Healthcare Social Media Marketing with our Social Media Management Company
With new social media platforms popping up right and left, we’ll take the guesswork out of healthcare social media marketing. Our social media management company will design a custom social media strategy to work toward your strengths as a practice. Social channels we work with include, but are not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. Depending on your needs we will make recommendations on how to grow organically and through paid social media advertising.
Don’t forget to listen and engage! Social media is a huge place for you to both engage with potential customers and receive feedback.
Whether you are a medical professional, influencer, health center, or digital health company, you need to have a solid social media plan.
Social Media in Healthcare
The healthcare industry has started adopting social media into their marketing strategies. Most healthcare businesses have active social media accounts where they share information, post updates, and connect with their followers. However, there remain some challenges that can make adopting a healthcare social media plan seem challenging to accomplish.
HIPAA Compliance in Social Media
The HIPAA act is like the Holy grail in healthcare, it guides the actions of healthcare professionals and businesses and protects the rights of their clients and patients. HIPAA laws prevent healthcare workers from divulging certain information about their patients to preserve their rights to privacy. It is very easy to break HIPAA, particularly on social media, so healthcare businesses sometimes hesitate to participate in social media at all.
How to post on social media without violating HIPAA:
- Remove every identifier that can make the patient recognizable, like, names, contact information, date of birth, insurance information, account numbers, photos, or data unless you have written consent
- Don’t post about a patient case without their written permission
- Don’t run an anonymous account thinking you can get away with HIPAA violations that way. In many cases you are easily traceable
- Don’t respond to patient comments if they contain private information
- Delete posts and comments that contain private information about a patient
- Get written permission for any photos, video, or info you want to post
More Healthcare Social Media Tips
Maintain a professional brand
Social media makes it easy to lose sight of your professionalism, but that would not work well for a healthcare provider. You need to maintain an air of professionalism at all times to retain your patient’s trust. If you find it difficult to do that, you can hire a social media manager. That doesn’t mean you have to only post photos of you in a lab coat and scrubs. It has become more than acceptable to post family and personal photos, and even photos on the beach or traveling. In fact, personal photos can make you more human and approachable to followers. Things to stay away from would be posting photos of anything illegal, potentially seen as discriminatory or offensive, reckless/unsafe, or incriminating.
Finding time to post
Dealing with day-to-day business and patients as a healthcare provider is a full-time job already, so adding the extra burden of posting consistently online can lead to burnout. You can circumvent this by hiring someone with expertise in healthcare social media to do the design, planning, and posting for you.
Using social media tools
Social media tools can help you create a plan, create designs, edit photos, and streamline your posts. Additional tools can help you analyze your engagement and help you grow your following based on that data.
Finding the right platform
There are several options for Social media platforms; however, some dominate the social media space more than others in certain niches. You don’t have to limit yourself to one platform, but you probably need to be on at least a few of the dominant ones to build your brand. Sites that encourage discourse between you and your audience are the best fit.
Your social media marketing strategy has to place your customers or patients first and ensure that everything is in place to engage them in a meaningful way.
