How Social Media Marketing Helps Healthcare Businesses to Grow

1. How Social Media Marketing Helps Healthcare Businesses to Grow Social media is important for digital marketing for healthcare. It lets you connect with potential patients and helps to grow your healthcare business. Healthcare marketing signifies the various marketing strategies healthcare providers, insurers, health advocacy groups, and suppliers use to draw the attention of new patients and create brand awareness. Social media marketing is a powerful marketing strategy and the use of social media channels is steadily on the rise. Approximately 30% of your current and future patients interact with you on social media before contacting your business. This shows the significance of social media marketing in the healthcare industry and this number is expected to grow in the future. Due to ever increasing competition, expectations of better patient care solutions and faster responses, healthcare providers are using social media for digital marketing for healthcare. It is a powerful tool for organizations to reach out to the target market and many social media platforms have integrated methods to help reach the right audience and build a strong relationship with them. In simple terms social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites, but it is much more than that. Social media is a great platform for providers and patients to

2. actively engage with each other. Patients that engage with a healthcare organization online, and find value in these interactions, are more likely to turn to that same organization when they need medical services. Hospitals and healthcare providers can share high quality content on social media to educate patients about preventive care, treatment options etc and thus increase brand awareness. Social media marketing is also a way to expand your limited marketing budget to increase your customer base. Advantages of Using Social Media Marketing in Healthcare •Build awareness for your services: A strong social media presence can improve your visibility among your potential patients and reach out to a wider audience. Make sure that you have a clear idea about what strategies need to be adopted for your social handles to bring healthcare consumers to your healthcare business. It is also important to identify which social media channels best fit for your business. •Be a leader and stay ahead of your competitors: With a rising number of various healthcare brands and the constant need for new innovation, it is difficult to stay competent in the healthcare business sector. However, with social media marketing you can reinvent your healthcare business as a reliable brand. A robust social media profile with relevant content will help build your brand’s authority. •Marketing of your service with limited budget: Businesses often assign a huge amount of money for marketing but it may not be feasible for small businesses. However, regardless of size and budget, healthcare businesses can use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on to reach out to their audience. The cost of Ads on Facebook and Instagram is a lot lesser than other ways of advertisements. •Share your ideologies and goals: Social media channels are the ideal venues to convey your views and ideologies. You can post engaging blogs, interesting videos or interactive chat sessions on your social media channels to put your point across to your target audience. Some key social media strategies Healthcare providers use social media to build stronger relationships with patients and to make the most out of it, here are some social media strategies you can effectively utilize. ✓ ✓Know your target audience and make the right media mix: Every social media channel has its own distinctive user base. People using Facebook may not have the same interest as people who

3. use Twitter or LinkedIn. So to gain maximum benefit, develop unique marketing campaigns for different social media platforms. ✓ ✓Monitor patient queries: Social media channels provide the opportunity for patients to ask questions to healthcare providers. You need to ensure that their queries are answered. This builds patient engagement and improves your credibility. Assign a team of doctors to answer the patient queries so that they benefit from professional advice. ✓ ✓Provide healthcare information: You can share health related information like tips, quotes etc on social media using images or infographics on Pinterest, or YouTube video etc. Share blog posts on social media platforms like Google+, LinkedIn, and Facebook. You can also share news regarding health hazards or disease outbreaks so that people can take preventive measures. Other information that can be shared include updates on new advanced technologies, details regarding new doctors in a practice, general information regarding pre-and post-surgery care, and updates regarding the medical practice/healthcare facility. ✓ ✓Study competitors and understand their offerings and overall patient satisfaction: You could consider adopting some of their proven methods to improve your own strategies. Active interaction on social media would help obtain feedback from consumers and improve quality. ✓ ✓Start new trends and create branded social media campaigns: Healthcare businesses can use social media to start new trends. Hashtag campaigns and quizzes on common health topics give followers a better perspective and valuable information. Include your healthcare brand’s or medical practice’s name innovatively in hashtags to create brand awareness. Use of hashtags is not limited to Twitter, it can be on Facebook and Instagram too. ✓ ✓Develop online communication protocols: Healthcare businesses should have a clear policy for all online communication. Employees must be well educated and incentivized to use social media with care. They should be also warned about breach of ethics and privacy concerns of patients on social media. Make sure that all tips and information posted on social media platforms are verified by experts before posting. ✓ ✓Develop relationship and loyalty with the patients: Social media is the best avenue to build a solid relationship with your patients and earn their loyalty. ✓ ✓Ensure communication in times of crisis: Social media can be used to deliver real-time updates on a healthcare facility’s capacity, ER access, and operation status among other things. Organizations with a strong social media presence can communicate information shared by

4. organizations such as the CDS (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Red Cross and so on. They can also communicate with news centers easily via social media. ✓ ✓SEO through social media: When people search for doctors and hospitals online, they are likely to find their business profiles in online directories and social profiles on Facebook & Google + in search results. When people type or ask health-related queries, then, results on YouTube, Quora, Yahoo! Answers, etc appear higher in search results. So if you want your profile to come up in search results organically, then it is important to ensure that your profile details are search engine optimized. Provide a link to your website on your profile so that your potential patients can reach your website directly. Social media marketing plays a vital role in healthcare digital marketing and it lets you connect with potential patients and customers. Using the right set of tools to create valuable content and posting it in a timely manner helps healthcare providers connect with potential patients easily. While taking advantage of the various benefits of social media marketing, remember to keep a close eye on privacy and regulatory concerns that are so significant in healthcare. 8596 E. 101st Street, Suite H Tulsa, OK 74133 www.medresponsive.com (800) 941-5527