Growing competition, increased expectations of better service, and faster responses have made healthcare providers move to social media to begin building stronger relationships with their patients. The lack of resources along with a shortage of time has restricted doctors, hospitals, and healthcare products providers from remaining connected with their customer base, but social media helps them easily and quickly respond to patient and customer requirements.
Regardless of if you choose LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook or another social platform, more and more companies and individuals in the healthcare field are increasing the use of social media for promoting the services they offer. While this is a smart move, it’s important to do this right if you want to achieve success.
Get to Know the Target Audience to Plan the Proper Media Mix
Every social media platform has an individual user base. The interests and demographics of people on Facebook and Instagram are completely different than LinkedIn. Take a cue from Power Life on Facebook and get to know where your potential customers are. Also, put effort into planning unique campaigns for various social media platforms rather than choosing a “cookie-cutter” plan to use on all your social media platforms.
Handle Customer/Patient Queries
It’s a good idea to use social media for answering customer’s and patient’s complaints and concerns. Complaints can now be handled via discussion forums and online communities found on Facebook. Recently, Apollo hospital created the “Just Ask” campaign that engaged visitors coming to the page by asking their team of doctors to answer various questions related to their ailments through the comments section on Facebook.
Provide the Information That is Wanted by Visitors
Take time to provide health quotes, share details, and offer tips about any type of information related to the services or products being discussed or sold. Do this successfully using images, infographics, videos, and content.
You can use infographics on sites like Facebook, and Pinterest, while blog posts are ideal for LinkedIn. You can also use Quora for answering health-related questions. The key here is to provide the information that people are looking for, rather than posting random information that serves no real value.
Create Branded Social Media Campaigns and Start Trends
Today, those in the healthcare field can use various social media channels to help engage their visitors by creating an online contest Quizzes, discussing common health topics, and #hashtag topics provide your followers with more insight and a better perspective of your brand. Be sure to include the brand name in an innovative manner when creating a hashtag to grow your brand awareness. Using hashtags no longer restricts to Twitter only – Instagram and Facebook both use these with quite a bit of success.
If you don’t feel like you have the needed brand recognition to create a new trend, then just retweet the latest trending topics. Be sure that you try to compliment the tweets you make with images that support them.
Engage in Brand Building Activities and Reputation Management Efforts
Social media marketing has an important role when it comes to online reputation management. Social media is an effective way to increase positive word of mouth. Thanks to positive testimonials and new customer reviews, feedback, and suggestions.
You can promote awareness campaigns, customer engagement efforts, and CSR activities all online. If you have a product or service that only has a local reach, consider including some personalities known in the area. This is going to help increase both online and offline brand visibility.
If you want to find success with your healthcare industry social media marketing efforts, be sure to keep the tips and information here in mind. They will pay off and help you use social media to its full potential, regardless of what your end goals may be. It’s also smart to work with professionals in the field to help ensure your brand’s or organization’s ongoing success.
