5 Reasons to Include Social Media in Your Healthcare Marketing
Does your medical practice or healthcare facility use various marketing strategies to attract new patients? Many practices neglect healthcare marketing since they don’t see how it could be beneficial to them. The best forms of marketing today go beyond traditional methods like paying for billboards, fliers, radio ads, and other similar advertisements. Digital healthcare marketing is essential to growing your practice today.
So what goes into digital marketing for healthcare facilities and practices? Having a functional website is the first step. Then you need to build it by creating content that will make patients want to stay on the website longer. Share your content on social media platforms to extend its reach as much as possible. These are some of the basic steps to building trust with current and prospective patients. Here are the reasons why social media should play a vital role in your healthcare marketing efforts.
Build Trust With Your Network
People often turn to social media when they want to evaluate the credibility of a company. And healthcare facilities are no exception. Potential patients want to see how you interact with others, what tips you provide, how you deliver information, and more. They might scroll through your social media feed for several minutes before determining whether they want to reach out to you or not. That means every piece of content you create and publish must be clear, concise, and consistent.
Only when you’ve built trust with your social media network will you start seeing an increase in patients. A good social media marketing strategy may be to make two or three posts per week. This shows you are active on social media without sending too much content to the point where it’s annoying for your followers. Balance is a key component to earning trust.
Connect Healthcare With Patients Seamlessly
One of the main goals for your practice should be to make connections with patients. When you utilize the right social media marketing strategy, you can seamlessly make these connections. Patients want to feel connections with the healthcare facility they visit outside of the office. So if someone sends you a direct message or tags you in a post, acknowledge it by responding to them. Not only will this build a connection with that patient, but any other patient who is watching the interaction will also trust you more.
Encourage Patients To Improve Their Lifestyle
So what should your healthcare marketing content entail? You should create a variety of content to capture the attention of your diverse audience. Elderly patients might be interested in how they can stay healthy even when they can’t be as active as they’d like to be. Other patients might want tips on how to cope with a chronic condition. In healthcare, every post you make might not be relevant to every patient you see, but this is an industry where you need to cover more bases.
Generally, your blog posts can contain information about healthy eating habits, exercise routines, and more. If you’re unsure how to create such a wide range of content, a healthcare writing expert can help launch your blog so you can share posts on social media.
Share Real-Time Information To Educate Patients
With so much information online, it’s easy for your patients to fall into the trap of misinformation. The great thing about social media is you can quickly deliver accurate information to educate them. In this regard, it’s important to pay attention to what people are reading on the internet so you can either confirm or debunk the information. This goes back to the point about building trust with your patients. When you have a reputation for being trustworthy, they will visit your social media profile to learn accurate information and have peace of mind.
Boost Credibility By Sharing Awards And Professional Recognition
Another great social media marketing strategy to consider is to share the awards and recognition your healthcare facility has received. Credibility is earned and patients want to know what your facility has done to be recognized. Whether they are looking for a family physician or need a medical professional to help with their chronic condition, knowing they are working with a facility that has been recognized for excellence will give them confidence when choosing you.
How To Get Started With Social Media Marketing In Healthcare
The world of digital marketing is fast-paced and can seem like you need to hire another employee or two to stay on top of it. The good news is when you work with healthcare writing experts, website developers, and social media marketing experts, you will barely have to lift a finger. Reputable digital marketing agencies can create content to promote your healthcare facility and share it on relevant social media platforms. You continue providing the best service to your patients and the agency takes care of the healthcare marketing for you.
Sounds easy enough? It is when you work with iwebcontent. Our team can handle anything from creating a new website to writing blog posts, and even sharing them on your social media profiles. We strive to make digital marketing a breeze so you can continue earning new patients. When you’re ready to revive your healthcare marketing efforts, contact us to schedule a consultation to see how we can help.