What Is Healthcare Social Media Marketing?

Healthcare is a highly competitive industry, and reaching new patients necessitates a robust digital marketing strategy. And, with a slew of mergers and acquisitions in the healthcare field and a large number of changes to health insurance over the last few years, the healthcare industry as a whole has undergone some fundamental changes.

Using social media to attract customers is one method. Social media platforms enable hospitals and healthcare facilities to connect with potential patients one-on-one while also providing valuable information to assist them in making the best healthcare decisions.

How do you create an effective healthcare social media marketing strategy? This article answers that question by discussing the value of social media in healthcare and providing tips you can use right away! You will also get to understand the benefits of social media, current trends, and social media strategies that might work well for your healthcare business.

Related Blog: A Healthcare Digital Marketing Guide: 8 Ways to Get More Patients

Importance Of Social Media In Healthcare

Medical knowledge used to be the currency of professionals. Aside from consulting a doctor or nurse for health advice, the average consumer had few options. Today, nearly limitless information is readily available, and the majority of people get their medical advice primarily from online research and social networks.

Now, where do you seek medical advice? Five years ago, you might have said “the doctor.” Today, if you are like the adult majority in the urban world and 80 percent of internet users, your answer is more likely to be “the internet.”

Remaining relevant and reach these audiences, the healthcare industry must meet them where they are: on social media. In other words, having a healthcare social media strategy is no longer an option; it is a must. And, with the right approach, social media can be a powerful tool for establishing trust, reaching out to more patients, and disseminating valuable medical information.

In healthcare, social media refers to the various tactics that healthcare organizations, payers, and providers use to connect and engage with their patients to improve the quality of care and decrease readmission rates.

So, how can social media play its part in ramping up the healthcare business and add more value? Let’s take a look!

1. Raise Brand Awareness

A healthcare facility or hospital can also use social media strategy to promote events, research, treatments, and other services. Your healthcare facility’s promotional content should remain balanced for the best results. For example, you could highlight an upcoming event at your location one week and then share some exciting research findings the following week.

Maintain the freshness and excitement in your social media content. It’s for the benefit of your audience. Raising brand awareness and patient loyalty and trust can get aided by raising awareness for various activities.

2. Patient Care Support

Nearly 40% of young people (aged 14 to 22) have used online tools to connect with others dealing with similar health issues. It includes groups on social media.

This link has the potential to provide significant benefits to patients. A Facebook group for 350 liver transplant patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers got created by researchers published in the journal Surgery. A whopping 95% of survey respondents said that joining the group had improved their care.

Facebook groups are another excellent way for healthcare professionals and patients to interact on social media. Patient support and education can also be part of social group interactions. One study looks into whether a Facebook group for patients with coronary heart disease can increase participation in cardiac rehabilitation.

Of course, there are privacy concerns when discussing health online. It is an excellent application of Facebook secret groups, which do not appear in search results. Users need to get invited to participate.

3. Cost Effective Marketing

According to the Advisory Board, the number one concern for health care system executives is long-term cost control. The second is creative approaches to cost-cutting.

CEOs of healthcare systems recognize the importance of efficient growth and financial sustainability strategy in establishing a cost-competitive structure. They will be able to provide high-quality yet cost-effective patient care and treatment in this manner.

However, cost-effectiveness in health care marketing does not necessarily imply never spending money or resources to promote a healthcare provider’s patient care services.

If you want to achieve the desired marketing goals, it is necessary to make wise decisions about where, how, and when to invest resources.

The need for cost-effective marketing in healthcare deems essential. Why do you ask? Health systems perform several functions, but their primary goal is to improve a society’s health.

Although the same expenditure, not every health system produces the same health outcomes.

A good marketing strategy can assist a medical practice in resolving some cost issues. It is critical to balance between cost and results to determine what works and what does not.

4. Patient Engagement

Instead of publishing into the void, make an effort to build relationships with those who interact with you. Responding to their comments, posting polls, and asking open-ended questions about your content are all ways to get social media users to pause and think about your content and brand. A smaller but engaged audience is far more valuable than a large but unengaged audience. Building a relationship leads to trust, and as previously stated, trust leads to business.

5. Online Reputation Management

The development of a brand’s trustworthiness is critical. It is vital in healthcare because any distrust would result in the brand’s extinction. What is the reason for this? 60% of adults choose a healthcare provider based on online reputation/ratings.

If you wish to maintain positive brand identity in the eyes of consumers, healthcare businesses must manage their online reputation. Having a reliable online reputation is essential in this day and age, given the growing popularity of social media, third-party review websites, blogs, and other digital platforms.

People rely on one another’s opinions to determine whether a service or brand is deserving of its claim. If you are experiencing difficulties in this area, a healthy and intelligent ORM practice would be beneficial. A solid ORM strategy will assist you as a brand in increasing sales, developing a brand image, establishing credibility, and assisting in recruitment.

6. Healthcare Services Promotion

According to estimates, in 2020, some 3.8 million people across the world used social media. While an average American will spend nearly seven years of their life on social media, the story remains the same in the other parts of the globe. It’s a no-brainer, then, that online advertising is a long-term way to reach your target audience now and in the future. Sponsored content outpaces organic reach on many platforms by a significant margin. On Facebook, for example, organic reach is only 6.4 percent of a page’s likes. To reach new and existing audiences, you almost have to use a pay-to-play strategy.

Your social media ads must be relevant, well-written, and accompanied by an image that will capture the attention of your target audience. Furthermore, you must ensure that any content you create and promote is per each platform’s terms of service for health content.

7. Enhance Brand Loyalty

It is time for the health care industry to shift its focus to brand loyalty or develop patient allegiance to their company/brand. Consumers in the healthcare industry now have more options, more information at their fingertips, and easier access to world-class healthcare facilities and reviews than ever before.

The best time to establish a patient/customer relationship is much earlier, when the patient is relatively healthy, not in crisis, and may have a regular everyday health-related question that does not necessitate a hospital visit.

8. Increase Referral Traffic

Referral traffic is one of the most important sources of leads for a company. It refers to all visitors who arrive at your website from sources other than search engines such as Google. Google refers to all clicks from links on social media and other websites that lead to your website as referral traffic.

When a visitor clicks on a link to your website from a reliable source, they learn about your company and its products, which leads to them becoming prospective customers. It provides a fantastic opportunity to expose your content to new audiences. It also enhances networking opportunities and contributes to increased brand awareness and recognition.

Social interactions play an important role in ranking. You can choose to share content organically or on a budget for brand awareness, lead generation, or traffic.

Make sure to create an engaging landing page that users get directed to after reading your post. It is also critical to post consistently and at the appropriate times to reach your target audience.

9. Educate Patient

The majority of your audience is interested in health and fitness, but the human body is complex. Social media is an excellent tool for informing people about their health. It reduces risky behavior and assists in preventing or overcoming the effects of any disease and other health issues one might have.

Don’t make solely self-promotional posts when you can focus on ways to help your audience. Making your organization a valuable resource fosters trust. It is advantageous when it comes time to find a healthcare provider.

10. Increase Conversion Rates

Most healthcare organizations and professionals market their services and attract patients through their websites. However, just because someone visits your website does not guarantee that they will become a customer. The success of a healthcare website gets determined by the number of people who convert.

Another effective strategy for increasing your conversion rate is to use eye-catching and clear calls to action (CTAs). A CTA button’s purpose is to instruct visitors on what to do next. However, putting too many CTAs on the same page will only confuse your visitors.

Why Invest In Social Media For Your Healthcare Marketing?

Social media marketing is a beneficial way to establish and manage reputation and public awareness. It is quickly becoming a primary means for healthcare providers to interact with and engage new patients.

In today’s digital-driven world, having a social media presence is a must-have for healthcare marketing. As a result, having an appropriate mix of online social media platforms has become a critical tool for effectively reaching, engaging, and exciting consumers.

Social media marketing uses several social media platforms to connect with your target audience to build your brand, drive traffic to your website, and increase sales. The most popular social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube.

Let’s look at some relevant statistics and figures to show how social media has impacted healthcare in recent years.

1. One-fifth of smartphone owners have at least one health app installed on their device. The most popular types are exercise, diet, and weight loss apps.
2. 31% of healthcare professionals use social media for professional networking.
3. 41% of people said social media would influence their choice of a doctor, hospital, or medical facility.
4. Two-thirds of doctors use social media for professional purposes, preferring an open forum over a physician-only online community.
5. Sixty percent of doctors believe social media improves the quality of care they provide to patients.

Source

How To Create A Social Media Strategy For Healthcare Marketing (Step by Step Guide)

With increasing competition and expectations of better service and faster responses, healthcare providers need to turn to social media to strengthen relationships with patients. Because a lack of resources and time frequently prevents doctors and hospitals from staying in touch with patients, social media allows them to respond to patient needs quickly.

Medical practitioners are increasingly promoting their services online, whether through Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, or LinkedIn. This article explains how healthcare professionals can make the most of available social media platforms. The following are the best social media strategies for the healthcare industry:

Step 1: Decide Your Social Media Marketing Goals

A social media strategy is a document that outlines your social media goals, the tactics you’ll use to achieve them, and the metrics you’ll use to track your progress. Your social media marketing strategy should also include a list of all of your existing and planned social media accounts, as well as goals for each platform on which you are active.

The first step in developing a winning strategy is defining your objectives and goals. You can’t measure success or return on investment if you don’t have a purpose (ROI).

You can consider the following as social media marketing goals for healthcare professionals:

• Improve lead generation: Before you move on to converting leads, generating them deems essential, especially when it comes to social media marketing in the healthcare industry. With content marketing on social platforms and other channels, you can improve lead generation, which will eventually help your healthcare business in the long run.
• Increase website traffic via social channels: Creating a landing page for when people click on the links on your social media platforms will drive the traffic to your website. It increases visibility, awareness and creates trustworthiness with your content.
• Increase brand awareness: If you want social media marketing to work in your favor, you need to ensure that you highlight your healthcare brand in the best possible manner. The awareness you create with sessions or live chats on social media can bring your brand into focus and, in turn, increase visibility.
• Promote treatment and other services: Putting out generic content can work for a while. However, you need to ensure that you promote the treatment facilities and other services you offer at your healthcare facility. It will allow people to see what you do and help them get in touch with experts.
• Improve online reputation: Online Reputation Management (ORM) works very well, especially in the social media world. Always respond to queries and comments. So people have an interactive platform for when they need to get in touch with you for your healthcare services.

Step 2: Identify & Research Your Target Audience

When it comes to any industry, if you want to market yourself, you need to ensure that you reach the right set of people. Therefore, identifying your target audience and finding ways to approach them with relevant information becomes vital in the healthcare industry. You can ask yourself the following questions that will help you figure out the next step in your social media marketing strategy.

Note that you do not have to classify your entire target group into one. You can have multiple focus groups that cater to different needs, thus building several customer personas and providing them with information only they need to know or see.

Who Is Our Target Audience?

Who are they?	(E.g. job title, age, gender, salary, location, etc.)
What are they interested in that you can provide?	(E.g. entertainment, educational content, case studies, new products, etc.)
Where do they usually hang out online?	(E.g. Facebook, Instagram, etc. or niche platforms)
When do they look for the type of content you can provide?	(E.g. weekends, during their daily commute, etc.)
Why do they consume the content?	(E.g. to get better at their job, to become healthy, to stay up to date with something, etc.)
How do they consume the content?	(E.g. read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch videos, etc.)

Step 3: Analyze Your Competitor Social Channels

To ensure your social media marketing strategy works well or not, you can begin by analyzing how your competitors have fared in this regard. You can take a leaf out of their book or step it up with additional inputs and make way for an effective plan of action.

Social media competitive analysis will help you with the process of benchmarking your results against the big-times in your healthcare industry. It can help you identify opportunities for growth and strategies that may not be working as well as you imagined.

How To Do A Competitive Analysis On Social Media?

You can either do a one-time social media competitor report or hire someone on your team whose sole responsibility is to keep track of your competitors. Most businesses fall somewhere in the middle, with a quarterly or monthly report. Whatever level of analysis you select, the insights will be priceless.

Perform competitive analysis on social media that contains four steps that will work for your brand.

Step 1. Determine who your competitors are

Step 2. Gather intel

Step 3. Do a SWOT analysis

Step 4. Incorporate the latest data with social media monitoring

Top Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools

To gather intelligence directly from various social media channels, you can use the following social media tools, which will help you get started. All of these tools have gotten designed to ensure that you get the maximum output. It helps your brand grow on all social media platforms.

1. BuzzSumo – BuzzSumo can help you find the most shared content by your competitors. It can assist you in brainstorming both opportunities (such as new types of content or topics to investigate) and threats (areas where the competition is becoming dominant).
2. Hootsuite Streams – Hootsuite Streams is a powerful tool that lets you track keywords, competitors, and hashtags across all social networks from a single, simple dashboard. What is the most basic application? Add all of your competitors’ accounts to a single Stream and keep an eye on it whenever you want.
3. Brandwatch – Brandwatch provides some valuable competitive analysis tools. One of the most important features is its simple graphic depicting your brand’s social share of voice. The social share of voice is a metric that compares how much people talk about your brand online to how much they talk about your competitors.
4. Synapview – Synapview is an app that allows you to track competitors and hashtags on Reddit as well as blogs.
5. Mentionlytics – Mentionlytics is a social media monitoring tool also helpful in conducting a competitive analysis on social media. You can find out what people are saying about your brand, competitors, or any keyword on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and other websites (news, blogs, etc.).
6. Talkwalker – Talkwalker is best known as a social listening tool, with a massive library of competitive and non-competitive insights from over 150 million sources, including blogs, forums, videos, news, reviews, and social networks.

Step 4: Choose the Right Social Media Channels

Navigating the social media seas is frequently a perplexing and cluttered journey. With so many social media networks to choose from, you’re probably feeling overwhelmed by the options or drowning in the responsibilities that each channel entails.

You are not required to be on every single channel. Choosing what works best for your customer, team, and resources will help you cultivate authentic relationships, build trust, and convert when it comes time to sell your goods and services.

Source

So, how can you choose the best social media channels for your healthcare business? Here’s how!

• Determine your target customers, which will help you understand where they’re active and the best ways to reach the audience.
• Take stock of your brand and industry which will give you freedom in terms of content creation.
• Determine where your competitors thrive on social media. Conduct further analysis into the performance of their social media strategy.
• Determine your social media goals so you can develop relevant content for your target audience.
• Pick the channels that will help you reach your target audience and achieve your goals.

Step 5: Perform a Social Media Audit

If you use social media for your business marketing, you should know how to conduct a social media audit. Don’t be alarmed – a social media audit isn’t nearly as terrifying as it sounds. However, it is an essential component of creating or revising an effective social media marketing strategy. An audit of your social media accounts can assist you in understanding what is going on in each network.

1. Track down all your social media accounts
2. Make sure each account is complete and on brand
3. Identify your best posts
4. Evaluate the channel performance
5. Track your results over time
6. Calculate your return on investment (ROI)
7. Understand your audience for each network
8. Decide which social media channels work for you
9. Standardize your channel ownership and passwords
10. Conduct regular audits to stay up-to-date

Step 6: Set Up Social Accounts Or Improve Existing Profiles

If your business does not already have a social media account, you are a rare find!

While your healthcare brand may have a presence on limited social media platforms, you can do so much more to ensure that you gain the most out of it. It’s time to understand how you can improve your existing profiles and align them with your current and future business goals.

First up, you need to use suitable size images for each social media platform. Next, you need to keep the same picture for all your social media profiles to be relevant and recognized. Along with that, make sure that you use the same handles everywhere. You can also review your tags, stay discoverable in a search, complete your bio and profile, cross-promote, and eventually build social trust.

Step 7: Create Social Media Content & Promote

Your content is complete, and you’ve set up all of your social accounts. So, what now? How do you promote your pages, and where do you spend your time? These social media promotion ideas will help you get started with your marketing efforts.

If you want to make content marketing successful, it entails more than just creating and sharing on social media. If you wish to grow in prominence, you must promote your content. You may post articles and videos on all of your channels regularly, but how many of your followers see them? Are there a sufficient number of potential customers engaging with your posts and clicking ahead? If you want to make a splash on social media and start seeing some serious ROI, you must promote each social media post separately.

Social Media Post Ideas For Your Hospital

If you own a healthcare facility or a hospital and want to promote your services, social media posts can help you reach the target audience and engage with them. Understanding how you can create content and promote it on your social media channels will give you an insight into what your readers want and help you strategize better. Here are some social media post ideas for your hospital or healthcare facility that you can follow:

1. Educate your followers about health issues to prompt them to avail of your services if they see any signs or symptoms. Sometimes, it will only add to people’s knowledge, but in turn, it will give you the necessary recall value.
2. Highlight awards, accreditations, certifications, and other milestones achieved by your hospital to attract customers to your institution. It will also give the audience an insight into your credibility and trustworthiness, which most healthcare readers wish to know beforehand.
3. Let your followers know about facility and equipment upgrades as it will give them access to your expertise and infrastructure, helping you gain their trust.
4. Share photos and videos of your healthcare facility or hospital for others to see.
5. Feature people from your hospital so they can share their experience of working there with potential customers and appeal to them to get treatment and services at your facility.
6. Get followers engaged through contests and giveaways.
7. Get seasonal and create content that remains relevant for those days or weeks. People searching for that keyword can come to your website and get all the information they need.

Step 8: Leverage Paid Social Ad Campaigns

Paid social media is a method of targeting a specific sub-audience. It gets done by displaying advertisements or sponsored marketing messages on popular social media platforms.

Paid social media includes pay-per-click advertising, branded or influencer-generated content, and display ads. When you see a paid social media advertisement, look for the “sponsored” or “promoted” tag near the post.

Every social media platform is unique. Twitter focuses on short-form content, Instagram on visual content, Facebook has its marketplace for shopping enthusiasts, and LinkedIn is the place for networking professionals. As a result, paid social media on each platform varies and should vary depending on the campaign and audience.

Each paid social media platform has distinct features that distinguish it from competitors. However, there are three key features of a converting paid ad that your platform of choice should support. They are visual content, easy access to lead capture forms, and enough space to include enticing ad copy.

1. Facebook

Using Facebook Ads allows you to generate new leads and raise brand awareness. Facebook offers reports and analytics ideal for experimenting with variables such as post time and content type, so try out different ad formats and see what your audience responds to the most.

2. Twitter

Twitter offers ad settings based on your budget, such as how frequently your ad will get seen, where it will get viewed, and the type of ad to run. When you’re ready to start running social ads on this platform, Twitter provides you with several formats to choose from based on your objectives.

3. Instagram

Instagram now gets used by 84 percent of people to discover new products, up from 64 percent just four years ago. With this kind of growth, it’s probably not a bad idea to pay for a spot in front of the platform’s 1.16 billion accounts.

You can choose an amount of ad spend that works for your budget, starting at $1 with Instagram Ads. This amount gets determined by the campaign’s timeline and the size of your audience.

4. LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s targeted ads allow you to enter keywords and target audiences based on their interests. So, if you choose to post a job for a specific role, your ad on LinkedIn can help you find a diverse pool of candidates with relevant experience.

Step 9: Test, Evaluate, And Adjust Your Strategy

How will you know if you’ve met your social media objectives? You must measure your results to determine how effective your social media efforts are.

You can keep a count of the number of followers you attract and retain along with what people are saying about you, your brand, or your healthcare industry. You can track which social media channels drive the most traffic to your website are all important metrics to monitor. Social media metrics should always get linked to your social media marketing objectives and target audience.

To track and measure your progress, use built-in tools like Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics, third-party tools, and Google Analytics measurement of social traffic and conversion.

Conclusion

Hospitals should follow their customers’ lead as they increasingly use social media. Healthcare organizations, in particular, must pay close attention to what their patients are saying online (and act on this knowledge) and leverage the ability of online influencers to reach large crowds and spread your message.

As a healthcare organization or hospital, you must create valuable content that educates your audience and use social media as a deliberate space for brand building. You can engage, support, and create a space for productive conversations between everyone – your patients, doctors, industry leaders, and policymakers.

To effectively use these communication channels, you as healthcare professionals and the healthcare organizations you serve must develop new healthcare social media strategies and policies. It will assist in engaging patients, building brand loyalty, and ultimately producing a more informed, empowered patient.

Are You Ready To Leverage The Power Of Social Media Marketing For Your Healthcare Organization?

At InnoServ, you will find us dedicated to changing how everyone does healthcare communications for the better. We are heading towards a change. Change by experience, driven by innovation, and proven in delivery. We work alongside healthcare professionals, pharmaceutical brands, clinics, and hospitals to overcome the complex challenges of modern healthcare. Our work blends strategic insight and deep scientific understanding with creativity and digital innovation, delivering healthcare campaigns and solutions that make a difference in people’s lives.

So how can you combine healthcare, social media marketing, and the overall digital marketing space to master marketing for the audience? Let InnoServ help to attract patients, connecting science, strategy, creativity & technology.

Increase Patient Volume With A Specialized Healthcare Marketing Agency

How do you plan to attract more patients to your service? How do you increase your brand presence on social media? Are you thinking through your current strategy? If you’re not sure, be sure to have a solid healthcare digital marketing agency to help you get there.

InnoServ Digital is an experienced healthcare marketing agency in India. We work with you and think like a patient (we step in their shoes too!) to develop a patient-centered strategy for your medical practice. Once the plan is in place, be sure to receive better patient engagement, higher customer satisfaction, advanced patient care, and lower marketing costs.

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