Want to start social media healthcare marketing, but don’t know where to start? For many companies and professionals in the medical-health sector, health marketing is an already consolidated reality.
Social media allows you to significantly shorten the distance with your potential patients, communicate with them more directly and build relationships based on trust. And in the medical field, trust is a key factor.
If you work in this industry, with a good health care social media marketing strategy, you will be able to strengthen your reputation both online and offline and you will be able to take advantage of the tools you have at your disposal to easily reach new users.
Why does social media health marketing work? How to start building a winning strategy? Let’s find out together.
Health marketing and health communication on social media
Let’s face it, not much has changed since the days when there were no social networks. Even today, patients seek solutions to their problems by basing their choices on word of mouth and reviews.
Users are used to getting information and they do it much more than before. They are ready to seek advice and are easily influenced by the opinion of “those who have already been there” or those who “have already tried it”.
According to a Bright Local statistic, 9 out of 10 people consider the information provided by other users on the web useful. Especially in the medical field, it is not so much the opinion of the relative or friend that makes the difference when it comes to choosing who to rely on, but rather that of the users who have evaluated and reviewed a service.
For this reason, it is important to build a solid reputation both online and offline. Your doctor’s office is certainly the nerve center of your business, but social media is the channel through which to grow it.
If you want to communicate better with your patients, with other operators in the sector or with healthcare facilities, intercept new potential patients and improve your reputation, social media marketing is for you.
What are the benefits of healthcare social media marketing?
As you may have guessed, more and more users are looking online for information on pathologies, treatments and services, constantly comparing the various offers on the market and independently evaluating who to contact.
In this sense, it is essential that social media become a channel through which to make the most of one’s offline activity, a powerful means to improve the experience offered to one’s patients.
Simply put, social media allows you to:
- communicate directly with your patients;
- build lasting relationships;
- work on your brand awareness and your brand reputation;
- share targeted and useful content for your users;
- involve your audience more;
- retain the users who follow you and reach new ones.
Healthcare marketing strategies: all the tips to get started
If your goal is to stand out from other professionals in the sector and expand your audience, it is vital that you build a good health marketing strategy.
So, prepare a pen and paper. Here are some helpful tips to get you started building your social media health marketing strategy.
Do a market research
Who are your competitors? Are there other doctors’ offices like yours in the city or operating in the same area as you? How are they positioned and what services do they offer?
Analyzing your target market allows you to test the waters, to understand which direction to take your business and how you can adjust the shot to distinguish yourself from those who carry out your business.
Identify your target audience
Sector operators, professionals and specialists, patients or healthcare facilities? Who will you turn to?
If you have a dental practice, for example, and you have decided to contact your patients, you will need to ask yourself a few questions to better define the target to which your communication on social media should be addressed. Define your ideal user as much as possible (age, gender, city of residence, social status, interests, concerns, pathologies) by searching online and using keyword tools to draw up a detailed identikit.
This phase will help you build a strategy tailored to your target and position yourself correctly in your reference sector.
Identify the primary need of your target
What is your audience looking for? What does it need? What is the problem you should try to solve?
Understanding what worries your users the most is essential to be able to offer a benefit and a tailor-made solution that can really solve their problems.
This is a very important step, not to be overlooked, for the definition of your strategy, because by identifying the demand you can easily work on the offer.
Make yourself recognizable and work on your online presence
What are your values, your skills, your philosophy? What is your professional ethics and what makes you different from other health professionals?
On social media you will not only have to be found and show the services you offer, but also to show your identity and your values. Find your tone of voice, stand out from others by using a communication that shows your personality.
Social media must be the mirror of your brand identity.
Create a relationship with your audience
It is not enough to be there and appear professional, you also need to build relationships. Interact and converse sincerely with your audience. Build empathy and always answer online questions and comments.
This will help you to lessen the tension of the doctor-patient relationship and to communicate in a less aseptic way, making users understand that there is a man of flesh and blood under purely professional clothes.
Work on valuable content and engage your audience
Knowing how to communicate is not for everyone and, often, we forget that behind a monitor there are women and men who wish to receive useful information and not be bombarded with irrelevant content.
Only post content that matters, that is truly relevant to those who have decided to follow you.