Engaging Your Audience Through Social Media

28 Jul Engaging Your Audience Through Social Media

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know we’re big proponents of setting yourself up with social media accounts and keeping them active. As a busy healthcare professional, we know that your time is limited, so you don’t want to waste time using strategies that are not (or no longer) relevant.

The point of social media marketing is, of course, to engage your readers. The end result that you’re looking for here is not merely a large number of followers, but a large number of followers who will pass your information along to others who might need your services!

Here are some great tips on engaging your audience through various social media platforms.

Timing Is Everything

Well, maybe not everything, but still pretty important. Remember that social media sites are being updated all hours of the day and night, but the majority of your target audience is probably not online at midnight on a Tuesday or at 6:00 am on a Sunday. You want to put up your posts at a time when they’re likely to be seen before they get pushed down on the feeds. Here is a great article on when you should be posting on some of the more popular social media sites.

Answer Questions

You know which questions you answer all the time in your practice. If most of your patients ask a certain series of questions, it’s safe to assume that people who are not yet your patients are wondering the same thing. Answer these questions in social media posts; they’re likely to get reposted and forwarded to others.

Use Images

People have short attention spans in the digital age. While they may be scanning their feeds regularly, they might not be absorbing all of the information on them. What you need to do is make your posts stand out. Putting up interesting images and infographics is a great way to attract interest and cause people to slow down for a few seconds to see what you have to say.

Bring In the Experts

Besides yourself, of course! Link to great articles written by credible experts in their fields. You can also repost tweets or Facebook posts written by others. Be aware that on Facebook, you’ll need to limit yourself to items that are already posted publicly; otherwise, most of your followers won’t actually be able to see the post that you’re sharing.

Take Advantage of the “Stalker Feed”

Have you ever noticed that on the side of your screen, Facebook has a ticker running that details the actions of your friends? This has been affectionately monikered the “stalker feed,” because you can see what people are doing on pages that you don’t even belong to. Keep this in mind as you interact with others on this particular social media site. Remember that anything you like or respond to is not necessarily private, so your actions can work to your benefit or your disadvantage.

Be Sociable

Remember, this is social media, and the key work here is “social.” Don’t just post your own items; interact with others, as well. Like their posts, answer questions on their feeds, showcase some of your fans and friends on your own feed. If someone responds to one of your posts, like their response. If someone retweets one of your Twitter postings, thank them. In short, you want to avoid ignoring the efforts of others to engage.

It takes some time and effort to interact with and engage others on social media. The social media gurus at HealthCare Marketing Group would be happy to assess your current social media strategy. Please give us a call at 800-258-0702 to schedule a free consultation to learn more.