Did you know around 74% of internet users interact on social media? Out of these, 80% of people are seeking health information, and almost 50% of people are looking for specific healthcare professionals.
Whether you’re new to the industry or an established practice, keeping a strong social media presence is important for the success of your business.
The Role of Social Media Marketing in the Healthcare Industry
Social media serves as a powerful marketing tool, and healthcare is no exception. Healthcare professionals are leveraging social marketing to engage with their potential patients more than ever. It further helps healthcare professionals connect with new patients and simultaneously, expand their business.
In this blog, we have mentioned five effective social media marketing strategies that’ll help practices enjoy a higher than average engagement rate, expand their reach, and grow their practice.
1. Leverage Social Listening to Better Connect With Your Patients
Social listening implies collecting data from social media to learn what people are saying about you on different platforms. It enables you to measure unsolicited feedback from customers and accordingly, strategize your healthcare marketing.
The process helps you to measure your practice’s reputation as you learn what prospective and real patients are saying about you.
Apart from patient satisfaction, social media listening may also help healthcare professionals foresee unexpected events, such as disease outbreaks and/or the arrival of any upcoming flu season. Furthermore, you can understand what kind of content is most requested by your target audience and provide them with the same information. A software product can automatically help you collect this data across multiple social platforms. You may also consider using intelligent social media marketing apps that provide you with customized content to post on all your social accounts and save more time.
NOTE: Remember that collecting data and implementing it the right way are two separate things. You need proper tools to turn insight into action so your social listening strategy brings favorable outcomes. You also need to understand how to leverage this data to leave a significant impact on all your business decisions.
2. Work on Brand Building
A well-planned online marketing strategy can strengthen the branding of your healthcare organization. Sharing your vision, mission, products, and services on different platforms can help establish your brand recognition.
Never underrate the impact of word of mouth in the form of patients’ testimonials. Furthermore, try to focus on gathering customer reviews, suggestions, and feedback and share them on your social accounts in the form of Facebook posts, Instagram stories, or tweets.
3. Use Patient Testimonials to Your Advantage
Patients’ testimonials are something all practices are familiar with. However, testimonies are generally overlooked by healthcare professionals.
Did you know testimonies are one of the best forms of content on social media? Positive customer reviews can help you engage with your audience, win their trust, and eventually, grow your business. When prospective patients find your current patients sharing their positive experiences, chances are high they will expect the same results and approach you further.
To conclude, patient success stories work better than many marketing messages or brand slogans you can come up with. Leverage this healthcare social media marketing strategy to connect with new people and make the existing patients feel valued.
4. Consider a Social Media Marketing Tool
The world is evolving, so is the social media space. So why not automate as many tasks as you can to lower your workload, reduce manual errors, and stay more proactive on social platforms?
A social media marketing tool, such as Practina, can help your healthcare practice to stay ahead of the competition. How? The intelligent tool automatically creates, schedules, and publishes customized posts for your practice. This means more personalized content for your audience, better reach, and less hassle! You can post relevant content on all social channels at the same time or even create smart ads to promote new products, services, discounts, seminars, and events.
5. Engage in Related Topics and Conversations
Another benefit of healthcare social media marketing is that it offers endless opportunities for collaboration. Physicians and patients can connect online to discuss trending health topics, treatments, policies, and more.
Most of the present-day practicing physicians are active on social media for work purposes. Advanced medical apps available these days help them conduct research, surveys, maintain health records, make clinical decisions, and even expand their network on a global level.
To sum it up, social media encourages two-way conversation. These platforms facilitate doctor-patient or hospital-patient communication which gives patients a voice and allows healthcare practices to proactively manage professional relationships.
Major Benefits of Social Media Marketing in the Healthcare Industry:
- Crisis communications.
- Lower costs through advertising budgets.
- Transparency concerning the quality of healthcare and patient safety.
- Brand building and enhanced reputation.
- Patient satisfaction.
- Providing health and healthy lifestyle information.
- Building engagement, loyalty, and referrals.
Using Healthcare Social Media Marketing to Attract New Patients
When executed with a well-thought-out strategy, healthcare social media marketing can be an effective way to reach out to new patients. It may also help you strengthen the connection with your current patients. The good news is, you have the option to consider an automated social media marketing tool to manage all the tasks!
Social media is dynamic, so don’t be surprised if something you thought would do well, fails to perform. Or when something you didn’t imagine to gain traction surprisingly outperforms your best ideas! The takeaway? No matter what marketing strategy you follow, make sure you understand what your target audience is looking for. Apart from catering to your audience, don’t forget to actively respond to their questions, and keep your social accounts informative, relevant, and engaging.
If you don’t have a foolproof strategy or find it challenging to handle social media on your own, it’s time to automate it with Practina! Practina can make your healthcare social media marketing strategy work and also build your practice’s reputation, reach a wider audience, and boost your business. All you need to do is take the first step and let the intelligent tool manage your social media like a pro!