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Healthcare marketing online has become increasingly important in recent years – if your healthcare practice doesn’t have a blog, then you’re most likely falling behind other competitors who do. There are lots of healthcare content strategies that give brands the boost they need, but they have to know how to utilize each one to their advantage.
Social media is one of the best tools that healthcare practices can use to boost their brand, but only a few understand how its algorithm works or how to use it to their advantage. If you’re looking for more ways to leverage social media in your content marketing plan, then here’s the best guide for you.
Billions of content like photos, texts, and videos are published every day, all of which are just floating around the social space. It’s impossible to go through different accounts whenever an individual needs something, so it’s up to the algorithm to sort through all that noise, deliver what audiences need, and weed out irrelevant and low-quality content.
The concept of algorithms in social media might seem simple because their main function is to show relevant content to users. However, it involves a lot of data science and machine learning that healthcare marketers have to be a bit familiar with – if they want to succeed in their social media campaigns.
Social media algorithms are different for each platform. A lot of healthcare practices and content marketers might see them as roadblocks, but they’re actually quite helpful once you understand the kind of posts that these algorithms want to see. No two algorithms work the exact same way, but there are a few ways to outsmart some of them.
Social media is important for healthcare practices because it helps them raise public awareness, fight misinformation, answer common questions, promote audience engagement, and more. To help make better sense of social media algorithms and leverage them for your healthcare brand, here are some of the best tips to follow:
Content quality and relevance are some of the most important ranking signals that many social media algorithms check. People aren’t usually interested in low-quality or irrelevant content so the point of these systems and criteria is to recommend content that audiences are more likely to be interested in.
The definition of “quality” varies per social media platform, so it’s best to look it up beforehand. Quality is about matching your content to the expectations of the platform. Use and take advantage of the tools found on social media sites to make the most out of your healthcare content.
Like quality, relevance also varies per platform. Remember that it involves understanding the target audience and creating blogs and content that answers their problems or specifically appeals to them.
Clickbait was one of the primary problems in the early stages of social media. Many platforms tried to combat this by training their algorithm to rank any spam or misleading content lower.
Healthcare marketing has a similar problem in the form of fearmongering, which refers to content that blows small issues out of proportion to gain attention and cause panic. But this only incites unnecessary fear among readers and contributes to the spread of misinformation.
When creating content, it’s best to avoid clickbait and fearmongering titles. They may seem clickable and exciting at first, but they actually hurt the brand's reputation since the information they present isn’t informative or trustworthy. Always match your headlines, captions, hashtags, and overall content clearly and accurately.
About 82% of American adults use their mobile devices to check the latest news – with the younger population utilizing social media sites as common news sources. Trending healthcare topics keep audiences engaged so social media algorithms want to show more of that kind of content.
But with many developments in the medical field every day, healthcare companies might find it hard to keep up and leap at every health trend that becomes popular. It’s crucial to know and pick out which trends have the right connection and alignment with the brand before publishing anything.
Some tools like Google trends and other social listening programs help healthcare brands check the pulse of their audiences. They show all the current trending topics and help brands understand what’s exactly happening in their industry.
Social media algorithms also consider early engagement and recency of the posts when ranking them. This means healthcare brands should know when their target audience is most likely online, allowing them to actively engage with posts and discussions every time there’s newly published content.
Many articles online suggest the best times to post content on different social media platforms. While this is a good place to start, they might not be the same for every follower or audience segment. It’s still best to study the audience’s behavior to find out the best time to post content for them.
Early engagement is one of the key ranking signals for most social media sites. And one of the easiest ways to achieve this is to simply and naturally ask the audience for it. But this doesn’t mean begging the audience to share your healthcare content. Think of fun ways that encourage them to engage with the content and the community you helped build.
One of the best ways for healthcare brands to do this is to ask a question or state a debate. When creating informative content, encourage the audience to share it with others who may also benefit from the resource you offer.
Influencers have large followings on digital platforms that may help brands grow their social media presence and reach wider audiences. Healthcare practices can benefit from working with an influencer as long as they pick the right one that can help deliver the brand message for them.
The best people to hire for healthcare practices are medical professionals who have a strong social media presence – since 90% of people trust doctor recommendations better than other content they find online. Associating with a reputable influencer in the healthcare industry gives the healthcare brand a huge credibility boost.
Social media marketing isn’t a “nice-to-have” tool for healthcare companies anymore. It’s now a crucial part of content marketing and brand building that practices need to master if they want to be successful and recognizable in the industry. Having the right tools and strategies is essential for your success, so it’s good to trust a team of professionals to give you fresh, optimized, and on-brand content whenever you need it, without having to stress about ideation, creation, and publication.
