In the last decade, social media has become key for online medical marketing. Instagram is one platform that can connect a healthcare practice to a variety of new patients, especially those in a younger demographic who may just be starting to look for medical services. In addition to posting pictures and responding to comments, Instagram has a unique feature called a Story that can help optimize your marketing.
Understanding Stories
Your Story is a separate part of your Instagram profile that lets you share photos, videos, news updates, and other content in the moment. After 24 hours, content on your Story disappears, so it always has to be updated with fresh material to keep up engagement with followers. Stories have attracted a huge audience because they are only available for a short time, encouraging followers and users to check each new one when it is posted. Using marketing strategies with high engagement like this can garner new followers, and therefore patients, to your practice. However, if you make a Story you absolutely love, you can save it permanently on your profile by adding it to your Highlights.
Using Stories for your medical marketing
As a healthcare practice, what exactly should you post to your Story? Consider incorporating different features like polls and location stickers to enhance engagement, as well as sharing images of yourself and your staff, answering questions about relevant topics, providing links to new blog posts, and incorporating hashtags.
Office photos
Stock photos are incredibly popular among medical practices, but personal shots of the actual office are less common. Introduce followers and patients to your staff with quick snippets about everyone each day, and do not forget to include yourself! Give patients a glimpse into what goes on behind the scenes, and share fun photos that connect on a personal level with prospective patients.
Popular topics and questions
You probably get many of the same basic questions from patients appointment after appointment, so why not answer them in a single sweep? Post a daily question with a brief answer to your Story. By making fun and interesting content, you encourage more followers to check your Story regularly.
Links
Direct linking in Stories is only allowed if you have at least 10,000 followers. However, an easy loophole is to direct followers to your profile. Each profile allows you to include one link. If you have a blog, you can change this link to a recent post and point followers to it to find out more about a topic promoted in your Story.
Hashtags
Many social media users follow certain hashtags based on interests and topics. If in a Story you use a hashtag that others are following, those people will be able to find your Story and profile, even if they were not following you. Hashtags are a great way to increase the number of followers on your Instagram account.
Optimize your social media presence
Marketing to patients online through social media is no walk-in-the-park. Doctor Genius helps medical professionals establish and improve an online presence. Contact us to learn more about marketing with Instagram and other social platforms.
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.
