How to Cater Your Social Media Strategy to Your Brand

Social media is the latest major frontier for advertising, and healthcare companies (as well as businesses in any other industry) need to recognize and take advantage of its influence. When it’s done in combination with other strategies, social media can bring in a tremendous amount of business. But when you’re trying to manage content and interactions across several platforms, it can be tough to keep your brand consistent. Our healthcare marketing experts, however, have some tips that can help.

Choose your platform(s) with your brand in mind.

Every social media platform has its own personality. LinkedIn is the straight-laced professional, Instagram is the millennial social butterfly, and Facebook and Twitter are somewhere in between. Don’t just create a profile for your company on every platform you find. Choose them carefully based on your brand. If you’re trying to put forward a very conservative and mature image, for instance, Instagram may not be the best fit. It’s also important to think about your target demographic and research which platforms they frequent the most.

Use visuals with consistent branding elements.

First of all, we can’t overstate the benefit of eye-catching visuals in social media marketing. The right graphic designers can regularly put together infographics and other attention-grabbing visuals that spread your message like wildfire. To further build your brand, these visuals should all look like parts of a whole, whether they have the same color scheme, fonts, visual style, etc.

If you have multiple social media professionals, make sure they coordinate well.

You shouldn’t be able to look at a list of your past social media posts and discern which ones were written by each person on your social media team. They need to all have the same voice and the same message. Your goal is to give your practice a personality – not three personalities. That’s the risk of having multiple people managing the same business’ social media presence (and it’s precisely why each of our social media marketing clients at McCauley Marketing Services have a single primary social media coordinator, one who understands their voice and their message).

Post often and post consistently.

Social media is a “right now” type of medium. To maintain a strong presence and to develop your brand in users’ minds, you need to post often enough to frequently show up in your followers’ feeds. It may take some experimenting to find the right balance between posting so rarely that you’re forgettable and posting so much that you’re overwhelming. When you find that ideal frequency, just make sure you’re maintaining it consistently. Also, make sure you’re tracking your success along the way and keeping an eye on whether you’re getting your money’s worth, which types of posts are most successful, and other important analyses.

Educate, don’t sell.

People don’t scroll through social media to find sales pitches. They use it for entertainment and information, so make sure you cater to that interest. Stay away from “salesy” language – you can still use strong calls-to-action, but make sure the content (not the CTA) is the main focus of each post.

Social media marketing can bring tremendous benefits to businesses in all industries, and healthcare is no exception. But if your advertising campaigns aren’t all perpetuating a consistent brand, they won’t be living up to their potential. The steps above are just a few helpful tips, but if you really want to supercharge your social media, it may be time to bring in the professionals. Schedule a meeting with McCauley Marketing Services to find out more about our social media skills and how our coordinated team can enhance your results. For more healthcare marketing tips, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.