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Since its launch in 2013, the nonprofit P.ink (also known as Personal Ink) has had a huge ripple effect on many different social-media platforms. This organization, started by a few passionate people at CP+B, is a space for breast cancer survivors to connect with each other and bond over the decision that more survivors are making: getting a mastectomy tattoo.

On its website, P.ink describes that decision like this:

It’s one that can help millions of survivors make friends with the mirror again, despite the scars that a mastectomy leaves behind, and which plastic surgery often doesn’t solve. And it’s the only option that puts completely gorgeous, bold and unapologetic creative control back into the hands of the survivors who need it most.

And since its launch, it has grown into a global movement by connecting tattoo artists with clients, providing ideas for mastectomy tattoos, hosting P.ink Day events, and funding tattoos for those who cannot afford one otherwise. It has been spotlighted by media outlets, including “The Today Show,” Fractured Atlas, and Needles & Sins.

Social media are integrated into every aspect of its model as a nonprofit. In addition to its Facebook and Twitter pages, P.ink has begun incorporating other innovative uses for visual media.

Images

P.ink began as a Pinterest page — no Facebook, no Twitter, just Pinterest — and it blossomed in this space.

With boards such as Mastectomy Tattoo Ideas, Tattoo Artists, and P.Interviews, the organization has crafted a well-designed, cohesive narrative of curated content throughout this medium.



One distinctive factor that P.ink has done this is by making sure its cover pins — the main image for a given pin board — match nicely together. On the profile page of each user, you can see all of their boards, and having cover pins that are similar in design fosters a sense of professional, meaningful, organized content in your followers.

 

Video

Going along with its visual narrative, P.ink has utilized YouTube to a lesser extent than its Pinterest page, but the videos they have created are beautiful, relevant, and tear-inducing. Consider this video, which features the organization’s first P.ink Day, an event intended to raise awareness and also ink some works of art.

What this video does well is give clients a chance to tell their stories at a deeper level. P.ink realizes the power that original video content can have for raising awareness about survivors’ important decisions to get a mastectomy tattoo in order to pay tribute to all they have gone through.

Multimedia

The newest addition to P.ink’s repertoire of social media tools is an app called Inkspiration. This app allows users contemplating getting a mastectomy tattoo to upload a picture of themselves on the app’s private server, select a tattoo from a wealth of high-resolution illustrations, and “try on” the tattoo.

In the future, the organization is hoping that users will be able to order temporary tattoos from the app to connect the digital with the physical world.

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