Dr. Nick graduated from Sherman College of Chiropractic in 2004 where he earned the honors of Magna Cum Laude and the Rising Star award given to a recent Sherman College graduate who has demonstrated exceptional achievements and service in the community. Dr. Nick’s focus on education came from growing up in a household with two amazing teachers as his parents. He has lectured both internationally and locally on a wide variety of health and life topics. Dr. Nick first learned about the importance of a healthy functioning body during an internship in a pediatric oncology unit in Madrid, Spain. From that point on, it was his mission to learn as much as possible to be able to help as many people as possible.
When Dr. Nick is away from the office, you will find him spending time with Dr. Rachel and their “magic man” of a son, Noah. He also enjoys spending time with friends, gardening, running, practicing American Sign Language, spending time in nature, reading, and playing basketball.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/chiropractic.png7201280Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2020-06-17 15:02:142020-06-17 15:07:44Interview with Dr. Nick Kapustka on how to Build Relationships as a Chiropractor during COVID-19
Social media has become an integral part of many businesses’ marketing strategy. It helps you connect with your audience, increase awareness about your brand, and generate more business.
With so many social media platforms to manage and publish in, it’s important to have a plan and stay organized for what and when you’re going to share on each platform. Having a social media content calendar will make things a lot easier.
What is a social media content calendar?
A social media calendar is a document that is used to plan out and organize future content. It allows you to visualize how your marketing looks like in the coming weeks or months and tweak any scheduled posts as necessary.
Content calendars can come in several forms. It can be a spreadsheet, hand-written calendar or a software. The purpose of a social media calendar is to provide a framework for scheduling out when and which content will be published across different social media channels.
A content calendar do wonders for your business. Here are 5 reasons why you need a social media content calendar.
Save time
You need to post regularly for your business to benefit from social media. But we all know that managing multiple social media accounts can be challenging, not to mention time consuming.
The purpose of using a content calendar is to help you plan out content ahead of time and schedule posts across multiple channels at once. With an effective calendar, you can schedule content weeks or months ahead of time. You no longer have to worry about falling behind if you become too busy or if something comes up.
A content calendar will not only help alleviate some of the day-to-day stressors, but it can also help you reach your long-term business goals. Freeing up more time, you can now focus on more important aspects of the business.
Never forget important dates
Holidays and other important events offer excellent opportunities to create engaging content. With a hectic schedule, it can be easy for important dates to slip your mind. Missing important dates can represent a lost opportunity.
An organized calendar helps reduce the chaos of scrambling to post it on time. Taking note of future events, you’ll have enough time to create the best possible content for the occasion instead of just churning out content at the last minute.
Having a content calendar alleviates the fear of forgetting important dates. Plus, it ensures that your content is being published when your audience is active.
Plan and organize your social media marketing strategy
Providing your audience with relevant, informative, and entertaining content is the key to keep your audience engaged.
When posting on social media, you want it to be a mix of industry news, inspiring content, content from others, and your own content. Using a content calendar allows you to visualize your content strategy over time. You’ll have plenty of time to fill it with relevant topics that resonate with your audience.
Without effective planning, you may run the risk of posting a topic that you have already discussed a few weeks ago. A social media content calendar will help you keep things in check, so you can avoid such blunders.
Brainstorm ideas
Instead of making last-minute decisions about what types of content to publish, you’ll have the advantage of getting feedback from your team members.
Every piece of content start with ideas, and you’ll need a lot of them to fill your calendar. When you plan out your social media content in advance, teams from different departments can contribute ideas, make edits, and plan future content.
They can use their knowledge to fill the space with relevant content that is valuable to your audience. Hence, you can be sure that you’re putting out the best and most relevant content.
Turn chaos into harmony
Collaboration with team members often lead to fresh ideas and greater return on investment. However, it can also be tricky to pull off efficiently. It can be further complicated by remote work.
A social media content calendar is a great way to collaborate. It can serve as a communication tool for the whole team. This is where topics, ideas, contents, and dates are placed. It helps keep every member of the team on the same page and stay on track of publishing.
Having a central place for different teams across your organization to manage social media content allows for a much smoother implantation of your social media marketing agenda.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/5-Reasons-You-Need-a-Social-Media-Content-Calendar-1.png315560Kathlyn Angeles-Timbolhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngKathlyn Angeles-Timbol2020-06-10 10:20:512020-10-02 14:44:545 Reasons You Need a Social Media Content Calendar
Pinterest is one of those tools to build that website traffic, and a lot of people think of it as maybe not a tool that’s right for their business. Often, they think it’s just for recipes or interior design, which yes, it is used for that, but think of Pinterest as a visual search engine.
If your target audience is mostly women 35 to 65, Pinterest’s demographics are your target market! It’s time to see how you can use Pinterest to grow your business!
Pinterest for business
Pinterest is a great tool to use to get people to your website. And you think about when they go to Google what are they typing in? Especially moms, they’re going to Pinterest and they’re searching for different things.
I want to show you what a Pinterest business account looks like, and a tool that we use to manage our Pinterest. It’s really important to have that consistency and that strategy behind, “What are you pinning?” And so, this is where that digital marketing strategy that we’re always talking about comes into play.
Looking at what blogs are you writing. If you’re writing one blog per week or maybe two blogs per month, and they are the longer cornerstone blogs, each blog can have four to six images for that one blog, and you can pin those to Pinterest with links back to your website.
Difference between a personal and business account
Let me just dive in and show you a little bit about Pinterest. If you go sign up and create a Pinterest account, it will ask you if you’re business or personal.
Here we have our Social Speak Pinterest account, and this is the business account. I wanted to show you our profile.
Get access to the analytics dashboard
How you know that it’s a business account is because it will have analytics here. We have a little over 170,000 monthly viewers, which is pretty good for us. We really have worked hard on building our Pinterest account probably about the last year and a half.
We didn’t really take it too seriously before and now we’re seeing that traffic to the website really increase from what we’re putting on Pinterest. That’s a really good thing.
Set up an account with your business name
With a business account, you can set up your account with your business name. Here, we also have our logo. You can change your header images to a different static image. I always have the latest pins for our Social Speak board.
You could have in here a link to your website, a little bit about who you are and what you guys do, and then the most important thing is your boards.
Getting Started: Pinterest Basics
Create a board
You want to think of your boards as those keyword phrases. When you’re putting together your boards, it’s important to look at what are those key topics that you want to be talking about? So, you can have as many boards as you want. I always recommend starting with between five and seven, because you don’t want to be so overwhelmed. But as you continue to grow you’ll always be adding a new board, and so that’s okay, too.
We have different boards for different things, and these can be very specific. Obviously, content marketing strategy is our number one board with almost 800 pins. That and the health care digital marketing tips, those are our two main focuses.
It’s important to make sure that when you are creating a board that you are filling out the description. You want to make sure that you have the title of the board, the description of the board – fill out those blanks that Pinterest provides you. If people search for content marketing tips, then you are more likely to be able to show up here. That’s how that works.
Find and pin content
Now what I like to do is I like to follow certain brands and companies. For example, I really like CoSchedule. They put out some great content. We also utilize Sprout Social. They put out great content.
You can go-to activity and see what pins they have, the latest pins they’ve had. And then, you can either save them to the board that you want, or you can go into Tailwind, which I will get to in just a second.
I like to make sure that you know which brands you want to follow so you can re-pin from them. I love the image, and I think the content’s great. I’ll just click onto that image and look at the website, make sure that it’s something that I want our audience to click through to.
Track your performance to see what works
The most important thing is going to your Analytics. And again, this is just something to look at on a monthly basis. I always go to the overview, and then I look at the impressions, the total audience, the engagement. Any time this number is up, that’s a good thing.
In the past 30 days, we’ve had over 200,000 impressions which is up 36% from last month. We had 178,000 total audience engagement.
The number of engagements on your pins includes saves, close-ups. People that had either clicked onto one of the pins we put up, re-pinned them or liked them. And then your engaged audience is the number of people who had engaged with your pin directly. Meaning that they had liked it, or they had re-pinned it.
You can go down here and look at your top boards, and then you can also look at your top pins. So, we’re seeing that people looking for YouTube sizes and “Seven easiest ways to create Instagram content.” These are our top two pins that we had re-pinned, and people are finding them on our account and re-pinning them.
It’s good to really look at what content is working, so then you can make sure that you are utilizing that data to put more of that content out.
Why you should use Tailwind for Pinterest
Pinterest Automation
Pinterest can be sometimes a little bit of a time consumer. What we’ve used is this app called Tailwind.
Tailwind actually connects to your Pinterest and your Instagram. This is a paid program. It’s only $14.99 a month, I highly recommend it because this allows you to schedule pins out.
What this allows me to do is schedule all of my Pinterest posts for the month if I want to. I’ll just click on a pin, then hit Add to Queue, and it’s going to automatically put it into my queue where it feels it needs to go.
Post inspector
What’s really cool about this, when you are on Pinterest and you click just onto the Home button, it doesn’t tell you how many times this pin had been re-pinned, but on Tailwind it does. So this has been re-pinned 115 times. And again, sometimes things will come up that are not aligned with your business, and that’s okay. You just scroll past them, but you can look to see which ones are getting more pins.
For example, I click on Instagram Strategy. Tailwind shows that this was re-pinned 341 times, and it’ll tell you that it’s 299 times on Pinterest and 42 times on Facebook.
Smart Schedule
With Tailwind, it organizes your posts based on when your audience is on Pinterest, and when you are getting the most engagement. That’s the one thing I love about Tailwind is it’s easy to be able to find that content. You can see the source right here. You can pick as many boards as you want, and then if you don’t like the content, if you don’t like those posts, you would just click More Suggestions, and more suggestions will come up.
Tailwind just helps keep everything organized. And that’s what I really like because it saves you time and it gives you the post that you’re looking for, it gives you the data on what the popularity is, and it also just helps with the Auto-Schedule.
Smart Loop
The other thing you can do with Tailwind is what’s called a smart loop. Now, this is great for your blog posts that are your cornerstone blogs, meaning those are 2000 plus blogs.
We’ve already used our 250 smart loops and what that means is it will pull all of these blogs that we’ve done from a year, two years, three years ago, and it’s going to keep populating them. So it will automatically schedule those out into our plan, and because I’ve said I want these blogs to be scheduled to these certain boards, it will do that.
Schedule Instagram videos
I highly recommend utilizing Pinterest and Tailwind together, you can get the most benefit out of your Pinterest account. You could also publish videos on here as well, that’s a great tool because videos are awesome on Pinterest, and it’s just a great way to really monitor what’s working.
Analytics
On your Google Analytics, you would be able to tell how many people have come to your website from Pinterest. That’s a great way to monitor those analytics.
Is your social media marketing strategy sorted out?
If you need help with creating this strategy for your Pinterest account and utilizing Tailwind and just elevating your digital marketing strategy as a whole, we do offer a free 30-minute consultation. That allows us to get to know what your goals are, what are you struggling with, and what are you wanting to accomplish with your digital marketing. And then we can put up a plan together moving forward from there.
We also just launched our online VIP community, and that’s a monthly membership that allows you to see different handouts, tutorials, trainings on all different things in digital marketing. It’s a great starting point if you are wanting to do things on your own. If you really need help with that next step with your digital marketing strategy, go to socialspeaknetwork.com and click on the “Contact Us” button for a free 30-minute consultation. If you have any questions, please let us know.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Pinterest-and-Tailwind-Blog.png315560Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2020-06-03 10:57:462020-06-04 18:19:29Pinterest and Tailwind Blog
Introducing Buffalo + Sparrow Yoga Collective with Cole and Rachel.
We founded Buffalo and Sparrow Yoga Collective in 2017 when we realized we both share a passion to make yoga more accessible to people affected by trauma (which we believe is everyone). Yoga, when taught through the lens of trauma sensitivity, can be an important part of a treatment program for individuals with PTSR (Post Traumatic Stress Response) and all individuals benefit from connecting deeply to themselves. Through this perspective. we hope to create yoga environments where individuals feel safe and supported as they witness their trauma symptoms and learn tools within yoga to self-regulate when those symptoms present. Our dream is for everyone experiencing trauma symptoms to have the ability to live life as their whole self… free from trauma symptoms. We believe that yoga, when taught with intentionality around trauma, can support in this journey.
We deeply strive to stay culturally aware, up-to-date on the most current trauma research and yoga findings as well as being as inclusive, aware, informed and sensitive as possible. Our offerings are for everyone! Every background, experience, culture, identity, gender and being is welcome!
We also understand many folks might feel more comfortable in their healing process when learning and sharing space with those in their own affinity groups. If this is the case for you, please head over to our collaborators tab to learn more about where to to go in order to support yourself in the safest way.
Today, I want to talk about looking at your social media strategy in the big picture. A lot of the questions that we get a lot are, “How do I schedule my social media post? Where do I schedule my social media post? And how do I really just organize my social media post?” And so we’ve done a few videos on this with creating that content calendar and making sure that your posts are organized. And I just wanted to walk you through how we do it on our side, and then also show you a couple of the scheduling tools that we utilize for ourselves and our clients.
Content calendar template
So one thing that we’ve done is a content calendar template. The biggest thing with social media is making sure you are consistent and you have a plan. Most of the time, we get so caught up in work that we forget about what we want to talk about on social media, and whether you’re doing your social media internally, or you have a team like us that’s managing your social media. It’s important to make sure that everyone is on the same page.
Contents ideas for your social media posts:
Blog post – You can share your most recent blog post.
Share a tip from weekly blog post with a link back to the blog or website – You can pull information from a past blog
Visual image with logo on it – It can be a motivational quote or tip of the day. You can create that in Canva.
Article or blog from outside source – Share articles from other like-minded sources. You want to remember that 80/20 rule
Product from website linking back to the page – If you have products or different services that are on the website, you can link back to those.
Switch up the content
What I like to do is the information, the post that go on to Facebook and LinkedIn, I think it’s okay if it’s the same content. I would swap the days, and then I would change around the content for Instagram. So maybe what you used on a Tuesday for a Facebook and LinkedIn post, you can reword it, add some bullet points, add in some hashtags and use it for Instagram maybe the following week. So you want to keep that content going, you can utilize it on other platforms.
I do not recommend putting the same post out at the same day, same time to all networks. It doesn’t give any value. We found that most people that follow you on Facebook are also following you on Instagram. So if you’re posting the same thing the same day, there’s no value there. So you want to be able to switch up that content. And having some type of a monthly overview, we found that to have really helped us and our clients kind of know what topics are coming next. So this is kind of that monthly overview.
Content resources
Now it’s time to write the content. So on the social media calendar, you’ll have different topics that you want to talk about.
You’ll have content resources – different websites for that curated content, the like-minded websites that you’re looking for, maybe it’s newsletters that you’re a part of – put them in here. This is supposed to be an easy place that you can just go and pull an article from the source you’ve already approved, your team has access to it.
Google sheet
You’ll notice this is all done in a Google Sheet. The reason we use a Google Sheet is because this is a platform that everyone has access to. So I can share this Google calendar with my team. And so the person that’s writing the social media posts, the person that needs to approve them, they know what’s going out.
It keeps everyone together on one platform rather than having to log into something or download, if someone has a Mac and someone has a PC, from Excel to whatever, it’s just too complicated. I like things simple and very clear. So we use Google Sheets for that.
Here, we have the content resources, we have blog topics, so this can be where we organize our blogs for the month so we know what’s going out.
Creating a content calendar
Google sheet
There are two things you can do here. Now that we know what we’re talking about for the month, we need to have a place of where we can write those social media topics.
One thing that we have done is you can, say here like the date, platform, content, image. Now the other thing that we’ve done is instead of doing this, we may say the date and then we’ll say Instagram copy, Facebook copy, LinkedIn copy, and then we’ll either say image, and then on here we’ll put hashtags as well. You can also place the key code, and then you can pull from the content calendar.
So you can change up, you can create this however it works best for you. We’ve seen a lot of different techniques on creating where you’re gonna write your social media post.
It can be blog title and first paragrah. Now obviously, you are going to put that content in here. You’re gonna have the link in here, and then the image, you can actually go to Insert, and then go to Image, and upload the image directly into this sheet.
So this is one way to keep it all in one place to be able to see, “Okay, this is going onto Instagram, this is going out onto Facebook and LinkedIn. Here’s the images that needs to go out to there, the hashtags.”
So for writing, I always like to write posts a week or two weeks or three weeks in advance. So we have our date here, so we would say Monday, then we can have Tuesday, and then through Friday, and have the copy on one sheet.
Google doc
The other way that we have seen it done is through a Google Doc. And this can be the same thing. This can be a week – May 4th to 8th. You can do a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And if you post on Saturday and Sunday, great.
You can insert your copy here and your images as well. Now, one thing that I would do is make sure that you are utilizing your images, you’re creating your images in the social media template in Canva, so they show up nicely on all platforms.
So you know that Monday, May 4th for Facebook and LinkedIn, this is the copy that’s gonna go out to those two platforms. So it’s really figuring out what works best for you.
Social Media Scheduling Tools
Now let’s get into the scheduling tools. Some people like to just go directly into those scheduling tools. They have the overview of the content calendar and they say, “Okay, this is what my month will look like,” and then they go right into the scheduling tools and write their content directly in there. And that’s totally fine too. It’s just figuring out that process that works best for you.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a paid service. The one thing I really like about them is I love that they do monthly reports. So that gives you your activity for whatever platform you have that you’re utilizing on here. It gives you an overview of exactly what posts you have going out.
When you come over here to publishing, it will pop up what posts you have already scheduled for the month, the week, so it’s very clear, and then you can see each platform right here. If you go to compose, you can upload up to four pictures through Sprout Social, which is good because you like to have multiple photos on the different networks. Here, you can drop down and you can click the platforms that you want it to go to.
One really cool thing about this as well is it has this option for Instagram, the Instagram first comment. So a lot of people will have their Instagram content, and then that first comment is where they put in their 30 hashtags. So that’s a really cool feature that Sprout Social has, and then it will preview what your post will look like. Again, if you have Twitter on here, you want make sure you do Twitter separately because of that 280-character count. Now, with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, it will show 1,300. So it gives you that option, if you take off LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram 2,200. So it gives you that option. So you can go right directly into here, write your post, and then you can go to choose a date, time, and schedule it. So that’s one way of being able to just utilize a dashboard like this and be able to have all your posts in one area.
So I really like Sprout Social because of how user-friendly it is, and you’re able to see what you have scheduled. And some days you’re gonna have posts for certain networks that you just wanna go out and not for the other networks, and that’s totally okay. So just, again, figuring out that strategy for you. You can do drafts in here. With Sprout Social, it does automatically post to Instagram, which is another bonus. So it will actually post whatever post is here to your Instagram account.
Hootsuite
The second tool I want to show you is called Hootsuite. Hootsuite has a free version and a paid version. And I believe it’s still free for one or two social media platforms.
Hootsuite also schedules and posts directly to Instagram, which is great, because Instagram I feel is the social media platform that is the most manual because they didn’t have a scheduling tool before. So in here, you’ll have streams, which I really like how these streams.
Besides the reporting of Sprout Social, I love Hootsuite as a overview piece, because I can see what posts have gone out, what mentions people have mentioned us in, what activity, if people have posted to our page or what we’ve put up, what messages we have. And then we can also put on here our scheduled, unpublished, so you can go in here and again, write drafts and be able to see, organize everything in here, and it would show up like this for your scheduled ones.
So I really like Hootsuite because I do think it’s very simple to use. Again, you would go to New Post and you would type in your content, you can upload your image, videos. You’ll just click here to select the platform you want it to go to, the media you want, your text. And I really like this feature. So this is Hootsuite. Again, very simple, very user-friendly.
Buffer
The third one is called Buffer. I think they do have a free plan. It’s still very similar to the other two scheduling tools. It will tell you what you have going out. It can give you some analytics.
Now, with Buffer, it does not automatically post to Instagram. It will give you a notification on your mobile device that you have a post, and then you would need to go into your Instagram and push that post out.
So Buffer is a great tool, there’s a lot you can do with it. Like I said, it does give you some analytics. And we’ll look at the Instagram stories, strategy recommendations, and obviously that is for the paid package, but it does provide a lot of details.
When it comes to a publishing tool, it’s really a personal preference of which one aesthetically you like, which one will be the best for you and your team. And if you choose not to use a Google Doc or a Google Sheet to organize your posts and you choose to use just a platform like Hootsuite or Sprout Social, you want make sure, again, if it’s not just you doing your social media post, you want to make sure that it’s user-friendly for you and your team.
Bonus tool: Grammarly
One thing that I’ve also installed is a plugin called Grammarly.
Grammarly works on:
Google docs
Hootsuite
Buffer
Sprout Social
I like it because it adds that extra layer of making sure that your posts are grammatically correct going out, which is important. If you put in a misspelling, it usually highlights the spelling mistake. I will go like, this doesn’t make sense, and then you can click on it, and then it will either to give you a word, “Hey, what did you mean to say here?”
Mistakes happen. It’s not a life or death thing. And I also think that with social media, having that strategy is really good because it will allow you to stop and think about what your plan is and paying attention to those details and making sure when you’re creating the images in Canva.
Final thoughts
We go back to that brand consistency that we’ve talked about. So this is just giving you the overview of your social media strategy, looking at thinking of a month at a time with your social media posts, how many times per week do you want to post, and then what’s the action you’re going to take to create those posts, and then be able to schedule them out?
There’s tons of other tools out there. These are just three scheduling tools that we have used and we enjoy using. And there’s a lot of different content strategies out there, but again, it’s finding the one that works best for you.
So if you need help creating that strategy and putting together that content calendar and getting one of these scheduling tools set up, we are here to help you.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Social-Media-Overview-and-Scheduling-Tools.png315560Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2020-05-06 12:12:152020-05-01 14:36:11Social Media Overview and Scheduling Tools
The unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak has holed up a huge chunk of the global population in their homes. It has created a healthcare crisis alongside an economic crisis. Unfortunately, no one seems to be able to say when the COVID-19 outbreak will end.
With emotions high, it is important now more than ever to put extra thought into what messages you share with your target audience.
Here are 6 ways healthcare providers can maximize their social presence during the COVID-19 crisis.
Educate your audience
Studies suggest that nearly 66% of internet users get their news online, specifically from social media.
Information is powerful and can help save people’s lives, especially during this pandemic.
COVID-19 cases have surged across the globe, so does the number of people searching for information about the virus. People need answers to questions like:
What are the symptoms of COVID-19?
How will I know when it is time to seek help at a hospital?
Should I stay home if the symptoms are minor?
Where can I get tested?
How do I avoid infecting others?
As a healthcare professional, you have enormous potential to educate your community. Your first step would be to provide answers to combat those concerns. Write a blog or record a video, and then post it on your social media page.
Beyond the fact that it is the right thing to do, sharing valuable, accurate information can help you grow your authority and build your organization’s thought leadership.
Counteract misinformation
Living in the digital world, information is just a mouse-click away. This free information age is a good thing. Unfortunately, false information is rampant, especially on social media. Some people who see them may think what they are reading is actually true, and that could be harmful. Worse, people are sharing “fake news” to their family and friends.
In a step in the right direction, WHO has launched a chatbot on Facebook Messenger to combat COVID-19 misinformation. The WHO Health Alert was developed in an effort to provide instant and accurate information about COVID-19. This movement aims to help people understand the facts related to the disease, protect themselves from COVID-19, and prevent its spread.
Counteract misinformation by sharing factual, accurate information about what is currently known about COVID-19. Another option is to share blog posts from trusted sources such as the CDC and WHO.
Encourage social distancing
Despite the surge of COVID-19 cases across the globe, a lot of people still underestimate the seriousness of the virus.
At this point in time, people’s safety is a top priority. You can use social media to help people understand that this is absolutely serious. Globally, more than 2.25 million people have been diagnosed with the virus, and more than 170,000 have died.
Use your voice to convince people to comply with social distancing, stay at home, and consequently help flatten the curve.
Take every opportunity to engage
With COVID-19 sending people indoors for more hours than they’re used to, many of them are relying on social media to stay in touch with family and friends, consume news, and entertainment.
Your fans and followers are spending more time online than they ever have before, and you want to stay connected to them. Take this opportunity to engage with your audience and deepen your relationship with them.
Social media is a great place to start a conversation, inspire, and spread the good news. Get in front of the camera and talk to your audience. People need hope. They want to see that there is a reason to smile. We all know that it is a difficult time, but you want to continue to uplift and inspire your followers.
By answering questions and concerns, as well as providing updates about patient recoveries and treatment options, you are acting as a resource to those who are anxious and could use some extra help to get through this difficult time.
You still have to comply with HIPAA
There are no dedicated HIPAA social media rules. But as a medical practitioner, you still have to comply with HIPAA regulations.
You must protect the privacy of your patients at all times. That means you should never include information that can be used to identify individual’s patients or their medical records. This includes name, photos, date of birth, medical data, social security number, etc.
Consider telemedicine
Living under lockdown conditions while a pandemic encircles the globe can be difficult. As basic supplies go short and some healthcare professionals get diverted to COVID-19 wards, some patients are struggling to get treatment.
Integrating telemedicine to your practice means being able to see patients who need routine checkups without risking a visit to a medical office. Instead of leaving the house and sitting in a waiting room full of other vulnerable patients, patients can get the care they need at the comfort of their homes.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/How-to-Maximize-Your-Social-Media-Presence-During-the-Pandemic.png1200800Kathlyn Angeles-Timbolhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngKathlyn Angeles-Timbol2020-04-29 10:20:472020-10-02 14:46:04How to Maximize Your Social Media Presence During the Pandemic
It is simply not possible to run a business without marketing irrespective of the niche you are attached to. People only buy products and services from a brand when they know that it exists. Healthcare is not an exception and interaction with current / new patients is needed. The end to end process of marketing is not the same which it was five to ten years back. This is the digital marketing era and people use the internet to follow up on everything. Online trend for buying products / offered services is increasing and people want to make every purchase from the comfort of their home.
Here are some core factors which show why digital marketing plays a strong important role in the healthcare business.
1. In-depth patient analytics
If you are a part of the health industry, you would be concentrating on a certain sector. For instance, if you run a company that produces oxygen masks, the targeted patients would be people suffering from lung disorders and asthma. However, when it comes to offering correct treatment options, accurate diagnosis is highly important.
For instance, if you are infected with cancer, the treatment would be prescribed after your medical details are interpreted through health calculators. These online tools come in handy as they assess the medical condition of patient on behalf of key parameters. How can you access these tools? You can search for them online and several options would be shown. One of these websites that offers quality health calculators is Calculators.tech.
Apart from core medical diagnosis through online tools, digital marketing contributes majorly towards patient analytics. For instance, by using a keyword planning tool, you can see what people requiring medical assistance are searching for when they end up on your website. This would provide an insight about who searches for the services you offer. By using keyword optimization techniques, you can get more searches successfully directed.
2. Catering to online health care requirements
Healthcare companies and hospitals have changed the way they deal with patients. Everything is accessed and used online. For instance, is someone has fever, he would browse a health app or search for an online medical center. These days, hospitals store the patient data through EMR (electronic medical records) on cloud based servers so that they can be accessed at anytime from anywhere.
The important thing is making your patients know what you are offering in terms of care? Digital marketing is the best way to accomplish this goal since people access websites and social media pages to gather information. Thus, healthcare companies have to be sure that all their services are known. It is important to understand that most patients have the opinion that a lot of difference does not exist between heath care providers. For them, every brand does nothing unique but produce treatment options.
3. Working on specific health sectors through digital promotion
The human body requires medical treatment for different areas. Someone who is suffering from cancer would get in touch with a company that specializes in making related drugs. How would the patient know which health care provider to select? He would select an option which is popular and a lot of people know about it.
If you are specializing in a certain category of services, through digital marketing, you would be able to each the desired audience. To sell medical products, you should know who the potential buyers will be. This task is achieved through effective digital promotion. For instance, you can create social media posts regarding a new vaccine for Hepatitis. People who would be interested will get in touch with you and generate queries. This will provide you with details about who wants to buy the vaccine. In addition to that, you would know about the medical profiles of people who need it.
4. Reach patients on a global scale
A lot of healthcare companies operate globally and wish reach people residing in different locations. Medical products are meant to treat diseases and all categories are not available in each country. Consider that someone living in Africa is suffering from a unique form of eczema and there is no treatment drug available there. How would that person reach you if you have a product to handle this issue? It is obvious that he would not roam in different countries to see which health companies can fulfill his need.
A lot of people opt for online ordering of medicines. In such cases, healthcare brands that have a strong digital marketing strategy prove to be successful. For instance, if a company has a good informative website ranked on the first page, getting orders from different parts of the world will not be a problem.
Why is digital promotion better than using conventional standard marketing methods to reach patients? The reason is the set of practices which people follow to find medical services. No one has the time to read through books and medical journals to see what’s available. These days, people even use Google to know about pain killers. If a healthcare firm has all its produces properly categorized and listed, people would not have to spend time on unnecessary searching. In a nutshell, effective digital marketing helps in understanding the needs of the patients and entertaining them in a timely manner.
5. The best way to gather patient requirements quickly
Marketing a product / set of services digitally works well because it is quick and potential patients are reached in a very fast way. In addition to that, the response from them is fast as well. Someone who is interested in surgical instruments would get in touch with you by dropping a message on your Facebook account if the page provides relevant information. Hence, this form of marketing produces much quicker results than promoting products through paper brochures.
Conclusion
Digital marketing has changed the face of product promotion and is a necessity for all sectors. Healthcare is definitely not an exception in this case. Companies dealing in these products have to know about the targeted patients. These days, the face of any service provider is the website and social media presence it has. If someone wants to select a healthcare brand, he would glance at the top rated websites. In this case, the top rated links would do the job.
There are several parameters which show why it has a major impact on the health sector. For instance, it helps in promoting EMR services. The most reputed healthcare companies store these records on cloud based servers so that they can be retrieved without any obstacle.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Why-Digital-Marketing-is-Essential-for-Healthcare.png10801080Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2020-04-22 12:28:342020-04-22 12:28:34Why Digital Marketing is Essential for Healthcare
Over the last decade, telehealth has gained much traction on a global scale. It is quickly becoming a pillar of modern healthcare and is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.
Through telehealth, patients are given the option to consult a healthcare provider at the comfort of their home. This translates to happier patients, more revenue for your practice, and improved workflows that save you time. In order to facilitate these virtual visits, you will need an intuitive interface and a secure system.
What is telehealth software?
Telehealth software is the platform used by healthcare providers to provide remote clinical healthcare when they cannot meet in person. Through this software, healthcare becomes more accessible and cost-effective.
Telehealth software is not just a simple tool. Healthcare providers will need a secure portal where they can conduct remote patient examination, collect data, as well as store, share, and analyze confidential medical information and records.
There are literally hundreds of HIPAA-compliant telehealth solutions in the market. Use this as a guide to selecting the best telehealth software for your practice.
Doxy.me is safe, simple, and secure platform that lets physicians meet with patients remotely. The cloud-based system can be accessed via any web browser or smarthpones.
Simple, accessible, and free of charge, doxy.me is on a mission to make telemedicine simple and easy for you.
Features include:
Free for all to use
Business Associate Agreement (BAA) included on all accounts, even the free version
High quality audio and video
Accessible from anywhere – desktop, laptop, and mobile devices
Healthie was built specifically for nutritionists, dieticians, health coaches, and other wellness professionals. It is a web and mobile platform that allows nutrition and wellness professionals run their business and collaborate with their clients. It includes core business features such as scheduling, client education, charting, bills and payments, virtual care and more.
Healthie has all the functionality you need to run and grow your nutrition and wellness business in one software. No more cobbling together different tools.
Features include:
Access from any device – laptop, desktop, mobile phones, and tablet PCs
Practice Better is a complete, secure cloud-based practice management platform for health and wellness professionals. It is packed with features designed to relieve health and wellness professionals of burdensome adminstrative tasks.
It saves you hours of work, so you can help more reach their health goals. With Practice Better, you can manage your professional recommendations from one secure place.
With Simple Practice, you get a secure, fully integrated video solution. Your client communication, notes, calendar, and billing are combined in one system. That means, you’ll have more time seeing your clients, getting paid, and growing your business.
Features include:
HIPAA compliant
Conduct secure video appointments with your clients
Free telehealth resources
Automated billing and insurance processing
Paperless notes and documentation
Share videos, goal tracking, worksheets, and more from your screen
Chiron Health is a powerful telehealth software solution that is designed for practices of all sizes. The system makes it easy to successfully implement a telehealth program in your practice with simple patient features, streamlined workflows, and customized plans. It allows users to schedule appointments with patients based on their availability, updates practitioner calendar.
Chiron Health also offers eligibility checks to verify informed consent documentation and insurance information.
swyMed is a patented telehealth software that is designed for community paramedicine programs, emergency response encounters, home and hospital health monitoring.
swyMed’s patented software overcomes traditional connectivity issues. It allows hopitals to use their medical expertise in the ambulance and at the scene of an emergency by delivering reliable, real-time video telemedicine, even in low bandwidth areas.
Features include:
Community paramedicine made easy
Extend the reach of your hospital
Reliable, real-time video telemedicine
Connects specialist and patients in live video
HIPAA compliant and fully secure
Home health solutions
Final thoughts
Considering how much traction telehealth is gaining during the current pandemic, it is important to choose a software that works for your patients and the specialty you practice. The right telehealth software has the power to change the way you provide healthcare for the better.
If you need help finding the right teleheatlh software or you’re interested in integrating telehealth into your practice, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to help.
We’d love to offer a free 30-minute consultation call to discuss the ins and outs of implementing a telehealth feature into your practice.
Today, I want to talk about five different things you can be doing right now with all this extra time we have on our hands.
Most of us are working from our home offices and trying to move our businesses from an offline to an online service, and that could be a little difficult. We’ve talked a little bit about different things that you can do to help make that transition a little bit easier. And today I just want to give you five more things that you, guys, can be doing at this time to stay top of mind with your patients and keep your marketing going.
Blogs
So, the first thing is the blogs. Usually, blogging is something that gets put on the back burner because we’re so busy. We don’t have the time to sit down and write blogs. Maybe we’re not natural writers, it’s not something we really enjoy doing. And I understand that I am not a natural writer. It’s hard for me to sit down and write a 3000-word blog post. One really cool tool that we have discovered, and we use all the time, is called Scribie. And I’ll put the link below.
This is great because it allows you to do a video recording, just like this, and you can send in the audio file or the video file to Scribie, and they do a transcription of that file. This is a great way because now that video that you did acts as two benefits. You have the video for YouTube, but then you have the content for your blog that’s going to help with your SEOs, so it’s serving dual purposes.
Now, the other thing, if you have an audio file or an audio recording on your phone or different device, then you are able to upload that MP4 file to Scribie as well.
We use Zoom to record the videos, and then we upload the audio file because, with Zoom, it provides you both the video and audio, so that’s perfect. And so I think MP4 is video and MP3 is the audio. So, if you’re just doing an audio recording on your phone, just then upload that MP3 file into Scribie, and it will transcribe your blog. And for fairly reasonable.
Most blog posts are under that $10 mark to transcribe, and then you need to edit them, make sure your grammar is correct, and then you can put them into your blog post and format them with your header tags and your images. This saves a lot of time. This is something that we’ve really been able to focus on, is doing one to two video blogs per week and really making sure that we’re working on that content strategy. That’s number one.
Telehealth
Number two is really considering implementing telehealth. We have recently done a blog on telehealth, and what it is, and how to implement it, but now this is becoming a little bit more of a normal thing. Y
Now that your patients can’t see you face-to-face in your office, telehealth is a great way for them to see you face-to-face via video, whether that is through Zoom or a different tool used for the health care industries. So, really thinking of how can you implement telehealth into your practice to be able to see your patients, continue the business, and make sure that you’re giving them that peace of mind.
Videos
I know you probably are so tired of us saying “videos, videos, videos,” but really right now, your audience, your patients, they’re turning to social media more now than ever, and it’s important that they see your face.
As their health care practitioner in whatever field that is, it’s important that they see you, that they hear you. That gives them peace of mind that things are going to be okay. And I’m not saying that every video you do needs to be around the topics of COVID-19 or whatever is going on, but I would just educate them. Maybe if you’re working with kids, you can do some different cooking, some different recipes that they can try. Since the kids are home, you can give some study tips, maybe some art tips, nutrition tips, things that your audience can find valuable. And that you get creative with your videos.
If your staff is working from home, maybe do a weekly behind the scenes, like “Hey, this is Nurse Becky and this is her dog, Sam,” or whatever it may be. Get creative with your videos, and really allow this time of vulnerability to be there for your patients. You can ask for videos from them, too. Have a contest of the most creative art project or recipe concoction, whatever that may be.
If you’re working with elders, maybe you’re putting out crossword puzzles or word searches, things to keep them active. And that’s where I feel videos are great. They’re building that relationship on a much deeper level.
Ads
People may be wanting to cut costs right now because of that uncertainty, which we understand. One thing that you do not want to cut right now is your marketing.
It’s so important to make sure that you have your Facebook ads running, you have your Google ads running. And maybe you cut back that budget a little bit, but you still are doing business as normal. And especially if you are starting to implement telehealth, that maybe something that you really want to put a little bit of ad spend behind to promote because now you’re able to reach more people and help even more people, rather than just the people in your demographic area or geographical area.
Facebook ad campaigns, you want to make sure you leave them on, that you’re re-marketing people. And that’s something that we can help you with. If you’re confused about how to get that setup or how that works for your practice, we’re more than happy to help you with that, but make sure you have your ads running.
Patient check-ins
Lastly, take this time and do some patient check-ins. Go through your charts. If you haven’t seen anyone in a while, or you have a client that may be a higher risk or you are worried about, just do a simple check-in. Maybe even handwritten notes. I know that sometimes it takes a little bit of extra time even if you put together a newsletter, and you had your patients the newsletter just updating them.
I think it’s really important to build relationships and community right now, and make sure that you are again staying top of mind because that’s what your patients need right now. And so just doing that patient check-in, whether it’s individual… And you may have thousands of patients, so checking in with each of them won’t work. But if you can do a newsletter, where it is individualized to them, and you could say “Go do a video,” but just letting them know that you’re thinking of them and that you’re here for them, and maybe giving them some tips that you can help them, you again maybe introducing the telehealth series and letting them know that that’s an option.
Final thoughts
So, think of your target market and how you can utilize this time in a different way to focus on your marketing and being able to reach more people. We may have extra time on our hands and most of us are, like I said, working from home.
So If you need help with any of these things, we would love to schedule a consultation with you, head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com, click on FREE consultation, and we will talk to you soon.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Online-Marketing-Blog.png1200800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2020-04-08 10:51:142020-04-03 15:54:115 Things You Can Do to Increase Your Online Marketing at This Time
Over the last two decades, our lives have been slowly taken over by technology. From mobile communication to bills payment to food ordering, people are constantly looking for ways to simplify their lives.
Today, patients crave the same type of convenience when it comes to healthcare. They want an easier way to reach their provider and stay engaged in the medical process without exhausting themselves and their time. Healthcare providers, on the other hand, are also struggling to effectively reach patients in rural areas. This is where telehealth comes in.
What is Telehealth?
Telehealth is the use of digital information and communication technology to deliver healthcare, health education, and other health-related services remotely.
Mobile health apps, remote patient monitoring, and live video conferencing are examples of technologies used in telehealth.
Benefits of Telehealth Program
If you’re wondering whether adding telehealth to your practice is worth the time and effort, keep reading. Here are some of the top reasons for adopting telehealth for your practice.
Expand your patient base
Telehealth can overcome barriers to health services caused by the distance between a healthcare provider and a patient. It allows physicians to connect with patients outside of their geographic region.
In today’s healthcare world, convenience is key. Adding telehealth to your practice makes you more accessible to patients and give your practice a competitive advantage over similar practices in your area.
Elderly, working parents, patients from remote areas, and those who are less ambulatory during post-operative recovery can receive the best possible care even when hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities are hundreds of miles away from their home. The convenience it affords can help you retain current patients and attract new ones.
Saves patient’s time and money
Patients in rural areas need to travel for several hours just to reach specialists in urban areas, not to mention the time spent hanging around in the waiting room. The cost of travel, childcare, parking, and taking time from work can easily add up. Some patients would skip treatment entirely due to the burden of excessive travel.
Telehealth is a cost-efficient alternative to in-office visits, especially for patients with a chronic condition that requires frequent appointments. It allows patients to receive care in their own home instead of traveling long distances. That means patients save on time as well as transportation costs and child care.
With telehealth, appointments can be scheduled before or after work or during lunch hours. No more hanging around in waiting rooms. No need to worry about taking time off from work either.
Stay connected with patients during challenging times
As the number of COVID-19 cases skyrockets across the globe, people are asked to stay at home and maintain social distancing. But for patients with a pre-existing medical condition, doctor’s visits cannot be postponed indefinitely.
Since a telehealth visit can be done form the patient’s home, there is no risk of being exposed to the coronavirus or other pathogens. It keeps patients safe by keeping them out of doctor’s offices and emergency departments.
With the ease and convenience of telehealth, you can see your patients and provide follow-up visits, reinforcing treatment adherence, and offer specialty services during challenging times.
Integrating telehealth into your practice
Patients want the ease and convenience found in telehealth programs. In fact, one study revealed that 80% of patients want access to virtual care. Despite the increasing demand, many doctors are still reluctant to try telehealth in their practice.
Many healthcare providers are worried that telehealth is too complicated and time-consuming to implement in their already busy practices. But the truth is integrating telehealth into your practice doesn’t have to be complicated.
Review laws and policies
States have their own laws around telehealth licensing, consent, and reimbursement. Call your state medical board to determine what laws govern this service.
Make sure you have the right equipment
As mentioned above, telehealth uses telecommunications technology to provide healthcare from a distance. It is likely that you already have a computer, phone, and internet connection.
If you’re using a desktop computer, then you’ll need a webcam and microphone in order to do any sort of video conferencing. HIPAA-compliant software required for privacy and encryption should be installed on your computer or laptop.
Select a platform
Not all telehealth platforms are created equal. That said, it’s important to do your homework before choosing a telehealth platform.
Ease of use, reliability, and affordability are just some of the key factors to consider when selecting a platform. Also, it is vital to ensure that the platform is:
Integrated with your EHR solution
Secure and HIPAA compliant
Equipped with a method for verifying patient eligibility for reimbursement
Easy for staff and patients to use
Test it out
Once you have the technology set up, perform some trial runs. You want to make sure that you and the staff are comfortable and properly trained in using the technology. Otherwise, you won’t be able to use it effectively with your patients.
Encourage your staff to log in on the telehealth app and practice accepting and arranging visits. Get comfortable starting and ending calls, inviting others onto the platform, and adjusting audio and video. You can also try it out with a couple of patients and get feedback.
No matter how expensive your equipment or how reliable your software is, it won’t help your patients if your staff does not know how to use it.
Set-up your workflow
To prevent misunderstandings, make sure that all your staff is on the same page. Bring them up to speed and include them in your training and workflow discussions.
Start by asking these questions to ease telehealth into your workflow:
When will the visits occur?
Who will be involved in scheduling telehealth appointments? Who is responsible for coordinating follow-up care?
What information do you need to gather from the patient before a meeting?
How will you bill patients?
Market it to patients
Inform potential clients who may benefit from this kind of technology. Let them know that video visits are an option. Be sure to explain the advantages of telehealth and how it works.
You can post articles on your website, put up signage in your office or you can bring it up to patients during in-person visits.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/What-is-Telehealth-Blog.png1200800Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2020-04-01 12:25:392020-04-01 17:44:43What is Telehealth and How It Can Benefit Healthcare Practices
