3 Reasons to Pin:
1. Promote business
2. Enhance image
3. Engage with community
When Capella Eyecare pins, it’s all about engaging patients, fans and the Fountain Hills, Ariz. community. “Once or twice a week, we try to pin something relevant to eye health, eyecare, eye fashion or just interesting pins that we like,” said Anh Jibben, OD, MPH, practice owner. A recent post that gained popularity was a pin titled “Sun Safety” depicting the dangers of UV rays. “We feel it was successful because our patients were coming in talking about sun protection for their eyes and were interested about wearing quality sunglasses or prescription UV glasses,” said Jibben.
Capella’s Pinterest page has a “something for everyone” type of vibe, due in part to the different tastes and interests of their broad audience—a majority of patients are between 18 to 45 years old, Jibben said.
“Pinterest is like a mixture of scrapbooking, diary, journaling with photos or circling things you like in a catalog. Our Pinterest page tries to engage patients of all ages. The younger patient might like to know what eyewear is in fashion or what celebrities like J Lo are wearing. Someone older might enjoy our Pins from our Board titled ‘Beautiful Beaches.’”
According to Jibben, the practice believes that when a patient sees a photo or Pin, it encourages them to come into the practice and learn more about the products and services offered. “The best part about pinning is that it’s visual, you can pin anything and everything. It really doesn’t matter,” she said. ■
cwolinski@jobson.com