Although social media is one of the most essential assets for marketing physical therapy clinics, many clinic owners just don’t know how to navigate an effective social media campaign. Since social media is constantly evolving and trends are ever-changing, it can be a challenge just to keep up; especially with all the other obligations a practice owner has to juggle. Here are 5 tips to help you master your clinic’s social media marketing campaign.
Your business’s account or page should have as much information as you can offer; nothing should ever be left on default. For many, this page is the first thing they will see of your brand, so it needs to completely and accurately represent you. Consider the following elements of your page:
• The header. The header image on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube is the first (and best) place to give a viewer a positive idea of what your brand is. Make sure the image you choose is clean, professional, and has the proper dimensions for the space.
• Your profile picture. Consider using your business’s logo or some icon for this image, as it often appears beside your posts and is much smaller than the header image.
• Description. Does your description clearly describe your clinic and its primary services? If not, this is the ideal place to include all of that critical information.
• Contact info. This section should be completely filled out: phone numbers, email, mailing address, any way to reach you.
• Links. Be sure that you’ve linked your website or any other important sources that can help further connect someone to your business.
This might be the simplest but most overlooked step in a successful marketing strategy. Your social media presence should revolve around a goal: what are you there to do? If you are just handling a social media page with the vague realization that it’s something you need to have, then your marketing strategy is bound to be sporadic and ineffective. Choose a singular goal to frame all your efforts and decisions around, such as:
• Increasing followers to grow your channel of connections.
• Increasing brand awareness.
• Prompting engagement between your business and your community.
• Converting followers to customers.
There are two main ways to stay consistent: how often you post and in what you post. Posting consistently will show followers that your page is a viable channel to reach your business and your social media presence is something you care about, while consistent content will show followers that your brand has a clear identity.
Choose your channel based on where your audience is and what content you’re able to produce. Facebook is a great place to display multiple types of content, but it has the most competition; Instagram is a platform for practices that excel at image and video content, but doesn’t have a way to post any other forms. Consider what voice your content has and what content you enjoy producing in order to see what platform would be the best place to represent your brand. Choosing the right channel is vital to ensuring that you’re able to post consistently.
Engaging with your audience goes beyond just posting. Make sure your practice’s account interacts with your audience: respond to every message you get, reply to comments, share interesting and relevant content from other sources, and join groups to build relationships within your community.
Social media is an investment in your business, and you might have to invest some money to find success. Facebook has a great advertising platform to help you target your ideal audience. Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn all have advertising platforms to help you promote your content. Be sure to utilize your advertising resources to get as many ideal people to your page to make sure your social media efforts aren’t going to waste.
Is your social media strategy effective as is, or could it use some revamping? These five tips are a great place to start when expanding your community and reaching new groups through different social media platforms.
