Distribution Strategy

Is A Social Media Strategy Still Important?

Key Post Highlights

> If you don’t know who you’re creating content for… why are you creating content?

> A social media strategy can define your voice and tone.

> Without a clear social media strategy, it’s hard to know what your goals are.

TL;DR: Yes. 

Great — post over!

Wait, I’ve just been informed that this cannot be “post over.” It’s “not good for SEO” and “barely answers the question.” 

In all seriousness, there are plenty of reasons you may find yourself wondering if this whole social media thing is even worth the time and effort for your healthcare organization. Sometimes, you don’t always get the results you want and there are so many trends to stay on top of.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering “What is this all for?” you’re in the right place. 

It’s important to note that the title of this post isn’t just about whether or not social media is important for your healthcare organization. You don’t have to look far for a think piece or case study that will tell you social media is a great way to connect with consumers, showcase your patients’ and physicians’ stories, and get feedback in real time. 

Most companies and organizations at this point agree that they ought to be doing something on social media. But a social media strategy gives that “something” a direction, a purpose. Without investing in the strategy portion, you may feel like you’re posting just to post. 

A strategy can help you orient yourself in the sea of literally millions of other accounts. Here’s why you need one. 

Understand Who Your Audience Really Is — And What They Really Want

Take a second to imagine the kind of person who follows your healthcare organization’s social media. How clearly can you see them? How old are they? How do you know that this is the person you’re actually marketing to? 

Key audiences are a major part of both your social media and overall digital strategy. When you know who you’re creating content for, you can tailor the content you create to better serve, support, and convert them. 

Figuring out who your audience is may mean analyzing current consumer demographic data if you have it, but it can also mean talking to these people directly. Discovery interviews with current patients can give you an inside look into their needs, wants, and questions. It’s a lot easier to create content when you can think back and picture the real-life face and opinion of someone your healthcare organization serves.

A Social Media Strategy Helps You Figure Out Who You Are

Have you ever looked at a brand’s social media account and thought, “These two posts were written by two totally different people?” A social media strategy can help you avoid this.

When your healthcare organization decides to join social media (or when your current plan doesn’t seem to be yielding results), it’s important to step back and strategize. Your social media strategy should take into account how you want to present your organization online.

To figure this out, you can ask yourself or your team questions like:

• What is the tone of your healthcare company’s voice on social media?
• What kinds of images do you share? What hashtags do you use?
• What CTAs are you asking your audience to accomplish?
• How is your organization going to respond to comments?

Your social media strategy should help you define — and standardize — exactly what your social media personality looks and sounds like.

Use Your Strategy To Identify Your Goals

Scrolling through your own social media feed can be a task you do pretty mindlessly — but this can’t be the approach you take to creating content for your healthcare organization. When you’re thoughtlessly churning out content, it might be a good time to think about what your social media goals actually are.

Your goals might be to:

• Build more awareness of your healthcare organization
• Drive more traffic to your website
• Increase conversions, sales, or leads
• Share important and timely health information
• Highlight career opportunities and increase applications

Your organizational goals may also influence which social media platforms you decide to build a presence on. And vice versa, which platforms you choose should also impact the goals you set.

Facebook is a tried-and-true tool that can enable you to answer patient questions. YouTube can be a great place for physician profiles or even how-to’s. Even TikTok can connect you to a younger audience or be a way to listen to current trends.

There’s no one right answer about what your goals should be or even which social media platforms you should select. There are just different options that might work better for your organization.

It Will Make Your Job Easier

When you have a social media strategy, the bottom line is that it will make your job easier. You will know who you’re trying to connect with and what you’re trying to accomplish. You’ll know what kind of metrics to collect and whether certain campaigns are working. You’ll also be able to share these insights with the leadership and stakeholders who make the final decisions about whether your efforts are worth investing in.

Because social media is such a ubiquitous part of our lives, it can be easy to take it for granted. But when it comes to putting that content out into the world, a social media strategy will serve you well.

How Healthcare Organizations Can Leverage TikTok

As a mid-90s baby, I sit at the intersection of Millennial and Gen Z. We had a landline at home, and I had a couple of Razr flip phones before the widespread adoption of the smartphone. I’m a digital native, but I still took a typing class in school. I learned cursive and slipped out of public education just before Common Core. I remember Vine.

I’m a part of what experts call a “Cusp Generation” or a “Cusper” (being born within a few years of the end of a generation), and I tend to feel a bit nomadic — not-quite-belonging to either generation. And this is only exacerbated by the massive digital boom that happened alongside my own coming-of-age.

Despite not fitting perfectly into either category, I have a few years left of being the resident young person — meaning I get to write about the thing that almost 30% of teens say is their favorite social media platform: TikTok.

A Good Reason To Invest In TikTok

In 2019, the average session length for a user on TikTok was 10.85 minutes — more than double the amount of time compared to an average session on:

• Pinterest: 5.06 minutes
• Facebook: 4.82 minutes
• Twitter: 3.53 minutes
• Instagram: 2.95 minutes

Source: Statista

Producing content on TikTok means learning a new language, a new set of references, and new rules. Trends catch on fast and land in a digital graveyard just as quickly. For a seemingly simple video platform, there can be a bit of a learning curve.

But TikTok can also be a digital land of opportunity.

Here are 4 ways your healthcare organization can leverage TikTok to meet your business goals.

1. Reach A Wider — And Younger — Audience

TikTok boasts having over 1 billion users globally. In 2020, approximately 65.9 million of those users were American, a figure that is expected to increase by 22% each year.

This is a huge, and potentially untapped, market — especially when  47% of US TikTok users are under 30 years old.

By expanding your content strategy efforts to include TikTok, you can reach younger audiences. TikTok users in the Cusp Generation like myself are just about to or have just turned 26. We’re navigating the healthcare system in a different way, thinking about our medical and financial futures, and we are some of the newest consumers on the market.

With the challenges this period of life presents, trust me — I would LOVE a TikTok to walk me through the difference between a premium and a deductible. By jumping into the healthcare TikTok scene, you can make a younger market aware of key information — and your brand identity.

2. Share Important Health Information In A Bitesize Package

Health information can be complicated, and sometimes the language of the medical industry leaves the everyday person drowning in jargon.

TikTok’s short videos can have a big impact on your content strategy. Sometimes, you just need a new angle — or a new platform — to help you think about your content in a different way.

TikTok videos can help you focus on:

• Accessibility: Easily add captions to videos so anyone can view your content.
• Creativity: Share health information in a dynamic way — you’ll have to think outside the box.
• Search and Scrollability: Use hashtags to show up in relevant searches — more people will see your content.

Note: In 2021, TikTok expanded its video length limit from 60 seconds to 3 minutes.

3. Create A More Personal Digital Persona

TikTok is driven by people, individual users, content creators, and influencers. It’s not only about the content, but the personalities behind the content. If you’re looking for ways to humanize your digital presence, TikTok might be the answer.

TikTok can give a face to your healthcare organization. A short video could include a provider reminding users to wear a mask or get vaccinated. Or your system’s dietician could discuss the dangerous nature of fad diets. With a face to your brand, you can boost your online reputation and personalize your image.

But, while making TikToks with your team can be a lot of fun, it’s important to remember that it also opens up the door to liability and scrutiny.

As a healthcare organization, your TikToks should be created with the same care and attention as the rest of your content. You might want to include a provider as the face of your TikTok, but it may not be the best idea to let them run wild — especially when just starting out.

Take some time to watch TikToks like the ones you want to create to help you avoid pitfalls that can be misinterpreted. Checking out the comments on a video can also help you know what users respond positively and negatively to in different videos.

4. Understand Current Trends And Issues

Even if TikTok isn’t the right platform to add to your content strategy, you can still utilize the video app as a listening tool.

One way to use TikTok without even making a video is to search for a common disease or specialty at your healthcare organization. Watching videos where people talk about their lived experiences can give you a new perspective on a specific chronic illness, for example.

TikTok can also provide insight into different forms of disinformation. This can direct future campaigns, whether on TikTok or your other content channels. Knowing what’s out there — and the beliefs or assumptions your patients may be coming in with — can help you provide accurate and compassionate information to the people who may need it most.

TikTok As A Part Of Your Content Strategy

There are just as many reasons to be on TikTok as there are reasons not to be. As the token young person writing a blog about TikTok, even I feel conflicted about what goes on there.

As an individual user, I’m wary of the way my friends lose hours scrolling through a never-ending content rabbit hole. But as a content writer who believes in the power of digital media as a tool to connect important information with young people, I’m captivated by its social value.

As the social media landscape evolves and different platforms mature, TikTok will continue to be one to watch — and invest time, energy, and creativity into.

Need help with your content strategy? From creating video content to expanding into new social media channels, we can help. Contact us today.

Establish a digital footprint that keeps your brand front and center with your audience. Connect with a distribution specialist to get your content into the right hands.

Why Your Audience Isn’t Opening Your E-Newsletter: 6 Email Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

Email — you can’t live with it, but you certainly can’t live without it. If you’re like most working adults, reading and writing emails takes up a lot of your time. In fact, it amounts to nearly 30% of the workday for the average professional in the US.

While this may be overwhelming, it’s critical to communication both personally and professionally. As a company, it’s also crucial to your healthcare organization’s marketing efforts.

Email marketing, or sending promotional messages to your audience in large volumes, is typically designed to generate leads. With more than 4 billion email users, email marketing can be hugely successful — if done correctly.

Email marketing has an average return on investment of $38 for each dollar spent.

Source: Neil Patel Digital

The problem is — people are constantly inundated with emails. With so many emails flooding everyone’s inboxes, how do you make sure the ones from your organization actually get opened?

Start with fixing common but avoidable mistakes. Here are 6 reasons your audience isn’t opening your emails (and how to fix those problems).

1. Your emails are too general.

Everyone wants to feel special — including your readers. Rather than sending the exact same email to everyone, customize your message to segmented audiences.

In order to define your segments, use data, such as browsing history, demographics, social media activity, questions from surveys, and any other information you have about your audience. For instance, you might segment email lists based on your audience’s need for certain diagnostic or screening tests.

Segmenting your email list may take time, but it’s worth it. Segmented and personalized campaigns have been shown to boost revenue by up to 760%.

2. Your email subject lines are boring and not useful.

Just like the title of blog articles need to be carefully crafted to be intriguing yet focused, email subject lines must catch the attention of your audience immediately. Otherwise, into the trash they’ll go.

Not only will your audience delete your email, but email providers will get rid of them, too. In an effort to clear user inboxes, emails with repetitive titles frequently end up in “promotion” tabs or straight into the spam folder.

When writing your email subject lines:

• Keep them concise.
• Highlight benefits to your reader.
• Make them personal.
• Incorporate keywords.
• Use active voice.

3. Your emails don’t provide your audience with anything.

Assuming your organization has a website and even a minor social media presence, your audience won’t struggle to find you. This means you need to stop using your emails for generic marketing.

Instead, use your emails to give them something useful. Let them know about new information that might interest them. Provide them with a special incentive. Send out an announcement that you want them to know about first.

Whatever it is, make sure the content in your email marketing is special and valuable — and not something they can just find on their own.

4. Your emails aren’t made for mobile.

Nearly every American has a cellphone of some kind — and roughly 85% of those are smartphones. Chances are your emails are being opened on mobile devices, and yet, almost 1 in every 5 email campaigns is not designed for an optimal experience on mobile devices.

If you haven’t already, it’s time to get on board with email marketing for mobile devices. Otherwise, your audience might just click delete.

5. Your email content is congested.

Like all web content, emails need to be easy to digest. When it comes to healthcare content, millions of Americans don’t have strong health literacy skills. Easily digestible healthcare information starts with the copy — and ends with the design.

Email copy should:

• Stick to short sentences and paragraphs.
• Use bullet points.
• Never use jargon or complicated words.

Then, utilize a clean design with pleasing color palettes.

6. You’re sending too many emails.

People’s email inboxes are already overflowing. Don’t add to that by sending emails once, twice, or even three times a day. Not only do they run the risk of getting deleted, but users might also mark them as spam or unsubscribe entirely.

Stick to high-quality emails that contain specific and useful information one or two times a week. This keeps your audience from being annoyed with you, and it also increases the chance these emails will actually be read.

Email Marketing: Worth The Effort (When Done Right)

Email marketing is the superhero of content promotion. You have direct access to your audience, you probably already have permission to send them content, and you can run analytics to see what’s working — and what’s not.

Take the time to set your email marketing strategy up for success. Your open rate will thank you for it.

Do you have questions about your healthcare organization’s digital marketing and analytics? Let us help.

Establish a digital footprint that keeps your brand front and center with your audience. Connect with a distribution specialist to get your content into the right hands.

Organic Vs. Paid Search: What’s The Best Content Marketing Strategy?

Whether you want to convert cups to ounces for a recipe, find your nearest dry cleaner, or brighten your mood with funny puppy videos, you’ll probably do a quick internet search. Even more likely, you’ll probably turn to Google, where more than 90% of internet searches are done.

In the healthcare world, Google is similarly powerful. Patients seek out health-related information and new providers. Healthcare professionals seek out job openings and communities of support. Hospital leaders seek out partnerships and management resources.

And it falls on your website to get your name out there.

This is where content marketing comes into play. Part of a robust content marketing strategy is determining what to invest in, including whether to focus on organic or paid search.

However, even though healthcare organizations often see content marketing as a one versus the other scenario, it’s not.

For a winning content strategy, you should focus on both organic and paid content marketing. Each has its benefits, and they often work alongside one another to promote your content.

The Difference Between Organic And Paid Search

When a user types a word or phrase into a search engine like Google, they get two kinds of results:

1. Organic search results, which are the unpaid sections in the search engine results page. These are determined by how relevant Google thinks a page is to its search query.
2. Paid search results, which are essentially advertisements. These live at the very top of a search results page or in the sidebar. Paid search follows a pay-per-click model, meaning site owners pay each time their link is clicked. There’s also a little ad icon to identify the site as an ad.

Why And When To Focus On Organic Content Marketing

Organic content marketing is playing the long game. It requires time, effort, and expertise — but it’s worth it. Every website should always be utilizing organic content marketing.

“Organic marketing is the gift that keeps on giving. Once you create solid, evergreen, high-quality, competitive, organic content, it continues to give years after you publish it.”

Brandies Meva’a, VP Client Strategy, CareContent

Pros of organic content marketing include:

• It gets clicks — over half of website traffic comes from organic search.
• It’s seen as trustworthy — many searchers trust organic listings more than paid ones.
• It’s long-lasting.

Cons of organic content marketing:

• It takes a long time to rank in one of the top positions in search results.
• Conversion (when a user completes your desired goal) may not be as strong.

Why And When To Focus On Paid Content Marketing

Paid content marketing is quicker, but you need to be strategic about when to use it. For instance, you can create an organic post and pay to have it promoted. Or, you might do a hard and fast campaign to nurture awareness and generate leads through paid.

“Investing in traffic — burst to your organic content is a good SEO strategy. It leads to a quicker influx of traffic, and it helps validate the fact that your content is competitive.”

Brandies Meva’a, VP Client Strategy, CareContent

Pros of paid content marketing:

• It appears at the top of the page, so users see it right away.
• It can move your site to the top in as little as 15 minutes.
• When paired with highly optimized content, it generates more conversions.

Cons of paid content marketing:

• Traffic will stop if you stop paying for ads.
• Some users may automatically skip paid search due to its ad icon.

But First, Business Goals

The CareContent team takes a practical approach to content marketing. This starts with having a solid set of business goals for the next six months — and identifying the problems that are keeping you from reaching those.

There are 4 common content marketing problems that a strong marketing strategy can help solve:

1. You don’t have any leads.
2. You have plenty of leads, but none of them are engaging with you.
3. You have a broad spectrum of services, but most of your clients have only heard of one or two.
4. You’re struggling to get referrals.

When determining whether to focus more on paid or organic content marketing, it’s important to consider the investments you’re already making — and where you can afford to invest more.

At CareContent, we meet your organization where it is at to help you overcome roadblocks, spread awareness, and provide a seamless user experience. We also ensure users are taken care of once they do make it to your site, including making sure there is quality information at every step of their customer journey and a strong post-conversion plan.

Quality content marketing requires dedication, expertise, and a combination of paid and organic search — all of which can help your organization meet its business goals as efficiently as possible.

Let us help you build your content marketing strategy to meet your business goals. Contact us today.

Establish a digital footprint that keeps your brand front and center with your audience. Connect with a distribution specialist to get your content into the right hands.

Hospital Billboard Advertising: Old School Or Still Cool?

In Chicago, we have a set of billboards that probably 99.9% of our inhabitants recognize. On them, former Chicago Bear football player Brian Urlacher flaunts his full head of hair, which he supposedly got thanks to a hair regrowth system called Restore.

The billboards are simple — but genius. Most of them are just larger-than-life close-ups of Urlacher and a quote like “Breaking Bald,” “Hair-lacher,” or “It’s Grow Time!”

I mean, seriously. If they weren’t so effective, I’d say they’re ridiculous. But they’re memorable, and the company has a waiting list longer than ever for procedures that bring in around $10,000 on average.

While the Urlacher-Restore partnership has flourished in the billboard industry, that’s not necessarily a guarantee they’re always an effective form of advertisement. And that also doesn’t mean they align with a hospital’s marketing goals.

Billboards can be seen as somewhat dated — and they may go ignored by potential patients.

With online ads at an all-time high, billboards are a big question mark for many hospitals. But while they may seem outdated at first, billboards can also have a certain charm and effectiveness that electronic forms of advertisement lack.

Here’s a look at hospital billboard advertising — and whether it’s old school or still cool.

An Overview Of The Billboard

Billboards date way back to the Egyptians, who publicized their laws and treaties on tall stone obelisks.

Fast forward a few thousand years, and you get the traditional billboard, which is kind of like a really big poster on the side of the road. Americans have been taking advantage of roadside advertising since the 1830s, when they often displayed the ongoings of the circus.

Over the years, there have been plenty of changes, from size restrictions to flashy digitization. For example, some hospitals are now posting live wait times on billboards to display their efficiency (which competing hospitals are snarkily reacting to by posting statements like “We’re more than just fast”).

Part of the reason these advertisements became so popular is that they’re pretty hard to ignore. This is because Americans drive — a lot. We’re fans of the vehicle and always have been. And what else is there to do on the boring old highway other than check out the billboards?

The average American spends about 51 minutes driving each day, often covering over 30 miles.

In 2016 and 2017 alone, Americans collectively made 183 billion trips and drove 2.6 trillion miles — a number that’s up from 2014 and 2015.

Not only do Americans spend a lot of time in their cars, but they also notice billboards when they have the time to think about the roadside ads they see. Over two-thirds of Americans make their shopping decisions while they’re — you guessed it — in the car.

That’s a lot of Americans — and potential patients — with the time to think about the hospital they trust with their health and livelihood. What’s more, it seems like billboards are effective in bringing the big bucks.

Apple, the top billboard advertising company, is among the many tech companies that choose to advertise on billboards. And I think we can agree that they’re pretty successful. In fact, In December 2019, Apple topped all public companies with its worth of $1.3 trillion.

But Are Billboards Safe?

It might seem obvious that billboards could distract drivers and lead to more accidents. But surprisingly, the jury is out. Some say that they are distracting and dangerous, while others say they are mildly distracting but not really that dangerous. There was even a recent Australian study that says billboards are actually improving driving — potentially reducing lane drifting (apparently because the billboards catch drivers’ eyes, forcing them to look at the road instead of the radios or their phones).

The Hospital Billboard: Effective Or Cheesy?

The history and usage of billboards is one thing — but the question still remains if hospitals should be using them for their marketing campaigns. How might they potentially bring in new patients? And how might they falter in that very same goal?

To decide that, let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of billboard advertising, which include:

• On busy streets, they’re the center of attention during traffic jams (which are stable or increasing in 75% of cities worldwide). If your hospital’s billboard is in an urban area, that’s a lot of potential patients’ eyes on your advertisement.
• They’re visually-oriented — and 65% of humans learn and remember best through visual communication. As a result, potential patients may remember your hospital’s billboard when they’re searching for healthcare.
• They can reach a much broader audience base than other forms of advertising (for example, viewers don’t need to have internet access to see a billboard). This may help your hospital reach disadvantaged populations — and bring in otherwise inaccessible patients.
• They allow your hospital’s marketing to be geographically-targeted to one specific area, such as near the exit to your hospital.
• They are usually cheaper than other forms of advertising (starting at $250 a month in rural areas).

Some cons of billboards include:

• They’re not a targeted form of advertising, meaning you can’t alter the advertisement to cater to a specific audience based on age, health condition, or other targets.
• They are usually rented on a month-to-month basis, which can become costly over time.
• The message can get monotonous for people who see the billboard day in and day out (hello Brian Urlacher billboards) — and you can’t update them frequently based on trending healthcare topics.
• They’re prone to weather-damage, considering they’re tall and generally unprotected.
• They’ve been banned in a few states, including Vermont, Maine, Hawaii, and Alaska, partially due to visual pollution (a disturbance of the natural scenery).

Just like any other form of advertising, hospital billboards have some draws — and some drawbacks. In order for them to be effective, they require a purposeful marketing strategy, including a well-thought-out location, a memorable message, and maybe a new ad every once in a while.

Perhaps the best thing about hospital billboards is that they’re unavoidable. If a potential patient is driving on the highway, their eyes will (hopefully) be open. They may only notice your hospital’s billboard for a moment — but that’s all it takes to bring in a new patient.

Looking to improve your hospital’s marketing game? We can help!

Establish a digital footprint that keeps your brand front and center with your audience. Connect with a distribution specialist to get your content into the right hands.

Social Media For Healthcare Marketing: Snaps, Pins, And Shares, Oh My!

If you are one of the millions of adults in the US who use Facebook or Twitter, you’ve probably followed—or at least seen—a company’s account on one of these social networks. Many businesses create Facebook profiles (called pages) or Twitter accounts (called handles) in order to further their brand recognition and boost their marketing efforts.

But Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only networks to consider. As more social media platforms sprout up, businesses are taking advantage of marketing opportunities across platforms.

So, how are companies using social media for healthcare? Here’s a look at three of the more popular platforms: Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Snapchat

How It’s Used In Marketing

Businesses can create their own Snapchat accounts. Snaps are used to create a tone for the company or organization, promote specials, and give followers a behind-the-scenes look at the business.

How It’s Used In Healthcare

There are two major players in the healthcare scene on Snapchat: Plastic surgeons and children’s hospitals.

Several plastic surgeons have garnered Snapchat fame by posting snaps from surgical procedures (with the patient’s consent, of course). These snaps serve many purposes, including:

• Marketing the providers and their organizations—and establishing themselves as experts
• Providing opportunities for medical students to learn about surgeries and explore the field of plastic surgery
• Giving prospective patients a chance to see what a specific surgery entails, and if it’s something they might want to pursue

Snapchat is also becoming a popular marketing tool for children’s hospitals. It makes sense—the target demographic for these hospitals is Gen Zers (between the ages of 10 and 22), and Generation Z accounts for more than 50% of Snapchat users.

Like plastic surgeons, children’s hospitals don’t use Snapchat solely for marketing. They also use it to engage their patients, promote fundraising opportunities, raise awareness about various health issues, and improve the overall patient experience.

The Downsides

Healthcare may be a growing presence in the world of Snapchat, but not everyone is on board.

One of the most vocal critics is Dan Mills, MD, president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. Dr. Mills questions the ethics of using Snapchat during surgeries.

With the operating room staff occasionally cracking jokes, and breaking out the costumes and hats, and the front-of-office staff occasionally treating the Snapchat account as a way to perform a soap opera for viewers, Mills says that some offices are acting unprofessionally and with no integrity. He also raises concerns about patient safety and infection control issues.  

Pinterest

How It’s Used In Marketing

Similar to Snapchat, Pinterest can be used to solidify a company’s image and tone. It’s also a way for businesses to establish themselves, so they can gain followers or customers.

The more a pin is repinned by other users, the more visibility the company receives. And if companies can get a good grasp on creating content that makes for shareable pins, they’re on the right track toward major visibility—pins on Pinterest are considered 100 times more shareable than tweets.

This may be partially due to the fact that most adults respond better to images and visuals more than text—and you would be hard-pressed to find a pin without an image.  

How It’s Used In Healthcare

Hospitals large and small, from academic medical centers to community healthcare systems, have jumped onto the Pinterest bandwagon.

Each hospital has its own way of grouping pins, but most tend to have a few in each of these categories:

• General well-being: These are boards with titles like “Healthy Recipes,” “Mindfulness Techniques,” and “Exercise Tips.” Children’s hospitals also tend to have boards with parenting tips and basic information about children’s’ health and well-being.
• Medicine and health conditions: These boards have information about specific medical topics, like cancer, diabetes, or cardiac care.
• Patient stories and testimonials: These boards have links to personal narratives about dealing with a specific disease, and testimonials about the healthcare organization.
• Research: These boards feature the latest in medical research and technological advancements.
• About us: These boards include general information about the organization. They may highlight specific services or areas of interest—like therapy dogs, virtual tours of the facilities, a history of the organization, or suggestions for what else to do when you’re in the area.

The Downsides

There aren’t many downsides to Pinterest. Fortunately, Pinterest hasn’t been the subject of arguments about ethics. Since it’s generally run by hospital administrators, there isn’t a big concern about providers being distracted by it.

The only downside—if you can call it that—is that there are several rules governing business Pinterest accounts. In addition to the Acceptable Use Policy and Pin Etiquette Policy that all users must follow, businesses also need to stick to Pinterest’s business guidelines.

LinkedIn

How It’s Used In Marketing

When LinkedIn was first created, it was mostly thought of us a place for businesses to post job openings and professionals to look for work. LinkedIn is still used for recruiting future employees, but its purpose has expanded.

As with other social media platforms, LinkedIn is a great way for businesses to gain exposure and build their brand. By creating an engaging profile, posting articles about the latest trends, and sharing informed opinions about those trends, a business can establish itself as a thought leader in the industry.

How It’s Used In Healthcare

Healthcare organizations are mainly using LinkedIn for one of its original purposes: recruitment.

For instance, WellStar Health System in Georgia uses LinkedIn to boast about its benefits packages, workplace culture, and provider resources. Reading Health System in Pennsylvania uses LinkedIn to highlight employee testimonials. At Florida Hospital, LinkedIn is used specifically to target potential nurses.

In addition to recruitment, healthcare organizations are taking advantage of the opportunity to build their brand and reputation. These organizations post several types of content, including:

• Humble (but proud) brags: If the hospital has a world-renowned cardiac care center, or was the birthplace of a current standard of care, they aren’t afraid to promote their accomplishments.
• Medical, health, and wellness articles: Readers can find information on breastfeeding or healthy eating, or learn about cutting-edge research. Companies can open up the comments section, inviting readers to engage with their brand.
• Hospital happenings: Organizations post promos for upcoming events or fundraisers, new hires, and information about what’s going on at the hospital.
• Current events: Many organizations tie their content into current events. For example, the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago posted a story about the upcoming solar eclipse and eye health.
• Patient testimonials: Whether the stories are about why patients chose the hospital, or about the quality of care they received, these testimonials can be an excellent way to bring in patients.

The Downsides

Businesses probably won’t run into many hurdles when using LinkedIn. As with Pinterest, there is little room for ethical ambiguity, and it typically does not distract providers from doing their job.

However, LinkedIn does come with its share of frustrations. Of the main social media platforms, LinkedIn has one of the lowest engagement rates—a measurement of how readers are interacting with the content (e.g., likes, shares, comments, etc.).

And, while the number of LinkedIn users is growing, membership is still significantly lagging compared to other platforms like Facebook.

That doesn’t mean that businesses should not use LinkedIn—they just need to stay on top of their other social networks as well.

Now that you’ve learned about Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn, you may be tempted to set up accounts on all three. That’s fine for some companies—but other companies benefit from quality over quantity when it comes to social media.

Bottom line: Choose your social media platforms wisely. Look for the platforms your target audience uses, and focus on creating quality content, rather than content on every single platform.

Want to learn more about using social media for healthcare marketing? Let the team at CareContent help.

Establish a digital footprint that keeps your brand front and center with your audience. Connect with a distribution specialist to get your content into the right hands.

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If your team or your web vendor is doing a standalone e-newsletter for your healthcare organization, make them stop. Standalone e-newsletters are a lot of work for little return. Here’s a better option.