Which Social Media Platforms are the best fit for Your Practice?
Social media marketing is a popular healthcare marketing tool used in the dental and medical world and can be very effective when marketing for doctors and medical practices. Social media marketing for doctors can greatly improve their marketing results and drive new patient leads.
There can be some stigma associated with social media marketing for physicians and this is because often times it is done incorrectly and inconsistently with limited to no tracking for measuring success or improving initiatives.
Physicians may have a difficult time utilizing their social media profiles and tracking progress.
The truth is social media is a vital component of digital marketing and SEO for medical practices and dentists.
A strong social media marketing strategy can help increase patient engagement, drive new patients, advertise healthcare services, share practice updates, expand physician exposure, improve physician credibility as a top healthcare expert, and build relationships with patients.
When implementing a successful social media marketing strategy for your practice you need to first understand the different social media channels and which are the best fit for your medical or dental practice.
Factors such as specialty type, target demographic, geography, content you create, etc play an important role in deciding which social media platforms are worth the time an effort to reach your ideal patient.
Facebook is one of the top healthcare marketing strategies and should be included in every marketing campaign for physicians.
Some Facebook Statistics:
- Facebook has over 1.3 billion users and has unique capabilities to target and track your ideal audience.
- 60% of Facebook users are female and the average age range is 25-54.
Facebook Marketing is Designed To
Facebook is designed to increase brand awareness, patient engagement, and has a strong impact on local SEO for a practice.
Facebook is one of the most important search engine optimization listings for local search because typically if you search a practice their Facebook is one of the top search results returned.
Advantages of Facebook Marketing for Physicians
Facebook advantages are building brand loyalty, local SEO, patient reviews and engagement, lead generation, and driving new patients to your medical practice.
Facebook allows for an incredibly high level of targeting because of the data they have on their users. This allows you to target in organic or paid posts exact geo, age, interests, income levels, etc. to make sure your message is delivered to the exact audience type you are looking to attract.
Which Doctors and Medical Specialties Are A Good Fit for Facebook?
All medical practices and specialties are a great fit for Facebook and should utilize Facebook in their marketing strategy.
Downside of Facebook
A con to Facebook is that without a large number of likes your audience and engagement can be limited so it can be more of a pay to play, initially.
Since Facebook went public there has been an inverse relationship between organic reach (non-paid reach) and their stock price. Meaning: Facebook has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to earn revenue so they have cut back a Facebook Business page’s organic reach to force you to utilize their Ads Manager to reach the same number of people you use to.
This is a cold truth to advertising and marketing on Facebook.
Therefore, to make your Facebook marketing strategy more successful for your medical practices consider creating a Facebook advertising budget and likes campaigns.
Tips for Facebook Marketing for Doctors & Dentists:
- Create a Facebook business profile
- Optimize practice information so it’s available and up to date
- Appoint a Facebook marketing manager
- Clean, consistent and engaging posts based on your medical specialty
- Share content that is unique to your medical website to ensure click through to your site
- Quick response times for notifications and patient engagement
- Never give medical advice
Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. Instagram is inherently image and video-heavy because users share pictures and videos to engage and connect.
Instagram Statistics
- Instagram has 800+ million active users
- 59% of users in the US are under 30 years old
- 80% of users follow a business on Instagram
Instagram Marketing is Designed To
Instagram for physicians is designed to engage with patients and share images of procedures, results, and the practice.
Advantages of Instagram Marketing for Physicians
Instagram for physicians is best for lead generation, targeting local potential patients, any medical retail, healthcare events and conferences, cosmetic services, aesthetics, beauty, surgery, and search.
The Downside of Instagram Marketing
In order to have a successful Instagram marketing strategy, it is very time-intensive. Instagram involves daily custom graphics, posting, interactions, advertising, search and hashtag optimization, and building a relevant and engaged audience.
Which Doctors and Medical Specialties Are A Good Fit for
Instagram is visual so it tends to be a better fit for surgeons, but not limited to, some recommendations are:
- Plastic surgery marketing
- Facial plastic surgeons
- Cosmetic procedures
- Orthopedic surgery marketing
- Dermatology marketing
- Oral surgeons
- Cosmetic Dentistry
- Physical Therapy
- Aesthetic services
- Weight loss clinics
- Bariatric physicians
- Chiropractors
- OB/GYN
- Medical spa marketing
- Urology Marketing
Instagram allows surgeons and dentists to share before and after patient results, engaging surgery videos and images, testimonials, and promote retail products.
Tips for Doctors Building a Strong Instagram Marketing Strategy:
- Assigned Instagram marketing director
- Optimize profile
- Create a medical practice or business profile
- Monitor interactions and have quick response times
- Daily Postings
- Share patient “before and afters” and results
- Custom graphics
- Edited and engaging images and videos
- Daily interaction with new and existing users
- Target local or new patient leads
- Hashtag research and planning
Twitter is a fantastic way to share original content and lead visitors back to your medical or dental practice website.
Some Twitter Statistics
Twitter has over 600 million users ranging from ages 18-29.
Twitter Marketing is Designed To
Twitter is designed to share news, articles, information, and conversations quickly and efficiently with hashtags used for direct search capabilities.
Hashtags help users and doctors find content related to their search and group information according to your medical field. Twitter for physicians can help doctors share content and connect with potential patients and other medical professionals.
Advantages of Twitter Marketing for Physicians
There has been a lot of talks lately that Twitter is a shrinking or dying platform so users should be careful about investing time and effort into it as a viable social media marketing strategy.
I disagree with this notion and believe it all boils down to how you approach the Twitter marketing strategy for your practice. Twitter is by no means a passive social platform.
It takes consistency, engagement and high volumes of content to produce a “well-oiled machine” that drives patients to your website and into your practice. However, if you invest and stay active it will become one of your greatest and most effective social media marketing strategies.
Downside to Twitter
The con for Twitter if you want to call it that, is the “Tweet” or message is limited to a specific word count.
Essentially, Twitter doesn’t allow for oversharing and encourages getting straight to the point.
In addition, a Tweet has a limited shelf life considering there are about 5,700+ Tweets every second and 500 Million per day so to get above the noise you need to get a high amount of tweets out daily to be seen.
via Meet Edgar
Which Doctors and Medical Specialties Are A Good Fit for Twitter?
All medical specialties are a good fit if they are generating unique and consistent content on their website to share.
If a physician is or is looking to be a respected speaker or thought leader in their field Twitter can greatly help increase impression shares, drive new visitors to your medical website, and further public relations success.
Twitter Mistakes Doctors Should Avoid:
- Direct posting from Facebook (lazy posting).
- Stagnant profiles.
- Not properly optimized.
- Only sharing third-party information.
- Not having an assigned account manager to handle notifications, shares, likes, tweets, comments, and posting in a timely manner.
- Only advertising your medical practice.
- Not utilizing the platform to connect and engage with other medical professionals in your field.
Many healthcare and business professionals are currently using LinkedIn as a digital networking platform.
Some LinkedIn Statistics
- LinkedIn has 600 million users ranging in ages 30-49.
- 57% of all LinkedIn traffic is mobile.
- 71.5 % of LinkedIn users are located outside the U.S.
- 44% of LinkedIn users earn more than $75,000 in a year
LinkedIn Marketing is Designed To
LinkedIn was designed as a business networking and development platform for B2B relations. Therefore, it is a great way for doctors, dentists, and practices to directly connect with colleagues and potential patients.
Advantages of LinkedIn Marketing for Physicians
LinkedIn’s social platform helps the healthcare community share related medical business news, articles, and promote interactions and relationship building.
Physicians, hospital systems, and other medical professionals can interact and engage by operating LinkedIn as a digital networking platform. Physicians can also use the platform to search for new hires and quickly review resumes, experience, credibility, and recommendations.
In addition, LinkedIn helps with local search and building networking communities targeted to your healthcare industry.
The Downside to LinkedIn Marketing
The drawback to Linkedin marketing for physicians is that from a personal profile level it is highly personal and needs to involve the provider in some capacity to be successful. When reaching out to a doctor you need to make sure you are representing their voice and approach to patient care consistently which can be tricky.
Which Doctors and Medical Specialties Are A Good Fit for LinkedIn?
All physicians are a good fit for LinkedIn due to the advantages of direct networking with the healthcare community and potential patients. You can do a great deal by positioning yourself as a thought leader in your specialty.
But, physician-owned medical practices benefit greatly because of LinkedIn’s business profile option. Creating a LinkedIn company profile will help your local search rankings and suggested connections.
Tips For Doctors using LinkedIn Marketing:
- Create company (medical practice) profile
- Optimize profile
- Utilize LinkedIn groups
- Unique content posting
- Consistent posting
- Use targeted search capabilities
- Don’t spam connections
Youtube
Youtube marketing is extremely effective for healthcare and providers marketing their practice. Youtube allows physicians to record and share original content and medical procedures.
A Youtube marketing strategy can serve as a significant outlet for providing medical information directly from the physician and allows the website to have a multitude of videos without the burden of hosting video directly on the website and weighing it down (from a speed standpoint).
Youtube statistics
- Youtube has 1 billion users ranging from all ages.
- The number of hours people spend watching videos (aka watch time) on YouTube is up 60% year-over-year, the fastest growth we’ve seen in 2 years.
- Youtube is the second largest search engine behind Google
Youtube Marketing is designed To
Youtube is a video-based social platform. With is being the second largest search engine it is an amazing way to reach a new and engaging audience for your practice.
Advantages of Youtube Marketing for Physicians
Youtube is best for physicians that want to share and create videos and showcase specific medical services, testimonials and more. Youtube also serves as a great SEO and search tool for potential patients looking for medical services.
It is a fantastic way to get the practice providers involved in the marketing strategy by creating short videos, 101s, educational pieces and more. We find it is a lot easier for a doctor to jump in front of the camera and make a 90-second video than sit down and create a long-form blog post with their busy schedules.
Downside of Youtube Marketing
Video can be inherently expensive and resource-intensive to create consistent, high-quality videos. Therefore, you need to plan out a video healthcare content marketing budget and look for ways to streamline the production cycle to make it easier and lower costs.
Which Doctors and Medical Specialties Are A Good Fit for Youtube
Youtube is the perfect tool for all physicians to share content, medical procedures, patient journals, and involves less time than constantly writing content.
Tips for Physicians to Building a Strong Youtube Marketing Strategy:
- Optimize profile
- Create playlists
- Use search related tags
- Make sure there is a CTA
- Custom branded templates
- Videos are professional, cleanly edited
- Share patient journals
- Consistent posting
- Professional recordings
- Not too lengthy
Pinterest is a social media profile designed for only image sharing or “pins” on “boards”.
Pinterest Statistics
- 81% of users are female on Pinterest
- Millennial are as active on Pinterest as Instagram
- Medium Pinterest user age is 40 but most active group os below 40 y/o
- 87% of Pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest.
- 72% of Pinners use Pinterest to decide what to buy offline.
Pinterest Marketing is Designed to
Pinterest is a social media platform designed as a digital cork board and “how to” platform. Pinterest images are carefully designed to advertise and encourage click through for websites.
Pinterest is a great way to share DIYs, health ideas, and more for people to repin and distribute.
Advantages of Pinterest Marketing for Physicians
Pinterest marketing is best for lead generation, health and wellness, food, and community-related events.
Downside for Pinterest Marketing For Physicians
Pinterest is a selfish platform (though it can be argued all social media kind of is). What I mean is most people are searching for content they can add to their boards, for themselves, to use at a later date to them.
Therefore, you have to come up with a content strategy that makes people want to share and repin what you are posting to their own wall.
Which Doctors and Medical Specialties Are A Good Fit for:
Pinterest’s audience is 80% female so medical practices and healthcare organizations looking to appeal to the women of the household tend to benefit the most.
- Internal Medicine
- OB-GYN
- Senior Care
- Pediatricians
- Aesthetics Physicians
- Cosmetic surgeons
- Plastic surgeons
- Weight loss clinics
- Bariatric Surgeons
- Dermatologist
Tips for Physicians Building a Strong Pinterest Marketing Strategy
Sharing content to drive traffic back to your medical practice website consisting of women’s health such as food and cooking, exercise, common health issues, and family care are great ways to optimize your profile for your practice.
- Share original content to lead visitor’s to your site
- Share services
- Share ongoing wellness and quality of life
- Share family care
- Optimize profiles
- Engage with other profiles
Social media marketing for physicians should be properly optimized, consistent and organized. Daily interacting with users will help with growing your audience and sharing content.
Regularly posting of unique images and content for your practice will create consistent brand continuity. Share content that drives patients to your website to increase patient leads.
Conclusion
With so many different social media platforms available to be leveraged as part of a medical marketing strategy for a practice it can be difficult to know which is the best fit to reach the correct audience.
The key is taking the time to research the best uses and the target market that is the most active on a given platform.
Once you have identified the ideal social media that is the best fit then the next step is to hone in on a consistent content marketing strategy and growth tactics to drive engagement and website traffic from the platforms.
If you are looking to grow your social media platforms and create a dynamic, powerful, trackable and effective healthcare marketing strategy give us a call 678-250-4757 or fill out our contact form.
Intrepy Healthcare Marketing is an award-winning healthcare marketing agency that provides a wide range of medical marketing services.
