10 Healthcare Social Media Marketing Strategies for Your Center

Social media marketing has become a vital communication mode for various industries, and healthcare is no exception. Healthcare social media marketing is a key marketing practice in the related industry.

It plays a significant role in bridging the gap between healthcare providers and the general public. The marketing practice enables real-time information sharing, awareness campaigns, and patient engagement on social platforms.

Social media marketing in the healthcare industry educates individuals about preventive health measures and provides communication platforms for direct interactions.

Social media has definitely transformed how the healthcare sector interacts with its audience.

This blog explores how social media is revolutionizing the healthcare industry and the strategies organizations can adopt to harness its full potential.

How is Social Media Impacting the Healthcare Sector?

Social media has become a new form of word-of-mouth advertising.

If people are talking about something, it’s probably because of conversations on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

People don’t look further than the trending topics on social media sites, which gives them an idea of what people are writing about and clicking on.

Any business must use social media, which is even more crucial for healthcare business ideas.

First and foremost, healthcare is a people-centric industry. You have to know what people want and what drives them so that you can communicate with them in line with their interests.

You also have to be able to talk to them directly. Social media gives you all of that. It’s a great communication tool and one of the most effective ways to market any service online.

Moreover, companies that do not engage with social media seem old-fashioned and outdated. These are not words you would ever want attached to your name in the fast-moving, ever-changing healthcare environment.

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What is the Importance of Social Media Marketing in the Healthcare Industry?

Digital marketing is taking over every business need, and social media marketing is emerging as one of the most effective types of digital marketing for every sector.

Here are 10 reasons why hospitals need to keep evolving their social media marketing strategies:

1. Establishing Patient Connections

Social media allows hospitals to connect with existing and potential patients to create a reliable community and build trust.

2. Engagement of Targeted Audience

Healthcare brands can engage with specific demographics and patient groups.

3. Branding and Reputation Management

By sharing their expertise, achievements, and thought leadership, hospitals can create a reputation for themselves and promote their professionalism through social media channels.

4. Timely Interaction and Customer Service

Hospitals can use social media to interact with their patients as soon as possible, addressing every type of question or concern for the patient.

This gives them an opportunity to learn more about customer service and further increases patient satisfaction. Also, many businesses across various industries are adopting AI in CRM to simplify their customer management.

5. Advocacy and Thought Leadership

Hospitals can use social media to show advocacy and thought leadership within their medical field by sharing vital health information and supporting healthcare causes. They can also demonstrate expertise in the area.

6. Spreading Awareness and Educating Patients

Hospitals can use social media to educate visitors and patients about the medical field and specialities and raise awareness of specific health conditions.

7. Recruitment and Retention of Healthcare Professionals

Hospitals can use social media to recruit, retain, and attract talented healthcare workers by showing the facilities, culture, commitment, and dedication to patient care.

8. Crisis Communications

Social media enables hospitals to communicate quickly in emergencies, crises, or disasters. This helps calm fears and provide timely updates and concerns.

9. Fundraising and Community Engagement

Hospitals can use social media to notify their followers of events that raise funds and organize community participation.

10. Humanizing Healthcare Providers and Staff

Through social media, hospitals can project the healthcare providers’ and employees’ personal, human element, making the organization humanly connected to its patients.

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Benefits of Healthcare Social Media Marketing

In addition to keeping up with the marketing trends, here are some of the major benefits of social media marketing in the healthcare industry:

1. Raising Awareness

The primary benefit of social media marketing in the healthcare industry is that it is a platform for raising awareness of crucial health issues.

For instance, if there is a new disease outbreak, information regarding the outbreak and how to prevent it can be quickly disseminated through social media.

2. Connecting with Patients

Social media can also be an avenue to connect with patients. This is very helpful, especially for patients with chronic illnesses or rare conditions.

Connecting the doctors with these patients would be able to give them support and information that they could find nowhere else.

3. Building Relations

Social media also creates relations between the healthcare provider and their patients. Many hospitals already have Facebook pages that have updates about recent news and events.

This, in return, helps build a relationship between the hospital and its patients.

4. Informing People

Another advantage of social media healthcare is that it informs people about medical advancements. With a social media platform, messages about new treatments and cures can spread quickly so people can save their lives.

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Top 10 healthcare Social Media Marketing Strategies

Finally, we are revealing the top 10 Healthcare Social Media Marketing strategies for

1. Study the Target Audience to Plan the Right Mix of Media

Each social media platform has a unique user base. The demographics and interests of people on Twitter and Facebook are different from those on LinkedIn.

So, to avail yourself of the benefit, plan unique campaigns for different social media platforms instead of going with one for all social media platforms.

2. Share Preventative Health News with the Patients

Time-specific posts work effectively not only in engaging your audience but also in educating them.

This type of content could involve articles on recent health epidemics, routine procedures such as the flu shot, or topics that are currently trending in the industry.

The above share on social media, for example, focuses on recent studies concerning the risks of vaping.

You build a relationship with your audience by sharing this type of content.

They will find you reliable in sharing the newest updates in the health industry, which increases the likelihood of them checking your updates.

You can also engage with topics that people talk about, either with your facility or other commenters.

3. Post infographics for increased engagement

Infographic marketing is something that has to be mastered by people in social media and healthcare industries. Healthcare marketers can attractively present complicated information using infographics.

For the next report or study that’s sweeping through your organization or speciality, reflect on how you can deliver that information visually while monitoring social media trends.

You even work with creative teams, building templates in your favourite design tool to produce them quickly without blockages.

4. Interact With User-generated Content Spread Positivity

Often, the best way to keep your practice at the top of your mind is to let someone else do the talking.

You can provide an unfiltered view of what you are doing to help your patients and supporters through user-generated content, such as testimonials or reviews.

Sharing user-generated content is also a vital relationship-building strategy for healthcare organizations seeking to build audience loyalty.

A simple repost alongside a genuine message of appreciation can go a long way in the eyes of the patient.

5. Test the Conduct Via A/B Testing

A/B Testing is an effective way of comparing performance among different modes of communication.

Use this method to test variations in content copy and hashtags. Healthcare marketers may also use it with graphics, images, and videos using video editing apps (such as Canva, picsart, etc.)

Once you know what works, make sure to integrate it into your strategy. Don’t be afraid to repurpose existing content; experimentation and iteration are keys to optimizing content that captivates audiences.

6. Optimize for SEO with Social Media

SEO optimization is important for your business to assist you in improving your web presence. Ensure your social media profile and the content it shares are optimized.

Add interesting content to your wall regularly, answer questions posted by patients quickly, and have correct business information listed under all of your web profiles.

Linking back to your website and maintaining consistent information are powerful strategies for local SEO. This increases your visibility and performance in search results.

By regularly optimizing and posting relevant content on their social media profiles, healthcare organizations can increase their online presence.

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be very powerful for local SEO, which drives more traffic to your website.

7. Brand Building and Reputation Management

SMM is vital to online reputation management (ORM) in digital marketing aspect.

Social media can be employed in the distribution of good word of mouth through the testimonials of patients and getting new customers’ reviews, suggestions, and feedback.

Social media allows hospitals, medical practitioners, and medical insurance companies to distribute customer reviews as well.

CSR activities, offline customer interaction, and awareness campaigns can also be promoted online.

When your business has a local presence, you can involve a few regional celebrities and promote a cause or movement with them.

This will drive brand visibility both online and offline. Here’s how you can promote offline campaign through social media:

8. Use the Power of Hashtags for Social Media Campaigns

Hashtags are a staple of social media at large. Healthcare companies have plenty of opportunities to use them, too.

Whether it’s your own organizational hashtags (Northwestern Medicine’s #NMBetter, for example) or healthcare-specific tags (#CancerSucks), promoting a tag does a double duty of extending your content’s reach while also making it easier for followers to share that content.

Hashtag holidays are a major opportunity for healthcare providers. Virtually every focus has its own awareness or observance period, creating ample opportunities to reach a wider audience.

9. Focus on Patients and Handle their Queries

Use social media to respond to patients’ concerns and complaints. Complaints can be managed through online communities and discussion forums on Facebook.

In their ad campaign called “Just Ask,” Apollo Hospital motivated visitors by asking their team of doctors on their Facebook page to answer inquiries concerning certain ailments through the comments box.

10. Develop protocols for online communication

Every company should have a well-thought-out policy for all online communication.

Employees must be educated and incentivized to use social media with due care and diligence.

They should be warned about breaches of ethics and customers’ privacy concerns on social media. Before publishing, experts should thoroughly verify the content shared as health tips and medical information.

There should be an online system to answer queries and grievances from patients. Always monitor what your competitors say about you online and respond professionally.

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What are the Best Platforms for Healthcare Social Media Marketing?

Here are the four primary social media channels to help your healthcare institution’s social media marketing strategy:

1. Facebook

Facebook is one of the largest social media networks available today and a good source to share updates about your practice and events.

Facebook is the gold standard for patients and prospective patients. If they need information about what is happening in this hospital, they should not have to look any harder than your Facebook page to access that information.

2. Twitter

Think of Twitter as where the breaking news for your healthcare facility should be posted. If there is some form of breakthrough in healthcare or a health issue people should know about, you can use Twitter to post this.

These feeds are checked to provide current information, and you could build a strong following of people who might eventually be your patients.

Most valued as a news source and information for patients, it will target anyone interested in getting to know your hospital more. Update the feed, and be sure to get any comments or questions replied as well.

3. LinkedIn

The most professional social networking site in the world is LinkedIn. Every business should create an account, but depending on the industry, its frequency of use varies. Its real treasure for healthcare companies is untold.

LinkedIn provides ample opportunity for in-depth discussion and analysis. You may not be able to connect with new patients, but you can enhance your reputation as a research or teaching hospital.

You can also contribute to discussions on topics of interest to your industry. Below image displays some of the best tricks to handle linkedIn marketing:

4. YouTube

YouTube is the video-sharing network owned by Google that streams billions of videos daily. Hospitals can also create their own channels on the website to share relevant videos for patients and potential patients.

Think of it as the hospital’s video network, through which it can share important information.

For instance, instead of issuing a packet with information on the maternity ward’s policies, rules, and regulations, place a short YouTube video describing the same information.

Your customers would much rather watch a video than sit down to read a large packet—and it’s much more likely that they’ll view a video than read a packet.

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Other Healthcare Marketing Practices to Grow Your Healthcare Business

As we have seen, social media and healthcare marketing blend together well. Now, let’s get into some more healthcare marketing practices that bring positive changes to businesses:

1. PPC Marketing (Pay-per-click)

PPC service is an effective online marketing strategy, as you target specific audiences and track your advertisements’ effectiveness in real-time.

Here are some ways you can utilize PPC for marketing:

Google Ads

You can create and run PPC campaigns on Google Ads by using ads and bidding for certain keywords. When someone searches for one of your target keywords, the ad may be shown at the top or bottom of the search results page.

Display advertising

You can also use PPC marketing to show health and fitness-related ads on websites and applications where your audience is present. The banners or interstitial ads can target specific demographics and interests and can appear when a person views a health-related article or page.

2. Content Marketing

Communicating and educating your patients can be achieved by creating and sharing valuable, relevant, and consistent content. Content helps patients make informed decisions.

Here is why it is important:

It creates awareness about your healthcare facility and treatments and, most importantly, builds trust. There are several ways you can leverage content marketing:

Blog posts

A healthcare blog is an excellent place to share educational and informative content. This can be information about your health conditions and treatments or tips on maintaining good health. You can also include answers to commonly asked health questions.

Social media posts

The social media platform is the next best way to share content. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can be among the best for this process. Create relevant content and engage with potential patients. One can share informative articles about maintaining good health, plus many more.

Videos

You can make educational videos about specific health-related topics. You can create videos to provide information regarding your services and treatments. (Include it in the social media bit, as it is not independent here).

3. Install Chat Bots

Patients clearly prefer to reach out to their healthcare providers online.

According to research studies, the US market for healthcare chatbots will see enormous growth by 2025.

While you can’t take phone calls 24×7, you can answer the basic questions most new patients ask around the clock with a chatbot.

It is also a great medium to collect patient details or guide them through the website and help in scheduling appointments. AI chatbots not only meet the needs of patients but can give your operation an immense productivity boost.

4. Phone Calls for Booking More Appointments

88% of patients want to schedule their healthcare appointments over the call. When researching online, patients prefer talking to real human beings before scheduling appointments.

That is why it is wise to put your phone number in all of your digital ads.

5. Power of Automation

Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence in marketing automation is going to change the game for you. You will automate repetitive work, avoid human error, and have better results.

You will have more strategic activities that include campaign planning and design or measurements of KPIs. Various forms of automation can be used depending on the channel being targeted by your marketing.

These include:

🔘 Creation of templates for communications

🔘 Automated sending of inquiries

🔘 Automated report creation

Need Help with Healthcare Social Media Marketing?

Do you need assistance building and managing a professional healthcare social media marketing strategy? This is exactly why you should hire a digital marketing agency.

You can get assistance from Arramton Infotech as we helped healthcare companies like yours create better social media accounts and keep them updated to draw in new patients.

And yes, if you want to know how well social media would work for your hospital, let us know. We’ll give you a free consultation and a custom quote absolutely for free!

Conclusion

Healthcare social media marketing goes beyond being a marketing tool. It is a very strong medium for connecting, awareness, and enhancing patient care.

Healthcare organizations can be at the forefront of the industry, improve patient outcomes, and build trust in their communities by using these platforms effectively

Thoughtful social media strategies keep healthcare providers relevant and impactful in today’s digital world.

Furthermore, don’t forget to connect with Arramton Infotech, a leading agency in social media marketing management services, to expand your brand across all platforms.

Frequently Asked Question

Q. What is social marketing in healthcare?

Ans: Social marketing in healthcare is a strategy that uses marketing techniques to promote public health and improve health for everyone. It’s a preventive strategy that can compete with commercial healthcare marketing by reducing the need for curative services.

Q. How do you use social media to promote the healthcare industry?

Ans: Social media can be used to promote the healthcare industry in many ways, including:

Q. What is social media used for in healthcare?

Ans: Social media can be used in healthcare in many ways, including:

🔘 Educating patients

🔘 Promoting health behaviours

🔘 Creating awareness

🔘 Facilitating patient support groups

🔘 Public health surveillance

🔘 Monitoring and Preventing Malpractice

🔘 Debating health policy

🔘 Engaging with the public

🔘 Improving customer service

🔘 Maintaining reputation

Q. Which social media platform is best for healthcare?

Ans: Here are some of the best social media platforms to use for healthcare social media marketing strategies:

🔘 Facebook

🔘 Instagram

🔘 LinkedIn

🔘 Twitter

🔘 YouTube