How Important is Pinterest for Pharma Marketers?

Fard Johnmar of Enspektos posted some data from his company's September 2012 digihealth pulse survey, which revealed that 30% of "active digital health consumers who use Pinterest encountered health and medical content" on that network (see infographic).

"What are the implications of this data?", asked Johnmar. "Well, a number of hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other organizations are on the site. However, others are on the fence, wondering if experimenting is worth the effort. Our recommendation: The time for fence-sitting is over. It’s time to begin learning the ins and outs of Pinterest -- and how to develop and deliver credible and accurate health information via the platform."

I've been following pharma's use of Pinterest and have commented on this in previous posts and articles. See, for example, "What's Your Infographics Strategy?" (use discount code pgpin4 to get it free).

I have found Pinterest useful for "repurposing" graphics I create for blog posts and newsletter articles as well as for advertising. I hope that by doing this more people will learn about me, read my blog, and subscribe to my newsletter. All those key performance indicators (KPIs) help me determine what my Pinterest ROI is. I imagine that pharma marketers use similar KPIs to measure the effectiveness of Pinterest.

I've been surveying my new Twitter followers and asking them what other social networking applications they use. Pinterest is one of the choices. The bar chart below shows results from followers who responded to my survey between January 1, 2012, and today.

Pinterest is number 6 on the list -- 20% of my Twitter followers also use Pinterest. I'm not sure if they have Pinterest accounts or just look at the nice pictures.

Am I getting new readers and/or newsletter subscribers from Pinterest? To determine that, I looked at Google analytics for my blog and web site to see where referrals are coming from.

For the past 30 days, the top ten referring sites for Pharma Marketing Network include (in decreasing order of visits) Pharma Marketing Blog (ie, people clicking through on links such as the above link to a PMN article), LinkedIn, Google, Pharma Marketing Forums, and Twitter (ie, t.co). Pinterest is number 21 on the referral list and is NOT among the top 10 referral sites for Pharma Marketing Blog, whereas Twitter is number 6 on that list.

So, although I'm getting new followers on Pinterest and people are repinning my charts, etc., I'm not yet achieving my KPI goals for Pinterest -- i.e., driving traffic to my sites.

Could this be why the only pharma companies that I can find on Pinterest are Novo Nordisk (137 followers), Bayer (207 followers), and Boehringer Ingelheim (58 followers)?

I will interview Fard Johnmar on my BlogTalkRadio Show this Friday at 3:00 PM. For more information and to listen to this live podcast or the archive afterward, see "Discovering the Active Digital Health Consumer".