In this video, we talk about how to keep that brand consistency on all platforms within your digital marketing strategy and what makes engaging social media content.
We understand that it can be difficult to figure out what to post about on social media and what your audience is looking for. We share 5 types of content you can create to build brand awareness and relationships with your patients.
Today, we’re talking about brand consistency and what type of social media content you should be posting.
Brand consistency and what type of social media content you should be posting
So let’s take a step back real quick, and let’s look at your digital marketing as a whole. Now, we’ve been talking a lot about video marketing, creating that content strategy, how to use Canvas for your images, how to use Instagram and Pinterest.
We cover a lot of topics, and being able to implement all of those is a lot. So looking at your digital marketing as a whole, so you have your blogging, you have your social media, you have your email marketing, you have your ad campaigns for Facebook and Google, you have your email marketing, you have your lead pages that go into your ad campaign, so you have all of these components, plus your website. So you have all these components that are tied in to your digital marketing strategy. And it’s not being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none; it’s becoming a master of all and being able to show that brand consistency on every single platform.
So as you are looking at when you write your blog post, the image that you create for your blog post should have the same thought and color scheme as the thumbnail image for your YouTube video, as the social media posts that are tying in to that blog or just all of your social media content. Everything should have the same look and feel. And this doesn’t mean using the same theme in Canvas for every single image, but it means having your brand identity. So looking at what are those brand fonts, what are those brand colors, what types of images are you wanting to use. This is something that really is a hard thing to overcome, especially in the healthcare industry, is using stock photos versus real photos. And if you are using photos from your center, from your patients, you need to make sure that you have the HIPAA-compliant form signed that they are okay with you using their photo, and that they’re okay with you using it on social media. They may just want to do a written testimonial, and they don’t want to have their image up. Some of them may not mind at all; some of them may say, “Okay, just get the side view,” so really making sure that it’s okay with your patients to use those photos and okay with your staff.
So, I think that, and we’ll get into this on the social media side, of what type of posts, but really showing that personality of your practice is really important. So using original photos, that is key, so that creates the brand consistency. And so, that leads me into what types of posts should you be putting up there for social media.
Here’s some two interesting facts:
That means your audience are looking at what you’re talking about, how often you’re talking about it, if it’s helping them, if they find it valuable, and that it’s a huge deciding factor for them if they’re going to call your clinic and come into your practice for treatment.
So, again, this kind of shows people will do business with people they know, like, and trust, and if they feel that they already have this relationship with the doctor and the staff, it makes it so much easier to build that relationship and that relationship loyalty. So I found that really interesting, how high those numbers were.
So let’s dive into the five social media post ideas for the healthcare industry.
Cause marketing
This is huge! You’re in the healthcare industry. You have to have a purpose behind what you do. Let’s say you’re a pediatrician, and your practice is, you see a lot of kids with type 1 diabetes. So maybe you partner up with Diabetes Association and you work with them on how to help kids with type 1 diabetes or type 2 diabetes.
Maybe you are an OB/GYN and your cause is to help premature babies, so you have a fund, you partner with somebody. So really showing that your office is more than just caring for your patients, you guys have a greater cause, you guys are supporting something.
So if you guys partner with a non-profit and maybe you donate services to them or you guys do community events together or a certain percentage of your proceeds goes back to that non-profit or however that works, but that cause marketing and collaboration is a really big piece of your social media strategy.
This shows your audience and your patients that you’re more than just a doctor, you’re more than just, “Okay, take this, do this, you’re fine.” You really care about the greater good. And I think that that’s really important to do.
Brand awareness
It’s important to showcase what you do as a practice. This can be the different services that you offer, maybe a service that’s not very popular. Maybe if you’re a pediatrician, you can also say, “Oh, did you know we do a kids’ cooking class,” or something like that, but that brand awareness, showing behind the scenes and highlighting the staff.
Again, being able to show your practice’s personality, that brand consistency, that personality behind the name, is really… That’s what people are going to connect with, and that’s what your audience will see.
Highlight a staff member every week with something that they love to do. Maybe they are an avid marathon runner. Showcase them running a marathon and also tag that marathon. That’s that collaboration piece as well. So, with thinking outside the box and highlighting a doctor, highlighting a nurse, that’s creating that brand, that shows that you are real. So that is three. Number three is brand awareness.
Education
This really should be the first one, because education is the most important piece. You really want to provide that valuable content to your audienc. Really, that’s what’s going to attract them to you in the first place – if you’re providing that valuable content that they feel, “Oh, wow, I didn’t know that. Oh, that’s awesome.”
Depending on your industry, this could be as simple as, you know, flu season. What’s going on in the news with the flu season? The corona virus is a topic of all conversations right now, and it’s important if you are a pediatrician or if you are a head of a senior retirement living, how do they stay safe from this? Washing hands, antibacterial cream. How can you educate them and give them peace of mind, whether this is if you’re working, again, with people that have diabetes, providing easy recipes that are made for diabetics, maybe it’s helping them with different types of the bands for their legs or the different socks or the different lotions, things that they are already searching for.
As a healthcare provider, you already know these things. So write that content that can help them. What are they searching for, and being able to educate them on that. This can be healthy lifestyle. This is another curated content, so sharing articles from other sources. So, this could be from the CDC website, this can be from Mayo Clinic, this can be from Allrecipes for diabetic… Diabetic recipes. So there’s a lot of different options you have for curated content.
Curated content just means sharing something that’s not from you, that’s not original. You’re sharing it from another source, and this is huge. Facebook really likes when you do curate a content and you’re sharing posts. That gives you kudos on Facebook.
We just did a blog on why you need to implement video marketing into your strategy. And videos can be time-consuming.
If you have a laptop, if you have an iPhone, you can record on those devices. If you have an older laptop, sometimes the quality isn’t that clear, but there’s options available, you can go on to Amazon. We just ordered cameras for one of our clients. I think they were maybe $45-$60-ish, just a camcorder or a computer camera that fits on here. The picture is very clear, microphone’s clear. Take the time to do your homework to see if the quality of your computer or your phone will work, the more authentic you are.
You don’t need to have a staged space, but these can be as simple as interviewing your doctors, having a nurse practitioner or even the front desk staff. Do one interview per month and asking questions to the doctor. This can be an FAQ.
So, you guys can compile questions every week of what your patients have been asking you, and put into, “Okay, this is our Friday FAQ, these are the questions that been coming in this week. We want to make sure we get them answered for you.”
You can have a little box on the front counter that says “Questions,” and you can start building that, again, that brand awareness of, “Every Friday, our doctor is going to answer at least five of these questions.” It doesn’t have to be a long video, but that content can then be turned into a video for YouTube, a video for social media. You can even use a transcription service and have that content put together in a blog for you.
So, those videos serve a lot of different purposes, and video marketing is huge. People want to see who you are, what your values are, and it’s important to highlight that staff, even if it is the front desk. They do a lot at that front desk, they see a lot of patients, they hear a lot of feedback. So, let them answer a couple of questions or give a couple of tips.
This education, the hand-washing tips. You can do a quick video on how to wash your hands, and what’s the right protocols. So think of your audience. Think of the questions they’re asking, think of the information that they’ll be searching for, and create those videos and that content around them, because at the end of the day, it’s about your patients. It’s about what they are searching for and what information you can provide them.
So if you need help putting the strategy together and executing this, let us know, we are here for you. You can go on to socialspeaknetwork.com and schedule a free 30-minute consultation, and we can walk you through this and give you some insights.