Choose the Right Social Media Marketing Channel for Your Healthcare Business

1. Choose the Right Social Media Marketing Channel for Your Healthcare Business Social media platforms are widely used by many individuals all around the world to stay connected. Today, medical practices and healthcare businesses are using social media platforms for digital healthcare marketing. Patients seek healthcare information through social media that also helps them in the selection of doctors, specialists and hospitals, and medical practices. Social media also help to communicate and market their products and services to the target audience. These platforms are a great way of reaching out to potential patients, and for patients they are useful for finding healthcare professionals. Having a social media presence helps medical professionals in the following ways: Educate patients: Social media and content marketing help physicians share useful information with patients. These channels also support preventative care initiatives, making it easier for patients to determine what kind of medical care they need. Better collaboration: Through social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter, healthcare experts can collaborate with their industry peers to expand their skills and improve knowledge. Moreover, networking improves your chances of referrals from other doctors and surgeons. Create brand awareness: Today, almost every brand knows that if they want to get the best possible share of clients, they need to be active online. The right healthcare marketing ideas help you reach the targeted audience that’s right for you–whether that’s cosmetic surgery patients or families in search of general care.

2. Therefore, medical professionals and healthcare businesses should consider social media as a strong marketing medium to attract healthcare consumers. Social media marketing requires strategy, persistence, time, effort and analysis. With many different social media platforms available today, medical professionals are often confused regarding which one to choose. Every platform has different principles and approaches and so every time they change their algorithm you need a new strategy. What factors should you consider when planning the best social media strategy? Look out for your target audience: Analyze your target audience, on which platforms they are most active, what they are searching for, and how they respond to each platform. Apart from these queries, you must also know about the key demographics of your targeted audiences. Makes sure to monitor your competitors and which social media platform is helping them to enjoy success. Use Google keyword search to analyze a broader niche market of users who are active on social media networks. Know your objective on social media: Once you have identified your target audience, the next step is to know your goals with social media marketing. Identify whether you want to use social media platforms to grow your audience or connect with your patients, make a channel for customer support, update your patients about your new service, products, plans, or conduct informal market research. Make an audit of your medical business and start identifying gaps in your current marketing plans. Think about platforms that can increase engagement with your patients. Do not focus on increasing your followers because it will not yield any success but improved engagement with potential patients can give you good results. Understand your resources and skills: Every platform is different in its own ways. However, each platform requires different skills and diverse resources to execute. It is important to line up your requirements with the right platform. Some of the popular social media platforms: Facebook: It is one of the best platforms to make a solid social media presence. As per some studies, Facebook is the most used social media channel. It has more than 2 billion users each month. With so many users, Facebook is suitable for almost all businesses. Most of the businesses are creating pages in Facebook and sharing written and visual content that help to engage with the users. Healthcare businesses can use Facebook and its several advertising tools for targeting the desired audience. Instagram: This is the second most used social media channel with 800 million active users. Earlier, this platform was developed to share images and videos but later it evolved as one of the trendiest channels for promoting businesses. It is one of the best visual platforms for medical brands to highlight their services and products. You can post shoppable posts and stories as Instagram works as a one-stop-shop for finding and purchasing products / services. Twitter: Unlike other social media, Twitter is known for instant and real-time updates as well as for trending news. It has an average of 330 million active users, and you can tweet with 140 characters and get likes and comments or retweets on your Tweets. You can share images and videos on Twitter. You

3. can also buy Twitter followers with TweSocial and grow your engagement with potential patients. Twitter uses hashtags strategy also to sort out your content with the help of the most used keywords and topics. You may have to tweet more often to reach out to your target audience. LinkedIn: It is a channel for all types of businesses where you can post high quality professional content because users come here to read good content. This social media platform can be used to post updates about sales, services or products. You can also share your thoughts, concerns etc. This platform is more suitable for working professionals who are in the age group 35 to 55. YouTube: This one of the biggest online video platforms with around 1.5 billion users. It is one of the best marketing channels to promote your healthcare business. It allows you to engage with potential patients by posting various types of content like “how-to” videos, advertisement clips, video blogs, and short original videos. There are also reviews, testimonials, and videos focused on educating patients about a service, disease, medicine, and treatment options. Pinterest: It is the fastest independently launched website to reach 10 million unique monthly visitors and now has over 200 million monthly active users. It receives mixed opinions as a B2C social media marketing channel but posting quality content on Pinterest can help you improve your SERP rankings. It is the best platform for promoting brands and works wonders for brands with a predominantly female target audience. Social media has revolutionized the way medical businesses relate to customers and from the above points we can understand that the right social media marketing channel for your healthcare business depends on various factors like demographics, age etc. It has also become a primary means for healthcare professionals to interact with potential patients to engage and attract new patients as part of an overall marketing plan. People buy from people that they know, like and trust. Social media platforms present an unprecedented opportunity to effectively communicate with patients in a relaxed and informal environment. Maintaining a solid presence on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter may seem to be a difficult task for physicians. But physicians and medical professionals can resort to medical SEO services that can ensure them optimum social media presence. A reliable service provider would ensure the best customized social media strategies and regular social media monitoring that is very important to maintain your brand and its reputation. 800-670-2809