In the digital age, it’s impossible to deny the power of social media. With just a few touches of a screen, you can find long-lost childhood friends, share your talents in hopes of finding fame or learn about world events the moment they happen. That’s why social media marketing can play a pivotal role in your healthcare facility’s success.
It seems like there’s a new social media platform surfacing every day, which just gives your business more opportunities to reach potential patients. While it’s one thing to post on social media, it’s another to actually track your patient engagement. That’s what we’re here to talk about.
Read on to learn about the importance of patient engagement and how to see if your social media platforms are performing well. We’ll also discuss the most popular social media platforms that you should utilize in your marketing strategy.
The importance of patient engagement on social media platforms
When it comes to social media marketing, there are many metrics that are worth tracking. Metrics like click-through rates, reach and audience growth rate can all play a role in helping you hone your marketing strategy. When it comes to healthcare providers, engagement is one of the most important measurable metrics.
Engagement on healthcare-related posts are more telling than engagement for non-healthcare related posts because it’s difficult to “sell” healthcare to someone unless they need it. While engagement on non-healthcare-related content doesn’t always result in sales for that business, engagement for healthcare content means that the audience still wants to keep you in mind, even when they’re healthy. When there’s a problem, your posts remind them about how you can help.
How to determine if your social media marketing is creating patient engagement
While each platform has different ways that a patient can engage with your content, there are general actions that a potential patient can perform on the post or account. Patient engagement on your social media platforms includes:
- Likes (or unfortunately, dislikes).
- Favorites.
- Comments.
- Shares.
- Replies.
- Direct messages.
If you’re trying to determine your engagement rate, there’s actually a formula that you can use that will work for any platform: total engagement divided by number of followers, multiplied by 100.
By using this formula, you can see how many of your followers are actually engaging with your posts. This data can help you test out other ways to increase engagement within your followers, such as boosting the visual appeal of your posts or asking questions that require comments.
How many social media platforms are there (and which are best for patient engagement)?
The goal of social media marketing is to meet people where they are. There are more than 5 billion social media users around the world, and the typical user spends more than two hours a day on social media platforms.
There are more than 100 social media platforms, but that doesn’t mean you should market on every single one. Despite the power that a brand can gain from social media, it’s important to know about the best platforms to utilize. It’s best to start off with the platform that works best for your target demographic and how you can utilize the platform’s capabilities to help reach the right patients.
We’ll give you a rundown on the five most popular social media platforms:
- Facebook — Ever since it was founded back in 2004, Facebook has become the most popular social media platform, with more than 3 billion monthly active users. It’s utilized the most by people between the ages of 30 and 64. As a healthcare facility, you can gain patient engagement on Facebook by posing appropriate questions, sharing blog posts from your site and posting the benefits of your services.
- LinkedIn — While it’s assumed that social media is only for personal relationships, LinkedIn allows you to connect with other professionals. You can look to other providers for insight while also sharing yours with more than 480 million monthly active users from every possible industry. If your clinic helps with workplace injuries, this is the place to advertise it. LinkedIn can also help you find potential employees as you grow.
- TikTok — This platform took off quickly when it was launched in 2017 as a place for short-form videos. It has approximately 1.2 billion monthly active users who can watch videos that are anywhere from 15 seconds to 10 minutes. More than 40% of TikTok users are under the age of 29. It can be an effective social media platform for healthcare clinics that offer pediatric and sport performance services. You can post videos such as short guided exercises and tips for staying healthy while busy with school.
- Instagram — When it comes to eye-catching visuals and interactive videos, Instagram is what you’re looking for. It has more than 2 billion users, with ages 18 to 29 making up more than three-fourths of the users. To increase patient engagement, you can hold Instagram Live videos so that patients can get to know your staff and see your services in action. You can also post health and wellness tips with creative visuals.
- YouTube — The video-sharing platform has nearly 2.5 billion monthly active users, especially ages 18 to 49. It’s also the second-largest search engine, right behind Google (its parent company). YouTube can help garner patient engagement through comments, likes and shares. You can post videos showcasing your healthcare facility, patient success stories and service demonstrations.
If you see a new social media platform gaining traction, give it some time to become established to make sure that any initial bugs are worked out. You also want to ensure that it will have longevity so that it’s worth investing your marketing dollars into.
Want to boost patient engagement? BURG+CO. can help
Increasing traffic to your website plays a role in increasing conversions and leading to new clients. However, it’s difficult to attract visitors to your site when you don’t know what to do. Fortunately, this is what we specialize in at BURG+CO.
Our team has years of experience in helping businesses improve their digital presence to attract new leads and retain existing ones. If you’re looking to perform better in search engine results and attract more visitors to your site, we’re ready to talk to you to see how we can help. Contact our team today for more information about digital marketing or to schedule a complimentary consultation.
