2023 Healthcare Marketing Trends:
How to Choose the Right Social Media Channel to Grow your Medical Practice
There are so many social media channels out there, and it can take time to decide which ones to use for your business. You can research your options and choose the channels that make the most sense for you and your business. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you decide.
Define the target audience
Your target audience are the people you want to reach with your message so they will take action. Target audiences drive the marketing strategy for your medical practice.
- Think of what type of patients can benefit from your services. For example, what significant problem does your audience have that your services can help or solve?
- Next, make a list of demographics and behavior areas are:
- Location
- Age
- Gender
- Employment
- Income
- Insured, medicare or self-pay
- Specific medical conditions or medical care (cancer patients or geriatric)
Making a list helps you understand your audience and how they make decisions. Targeting a distinctive audience will help your campaigns reach the right people who will relate most to your message and services on a personal level.
Need help defining your target audience?
- Use Google Analytics to learn more about your customers. Website insights are split into different sections, like age, gender, and location.
- Create a reader persona to target blog content. Your blog should contain content that’ll be useful for your readers; this is important for medical information content.
- Look at social media analytics. Analytics can tell who is looking at your profile and what’s working and not working content-wise.
- Use Facebook Insights for free. These insights work similarly to Google Analytics — you’ll receive the necessary information to create a target audience. You can see who and from where your visitors are by accessing the People tab on your Insights dashboard.
- Check on website performance. Monitor your metrics on your website to learn about your audience’s gender, interests, and location.
- Engage with social media audiences. Interacting with followers is essential because they are your audience. So ask them what they want to see, and use different social media tools for replies to get their response for how/what you’re doing.
Think about where your target audience spends their time online.
What social media channels do they use? You want to ensure you’re using platforms your target customers are using. Being familiar with social media demographics such as age:
- FB Largest age group: 25-34 (31.5%)
- IG Largest age group: 25-34 (31.2%), with 18-24 close behind at 31%
- TikTok Largest age group: 10-19 (25%)
- Twitter: Largest age group: 18-29 (42%)
- Linkedin; Largest age group: 25-34 (58.4%)
- Snapchat Largest age group: 15-25 (48%)
Consider your goals.
What do you hope to accomplish by using social media? Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Drive traffic to your website? Generate leads? Once you know what you want to achieve, you can better determine which platform will help you reach those goals.
Consider the resources you have available. Do you have someone who can manage your social media accounts daily? Do you have the budget to pay for ads? Can you create high-quality content? Make sure you have the manpower and resources available to support your chosen platforms.
Narrowing down your options. Here are three popular social media platforms businesses use today and how they can benefit your company.
Facebook is one of the best platforms for increasing brand awareness and driving traffic to your website. With over 2 billion active users, there’s a good chance your target audience are on Facebook. You can use Facebook ads to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. And with Facebook’s lead ads, you can easily collect leads without ever sending people off of Facebook.
So how can you make Facebook work for you and your medical practice? Let’s take a look.
Get Found With Facebook Ads
One of the great things about advertising on Facebook is that you can be very specific about who sees your ad. You can target people based on location, age, gender, interests, and behaviors, even with the recent changes to user tracking. For example, let’s say you’re a vascular specialist specializing in women’s health. You could target women in your city based on their age and who have engaged in behaviors like visiting women’s health sites or filling out contact forms for other vascular specialists.
Collect Leads With Lead Ads
Facebook’s lead ads are a game-changer when it comes to collecting leads. With lead ads, people can sign up for your email list or request more information about your services without leaving Facebook. That means no more redirecting people to lengthy contact forms on your website. And since studies have shown that people are more likely to sign up for something if they don’t have to leave the page they’re on, lead ads could help you increase conversion rates and grow your email list quickly and easily.
YouTube
Like most people, you probably think of Facebook when you think of social media. But did you know that YouTube has more monthly active users than Facebook? That’s right—YouTube is the second most popular social media platform, with 2.2 billion monthly active users. And it’s not just a platform for cat videos (although there are plenty of those). People use YouTube for everything from entertainment to learning how to do something new. YouTube is dubbed the second largest search engine after its parent company, Google.
Here are three benefits of implementing a YouTube marketing strategy.
- You can build rapport with potential and current patients.
When potential patients are searching for a new doctor, one of the first things they’ll do is go to Google and type in something like “doctorname + location.” What comes up in the results will give them their first impression of you, so it’s important to have a strong presence on the internet—including on YouTube. Creating videos showing your personality can help potential patients get to know you and feel comfortable trusting you with their care.
- You can become a thought leader in your field.
There are already plenty of health and medical channels on YouTube, but there’s always room for more quality content. By creating informative videos about topics related to your specialty, you can position yourself as a thought leader in your field—which can do wonders for your practice.
- You can improve your SEO ranking.
YouTube is the second largest search engine, so it’s no surprise that having a solid presence on the platform can help improve your SEO ranking—which, in turn, can help more people find your website and convert into patients.
With over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram allows businesses to show off their products or services creatively. Instagram ads can target specific users based on interests, keywords, behaviors, and more.
It’s visual platform perfect for businesses in the health and wellness industry. For doctors, this means showing off your stylish scrubs, stethoscopes, and lab coats. We see you! But it’s not all about the clothes; it’s also about the people you work with. By sharing photos of you and your staff on Instagram, you’re humanizing your practice and making it more relatable to potential patients. And let’s not forget those behind-the-scenes shots of you performing procedures or consulting with colleagues. These photos give likely patients a glimpse into your world and help them understand what you do daily.
So go ahead and give Instagram a try. It’s the perfect platform for doctors who want to show off their knowledge, skills, and stethoscope.
Choosing the right social media platform depends on several factors, including audience, goals, and available resources. Consider all of these factors before making a decision so that you can choose the platform (or platforms) that will work best for you and your business. Do some research on each platform and see which one makes the most sense for what you’re trying to accomplish.
Need help with your content? Infusion Health seamlessly blends marketing and business innovations within the healthcare industry. Our team is composed of like-minded individuals passionate about fostering business growth in your medical practice. With specially curated lines of service, we are determined to identify your needs, execute a personalized growth plan, and deliver data-driven results. From increased patient referrals to digital media strategies, the Infusion Health team is committed to growing with you through collaborative teamwork.
References
Barnhart, B. (2022, March 2). Social Media Demographics to Inform Your 2022 Strategy. Sprout Social. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/#instagram-demographics
