It can be difficult to effectively manage your practice’s social media accounts while taking care of patients. Reaching your audience, building relationships, and creating a good first impression online requires more than just posting an advertisement. Interactive marketing relies on communication and relevancy to make an impact. Here are some tips to boost your online presence and connect with your audience through social media organically.
Variety and Frequency of Social Media Communication
Regardless of the social media platforms used, there is a sweet spot for how many times to post. However, there is no hard and fast rule for how often a business should post. It is also essential to create engaging and informative content to get the audience interested in learning more.
Tailor Each Platform
It may be appropriate to post on some platforms daily, while others may only require posting a few days a week. Sticking to approximately one post per day is ideal for most social media platforms. This practice is especially true for Facebook and Instagram, where posting one to two times a day is acceptable for most businesses. Posting less than this may cause prospective patients to lose interest, while posting more can overwhelm or even annoy leads. Consistency is key for both platforms.
Regarding Twitter, there is much more flexibility in how frequently to post, as there is often a shorter window for businesses to reach clients just after tweeting. Some businesses can post as many as five times a day with good results. Posting once a day during the workweek on LinkedIn is ideal as business professionals, and older adults primarily use it.
Other Forms of Engagement
While there is a limit on how often to post on social media accounts, there is no limit to online engagement with prospective and current clients. If someone interacts with a platform through a comment or question, the business should try to respond immediately. The sooner the response, the better the chances are of meeting their needs and establishing a relationship.
It can be challenging to keep track of social media communication, so turning on notifications for accounts or assigning an individual to manage the social media page can help one remain consistent. If responding right away is not possible, try to answer at least by the end of the day. Social media interaction with clients is now more important than ever. Research has found that 33% of customers prefer to contact companies through social media rather than the phone and that 77% of U.S. online adults say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide good service.
Developing a Strategy
The first step to delivering great content is to design a social media strategy. This plan should identify marketing goals and the target audience. There are many different approaches to social media marketing that a business may take. Still, there are common goals like building brand awareness, growing page likes, generating leads, and increasing website visits.
Developing Goals
The first marketing campaign for recently established businesses or ones new to social media should build the target audience’s awareness. Businesses will often use paid advertisements geared toward a specific demographic to do this. Having a solid understanding of the brand identity and niche can help make this process quicker and more successful. Growing page likes is important as audience engagement is essential to making the most of investments in social media marketing. Encouraging page likes is one way to grow an audience. One way to do this is through doing page-like campaigns to get people to follow a practice on social media.
The primary business goal is to generate sales. In the medical field, this means finding potential patients seeking services and getting them to contact one’s office. Lead generation is more successful after a business gains a decent level of brand awareness. People are more likely to hear about a practice through social media than to land organically on a page through a search engine. One way to do this is by starting a social media campaign geared towards link clicks. This campaign can increase a website’s SEO and get more people to visit the website and learn more about the services available.
Diversifying Types of Content
Once a social media strategy is in place, the next step is to create content. Creating content that informs and interests people can draw in potential patients. Posts should vary depending on the platforms used instead of relying on the same type of content. Diversifying content through various images, videos, polls, contests, and more can lead to more audience engagement and interest.
Add hashtags to posts and engage the audience by asking questions, sharing pictures of patients (with permission) on social media, and showing engagement in the local community. One can also use the story features on social media to get followers interested in what they do. While a social media marketing strategy can also include advertisements, including content that feels organic helps visitors relate and feel more connected while interacting online.
Reach More Patients
Growing your social media presence and connecting with your audience through interactive marketing can help you reach more people. At Doctor Genius, we have developed multiple ways to help you do this. Give us a call, and learn how our marketing solutions can get you more clients.
Doctor Genius, located at 16800 Aston Street, Suite 270, Irvine, CA 92606, provides a range of services for practice success. We seek to meet our clients’ needs by providing a variety of marketing, SEO, practice optimization tools, and coaching to transform the healthcare experience. Though we work to provide the most accurate information, the content found on this website is solely intended for entertainment purposes. Therefore, we cannot guarantee that the information provided is entirely correct. You may not use the information on this site to cure, prevent, or diagnose a perceived medical issue. If you have healthcare-related needs, please speak directly to a healthcare professional. Never self-perform medical treatments discussed on this website. All images displayed are also for entertainment purposes only, and personal experiences may differ. Please note that the business tactics mentioned on this site might not be applicable to your industry or practice.
