When people talk about social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are usually the first thing that comes to mind. A lot of healthcare professionals and organizations use these social media platforms to reach a growing number of potential patients online who are looking for medical information.
While Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can undoubtedly help them achieve their goals, there is one platform that most healthcare professionals tend to forget — Youtube.
Youtube is one of the biggest social media channels in the world, with over 2 billion active monthly users. If your goal is to educate your audience and attract new patients, Youtube would be a great place to start.
If you’re still on the fence about starting your own Youtube channel, don’t fret. We listed down some of the best medical Youtube channels out there. Hopefully, you can use them as an inspiration to start your own.
Doctor Oz was one of the first healthcare professionals to create a Youtube channel back in 2006.
He has a popular daytime television personality whose show is now on its 12th season. He has also appeared as a health expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show for five seasons. Being a celebrity doctor it wasn’t difficult for him to grow his channel. As of writing, he’s racked up over 1.5 million subscribers and over 230 million channel views.
Dr. Oz uploads snippets of his show on his Youtube channel. Each episode has segments on health, wellness, and medical information, including true crime stories and celebrity interviews.
Dr. Mike is a board-certified Family Medicine physician. He has been rocking the social media game for a while now, with over 9 million followers across all channels. He’s the perfect example of a physician who’s leading the way on Youtube.
Dr. Mike taps into his expertise and discusses a wide range of health topics. He also offers tips on how to reduce cancer risks, improve nutrition, and how to live a better life. His videos aren’t all about health tips. He also reacts to popular medical shows and points out discrepancies. This makes him relevant to everyday users.
With his charismatic vibe and undeniable wit, it’s no wonder that Dr. Mike is now considered as a celebrity influencer.
He now has Youtube 6.5 million subscribers 450 million views since starting the channel in 2016.
Dr. Dray is a board-certified Dermatologist and skincare expert. She’s a skincare enthusiast with a passion for skin and a healthy lifestyle. Her channel is an absolute goldmine of skincare advice and educational videos.
Considering the number of skincare products available on the market, it can be difficult for the average user to decide which ones to buy. Dr. Dray makes the process so much easier, as she uses her channel to review skincare products and give product recommendations. She also talks about the ingredients, costs, benefits, and more of each product she reviews.
Dr. Dray’s channel has almost 1 million subscribers and 70 million video views.
Dr. Josh Axe is a doctor of natural medicine, chiropractor physician, and clinical nutritionist. He specializes in how the right nutrition has a positive influence on people’s health.
His passion is to help people eat healthy and live a healthy lifestyle. If you’re looking for tips on how to cure common ailments using natural remedies, then you should definitely follow Dr. Axe.
Dr. Axe started his channel in 2010. His channel has grown since then, with roughly 2 million subscribers and 160 million channel views.
Youtube still presents a huge opportunity for you, even if you’re a specialty doctor. Let’s take Dr. Eric Berg as an example. He’s a chiropractor who specializes in Healthy Ketosis & Intermittent Fasting. He’s also the author of the best-selling book, The Healthy Keto Plan.
Dr. Berg uses his Youtube channel to educate his audience about keto, intermittent fasting, as well as the use of his products. He started his channel in 2006. As of writing, he has over 4 million subscribers and 230 million channel views.
Dr. Ed Hope is an Emergency Medicine Doctor and a Teaching Fellow in the UK. Initially, he created videos as a learning aid.
As a teaching fellow, he wanted to help medical students make learning easier. Today, his contents are centered on educating the public while keeping them entertained. Dr. Hope’s most popular video – a look at the medical scenes in Marvel film, Dr. Strange – garnered over 6 million views.
He created his channel in 2018, and he now has over 450,000 subscribers.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/6-Doctors-blog.png12602240Kathlyn Angeleshttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngKathlyn Angeles2020-12-23 13:30:172020-12-18 13:30:306 Doctors You Should Follow on Youtube
This blog talks about how to find content to discuss in social media as well as your blog posts as a way to increase patient engagement and to build credibility in your field, as well as how to really build that search engine optimization on your website. So there recently, just last week, there was a Google algorithm update. If you follow anybody who talks about SEO, they are talking about this update and about the volatility that a lot of industries saw especially healthcare. But I think the biggest thing that this volatility comes down to is that Google wants to show individuals the best content for whatever search they’re looking for. So Google’s algorithm updates are continually trying to weed out the websites that are following bad SEO practices, and that haven’t taken the time to update their website to make sure that it’s fulfilling all of the most recent and up-to-date SEO protocols.
I wouldn’t worry so much about this algorithm update. Another one is going to happen again. Everything that you change now might change again. So instead of focusing on the minute details, as long as you have proper SEO in the back-end structure of your website, and for that, please feel free to reach out, we can run a couple of reports for you, make sure that that is all set up correctly. But instead of really focusing on that and worrying about that, worry about the content that you’re putting out there, and that you’re putting together. So I had a great call today with a new prospect, and he runs a few websites that put out exceptional articles, interviews, information for his clients, and really his goal is to empower them to be able to make informed decisions. And that is the whole goal of his website, however, we recommend any website, any service-based website, or even product-based website, seeks to fulfill the same goal and the same mission.
This individual and I were talking about different ways that he currently is finding his blog topics, and he brought up one place that we actually haven’t really mentioned or dived into in the past. So we’ve talked about doing Google searches and we’ve talked about doing, taking notes when you are speaking with prospects or speaking with some of your clients and some of your patients about what those general questions are that they’re always asking and always looking for answers for it, but he gave a great idea to look at Facebook groups. And he said that he is a part of numerous Facebook groups within this niche part of healthcare that he is a part of, and he pays attention to the topics and the discussions and the questions that are happening there, and his assumption is if somebody or multiple people are asking the same question in multiple ways, that that information is not easily accessible on Google. It’s not easily accessible online, on the sources for information where these people are used to going. So what this individual does is he finds the expert that talks about that specific question, and he reaches out to them and does an interview on his website about that topic.
He then follows our process that we’ve talked about a lot, where you transcribe the video, do a quick edit, make sure that it does have the headers, things that increase readability such as bullet points, bold words, italics, and then he publishes it and make sure that the video is embedded of the interview as well. Then he goes ahead and shares that interview, that article on to social media, he shares it in his newsletter and post it other places online as well. And so this is just such a great strategy, and such a great way to find topics to discuss. So the first step here is diving into Facebook and finding groups that people are part of, where your target market is. So if you focus on, oh goodness, family care, for example, you might be able to find different groups that have mothers in them, or that talk about exercise for children or diets for children, maybe it’s picky eaters. And so you dive into these groups and you see what topics people are talking about, and you’re going to find at some points in time, everybody is asking the same questions. So take that as your opportunity to jump on and to answer the questions for them.
These individuals will be forever grateful that you have provided them with the information, and it helps build that know, like and trust factor if you continually do this over and over again. So let’s say there are no groups on Facebook where people are asking these questions, you can always jump on over to LinkedIn and join groups, or one of my personal favorites and one that we’ve talked about in the past, is jumping over to Quora and seeing what questions people are asking, and then also you can get some ideas for the answers by looking at the discussions of the comments back and the people answering these questions. One of the things that we enjoy seeing frequently is when you answer a question a little bit differently than anyone else has answered it, let’s say there is a common mindset about one specific procedure that you offer, a service that you offer. Maybe take a little bit different stance, as long as it’s still truthful and you’re not making any health claims or health assumptions, you can answer it, however, your training really aligns.
You don’t have to follow the mold that everybody else has had. And the reason why we do this is because that helps you set apart. And Google actually through its algorithm can recognize when people are creating new fresh content or when they’re just regurgitating what somebody else is saying. So today, I want your biggest takeaway to be that you can rely on other people and you can rely on your target market to come up with topics for you to discuss. By doing this, I believe that you will get ahead of the curve when you look at Google Trends with keywords, and that you are best positioning yourself not only to withstand future Google updates, but also to truly connect with your target market and potential clients, potential patients online. So if you have got any questions about how to best write the blog post or a process that you can put into place to make sure you are always staying ahead of these trends and finding the topics that are going to relate to your target market, please feel free to reach out. Head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com, click that free consultation button, and of course, be sure to subscribe to our channel. Thank you.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Blog-Topics-for-2021.png14402560Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2020-12-17 15:56:572021-02-26 10:05:04How to find topics for articles and social media posts in 2021
Everybody loves prizes and freebies. And when it comes to social media marketing, there is no easier way to win over your target audience and grow your following than running contests and giveaways. After all, it’s the season of giving, right?
Capitalize on the holiday season by running a contest or giveaway. When done right, it can serve as a free advertisement for your brand. This is great, especially if the nature of your contest is to encourage people to share your post, which can help you build awareness. Soon, you’ll have a very strong following.
Here are 7 holiday-themed contests and giveaways you should try to boost your social media presence.
Photo contest
Ask your followers to submit their best holiday snaps to your social media page. Put the photos together in one album and feature them on your page.
Consider adding a voting component to add a little extra buzz around your contest. Get your community involved by voting for their favorite entries. This type of contest works well in helping you grow your following. In most cases, participants would share the photo with their family and friends, and ask them to like their photos.
Video contest
Video contests are similar to photo contests, except that people are asked to submit a video instead of a photo.
During this time of the year, people inundate their social media accounts with videos. Capitalize on this and ask your followers to send in their videos. It can be videos of them singing carols or showcasing their holiday spirit. User-generated submissions like these make great content for social media.
Photo caption contest
A “caption this” prompt is a fun way to encourage followers to comment on your photo and engage with your brand.
This type of contest is great for getting feedback from your fans on how they feel about a new product, what your new slogan should be, simply to get interesting user-generated content. Don’t forget to share the winning caption to your social media accounts.
12 days of Christmas giveaway
As the title suggests, 12 days of Christmas giveaway means you’ll be giving out prizes for 12 consecutive days.
For best results, it is best to talk about your giveaway at least a week before the event. Let people know what items you’ll be giving away, how many winners there will be each day and other details. This will help build excitement and anticipation. Plus, it will give people a reason to visit your page each day.
Holiday recipe contest
Everyone is busy preparing their holiday menu by now. Help your audience fill in their menu by asking people to send in their tried-and-tested recipes.
Ask people to share recipes for their favorite holiday dishes. You can also host a family recipe showdown. Another idea would be to ask for specific recipes each week. For instance, you can ask for Christmas cookie recipes this week, and then vegetarian side dishes the following week.
Fulfill a wish contest
People tend to feel generous and thankful during the holidays. Leverage the holiday atmosphere to help those who are in need while engaging your audience.
Give your fans and followers a chance to do something nice for others. Ask them to nominate one person, who deserves to have their wish fulfilled and the reason why they chose that person.
A giveaway like this doesn’t just make you look generous, but it also makes fans feel good about themselves for nominating a friend. It’s a great way to improve your brand image, as well as gain the trust and loyalty of your audience.
Ugly sweater contest
The holiday season is the time to let loose and have fun. What better way to do this than to let people wear their favorite ugly sweater.
The ugly sweater has become a ubiquitous feature of the holiday season. Ugly sweater contests are popular during the holiday. Why not take it online with a holiday sweater contest?
To enter, participants are required to submit photos of themselves wearing Christmas or winter-themed sweater or sweatshirt. The one with the most number of votes wins.
Hosting an ugly sweater contest can help ease a little bit of holiday stress and add some fun and creativity to your social media marketing campaign.
Final thoughts
The holiday season is one of the most important times in your marketing calendar. If you’re looking to ramp up your following and grow your brand simultaneously, then you should consider running contests and giveaways.
Not only will it help drive traffic to your social media pages, but it will also help increase brand awareness. Remember, sometimes you have to give to be able to receive.
If you need help with your holiday social media marketing campaign, feel free to get in touch with us. We’ll help you make the most out of this seasonal spike in engagement.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Contests-and-Giveaways-Blog.png12602240Kathlyn Angeleshttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngKathlyn Angeles2020-12-09 09:16:062020-12-07 19:24:307 Holiday-Themed Contests and Giveaways to Attract New Followers
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/National-Podcast-Week-The-importance-of-keeping-your-content-up-to-date.png7201280Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2020-11-30 17:39:252021-02-26 10:26:29National Podcast Week - The importance of keeping your content up to date
Today we are going to be talking about website security. This includes how to keep your website up-to-date, as well as what to do if you do find that you have malware on your website. We are specifically talking about WordPress websites here, and I will be sharing my screen, so if you are listening to our podcast, please head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and check out the related blog post or over to YouTube just to watch the video. The first thing that we are going to be talking about is backups and tools to utilize for backing up and why it’s important. Then we are jumping into updating your WordPress files, removing unused themes and plugins, adding a layer of security, and finally, if you’ve been hacked, what to do.
Use GoDaddy Pro, FileZilla, or Your Hosting for WordPress Backups
The first piece of this is, whenever you are talking about updating a WordPress website, you should make sure that you have backups of some sort enabled. So this could be manually going into your hosting account, downloading a copy of the database, as well as taking a copy of everything from the file manager and storing that on your computer, or you could utilize a plugin such as BackupBuddy to take a backup, or you could signup for a backup plan through your hosting account. And this might be included in your hosting, a lot of times hosting providers have backups actually included within their hosting plans, or you can do what we do for all of our websites that we manage, where we have another layer of protection through GoDaddy Pro.
This is a tool that is through GoDaddy, and I know a lot of you listeners and a lot of our clients have chosen not to work with GoDaddy for a variety of issues. There are plenty of other hosting companies out there, and we thoroughly enjoy working with a lot of them. This tool, however, is a free tool and it allows us to easily see all of the websites that we manage in one central location and see which plugins need to be updated, themes that need to be updated, and to do the backups directly through there. So we are going to be talking about GoDaddy Pro a lot. So, let me actually just jump in and I’m going to share my screen.
GoDaddy Pro Dashboard
Here we have the GoDaddy Pro dashboard for our website, for Social Speak, and I do feel kinda bad because I did have 11 updates for our plugins and one theme that I needed to update on our website, but I already recorded this video and realized I did not have any sound turned on. [chuckle] So you’re not going to be able to see me actually update our website here, but that’s okay. We all make mistakes, right? At least it’s all up-to-date now. But directly within the GoDaddy Pro dashboard, there is this backup link here, so if you were looking to update your website head on over to GoDaddy Pro and link it up to your website, your WordPress website. Now, if you do have a GoDaddy account for your hosting, you can do daily backups for free. If you do not, then you can do monthly backups for free and then upgrade if you do need to clone your website or restore a backup or download the backup or anything like that. But typically for a small website that isn’t really being updated frequently, a monthly backup is fine, and updating the plugins and theme files monthly is fine.
Daily and Monthly Backups for WordPress
Here though, I did just want to show you that we have the option for daily backups. We have some clients who are posting multiple blog posts, or updating multiple pages, adding new resources every single day, and so for them, it’s really important to have this daily backup. For those websites, we also do recommend having a backup plan in place directly through your hosting account as well, and that’s just because sometimes if the website has completely broken, it’s easier to update directly from the source rather than from a third party tool. Those plans though, can cost, I don’t know, $5 to $15 to $25 really, depending on what service and what hosting company you are working with.
The first step, again, of making sure that your website is secure and up-to-date is adding these backups. The next step is making sure that all of your WordPress files and theme files are up-to-date. The issue here is that if something hasn’t been updated recently, it opens the doors for hackers to go in and install malware. You want to make sure you have the most up-to-date PHP, and that also causes old themes and old plugins that haven’t been updated not to be compatible anymore. So this can be bad for a lot of different things, including for search engine optimization, and user experience on your website, something might just break. So you want to make sure everything is up-to-date.
I’m going to quickly jump to another website here. This is just another website that we have here, and as you can see, there are two plugins, one theme, and then the WordPress that all need to be updated. So, I’m going to just do a safe update, takes a backup, does the update and then turn, does another snapshot, another backup with the most up-to-date files that are there. So this is kind of that easy way of doing that.
Keep WordPress Plugins and Theme Files Up To Date
Now, when I did that, you noticed that there was just one, two, two different plugins that needed to be updated. Now, if a plugin is really old or a theme is really old, it might not be supported anymore and the theme developers or plugin developers might not be updating it anymore. So a plugin that we recommend in selling on your website is this plugin condition. And so, what this will do, and I’ll zoom in on the screenshot here, is it will actually have a notice for the last time something was updated. And so, this one here, this numbers plugin, for example, was updated a year ago. So most likely this might not be as compatible with WordPress as a newer version of some sort of user enrollment management plugin. This might be a plugin that they are not keeping up with anymore.
Additionally, in this screenshot right here, you see that this plugin is not even being used. It’s not active on the website. So, as you’re going through your plugins and your themes and updating them, take note if there are any that you’re not actively using. So here, I would actually recommend selecting all of these plugins that are deactivated and deleting them. These are very clearly plugins that you are not utilizing on your website, you do not need that functionality, so get rid of them. Make sure that the website files remain clean and concise so that it removes any opportunity for the hackers to get in and for malware to get on your site.
The same thing goes with themes as well. So here, let’s see if I can jump over here, I probably can. So here we only have the Enfold Theme on this website, however, when you are installing a WordPress website, oftentimes it also installs the 2020 theme, the 2019 theme, the 2016 theme, and WordPress will install a lot of themes on that initial installation. You want to make sure that you delete all of those extra themes. So in GoDaddy Pro, again, you don’t need FTP access or anything like that, you can just go to themes, you select the theme, and then you delete it. This will keep those theme files nice and clean and remove more of a chance of malware being able to get on to your site.
Remove Unused and Risky Plugins
A lot of times we see a plugin like this one, file manager plugin. Basically, this creates an FTP connection directly through your WordPress dashboard. And so, it allows any administrative user who has access to your WordPress dashboard to have access to the actual file manager on your website. And we’ve seen that this plugin in particular, but other plugins like it, have opened the doors for hackers and for malware to be installed on your website. So we highly, highly, highly recommend that you remove this sort of plugin from your website. So, I mean, even just looking at the reviews of it, hacked, hacked, hacked, hacked. Highly unsafe, avoid malware.
Consider a Security Package from Your Hosting Company
We actually had this problem with this plugin in particular before as well. Would be a great thing to do if you’re just building the website, but remove it immediately if you can. So if you are looking to add a layer of security and protection onto your website, we recommend registering for a website security package through your hosting account, and again, depending on what hosting plan you have, this might already be included, but GoDaddy, for example, has one where it includes a firewall, so any site visitor has to go through the firewall and then they can view the site. And so, this just allows it to make sure that no files are being adjusted by folks who shouldn’t have access to the website in the first place.
If your site has been hacked, they also have this great plan… Well, I guess all of these plans do this, but the security plan, this Express plan, basically puts your site at the top of the line to have an engineer go file by file and remove all of the malware and then keep you up-to-date on the progress. If you’re just kind of worried about it and you don’t really know that you have malware on the site, the deluxe version is a great choice, and this is kind of a reactive sort of plan. The Express plan is more of a proactive plan, where it has all the bells and whistles, and again, puts you at the top of the list.
Monitor Website for Malware with Google Search Console
You can also monitor your site through the Search Console, as well as through, on pro sites, there’s the security plan as well. And so, whenever you want to add a new thing to the site, a screen like that will come up and a monthly check is free, and then if you want to do the premium one, it costs less than a dollar a month. So, very, very worthwhile. Some hosting plans, this website, I believe, is hosted on Bluehost, but some hosting plans, such as all the ones on GoDaddy, the security check is free. So you don’t actually have to even pay for the essential plan per month, you can just add to GoDaddy Pro and activate it for free.
One thing that we have found, however, is that malware is getting more and more advanced, so you’re not necessarily going to be able to even tell that you have malware through these scans. The scans might show everything correct, but if you click a link from Facebook on a mobile phone and it’s your first time visiting the site in a month, you might be redirected to another site, for example. Or if you click from Chrome versus Safari, versus Firefox, you might experience the malware. So it’s important just to make sure that everything is staying up-to-date and as secure as possible so that there’s less of a chance of even having to deal with malware, to begin with.
This time of year is a great time to really make sure that your site is protected and as up-to-date as possible as you’re moving into 2021. We do, however, recommend for next year, going into your website at least monthly and making sure all the plugins and theme files and WordPress files are up-to-date. Again, you can utilize GoDaddy Pro as an option, as a tool, to make sure that you also have the backups running and the security monitoring going on, but you can do it manually as well.
Contact Our Team For WordPress Website Help
If you have questions about how to do website maintenance, please don’t hesitate to reach out, or if you’re looking for support and someone to help with this website maintenance, we are here for you. We have very affordable plans for website maintenance to help you keep your site up-to-date and clean, as well as working its best so that you’re putting your best foot forward. Please head on over to the socialspeaknetwork.com, click that free consultation button and we’ll schedule a 30-minute call just to get to know you and your needs, and then we can figure out if we are a good fit for you. Of course, if this has been helpful, we’d love for you to subscribe down below and follow us on iTunes, as well as YouTube and check out our blog. Alright, thank you so much and I’ll see you next time.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/wordpress-website-malware.png14402560Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2020-11-18 13:55:362021-02-26 10:37:31Website Maintenance and Malware for 2021
Instagram has grown to a whopping 1 billion monthly active users. The competition on the platform is palpable. If you’re wondering how you can shine in this overcrowded space, you’re not alone.
Growing your Instagram following organically can be a challenge, but it’s not impossible. In this blog post, we’ll share with you some foolproof ways to take your Instagram game to the next level.
Get to know your target audience
The number one rule for marketing is to know who you’re posting for. You’re not supposed to please everyone. If you do, you’ll end up pleasing no one. Remember, the only truly valuable Instagram followers are the people who care about and engage with your brand.
Start by getting to know your audience well. Once you do, it will be easier for you to create content in a way that would appeal to the right people.
Don’t compromise on content
Today, people use Instagram not just to connect with their friends, but also to connect with their favorite brands and shop online. In fact, 80% of Instagram users follow at least one business account. That’s a lot of people who could potentially see and engage with your brand. followers to pause and engage with your posts.
Content is the lifeblood of your Instagram account, so make sure that you create interesting posts that will capture the attention of your target audience. Remember, there’s a lot more noise on Instagram feeds these days. If you want to stand out, then you need good quality content.
Consistency is key
If you have no plans of spending money and still curate a high-quality audience that will connect with your brand, then you need to post consistently.
According to a study that was conducted by Buffer, profiles that posted seven or more times a week gain more followers faster than those that post less frequently.
Start by planning your content strategically. Curate your Instagram feed and schedule them in advance. This will not only help you reach your target audience at peak times, it also ensures that everything fits together visually before you post.
Also, creating a consistent brand story and aesthetic is a must. You want to give your grid a consistent look and feel. Your posts should easily be recognizable at a glance.
Embrace Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are great because they help you stay top of mind for your audience. It allows you to maintain visibility in your followers’ feeds and gives you an opportunity to be creative with your content.
There is so much potential with Instagram stories to engage with your followers and attract new ones. Plus, there are plenty of fun features to experiment with such as chat stickers, questions, poll, filters etc. Utilize these features to keep your content fresh.
Use quality hashtags
Hashtags could be your best bet for growing a fast following on Instagram. Use hashtags in your posts or stories to expose them to people who aren’t still following you. The right hashtags can expose your image to a larger and more targeted audience.
Find out what hashtags are most popular among your target audience and your industry. It’s also a good idea to create a unique hashtag that reflects your brand. Don’t forget to use them in your posts and stories.
Collaborate with influencers
One effective way to grow your reach is following is to collaborate with influencers in your niche. Don’t be afraid to reach out to see if you can work together.
One survey suggests that 60% of users say they’d follow a brand on Instagram after seeing it promoted by an influencer they trust.
Run contests and promotions
If you want to boost your follower count organically in a short period of time, running contests is a great place to start. In fact, an Instagram contest or giveaway can help you grow your followers 70% faster than if you didn’t host a contest at all.
When running contests, make sure you’re giving away prizes that your target audience will feel compelled to have. Otherwise, you run the risk of attracting followers that don’t care about your business or the services you provide.
Spread the word
Most people have more than one social media account, so don’t silo yourself on Instagram alone. Talk about your Instagram account on other social media platforms as well. Think specifically about other social media platforms with the potential to reach a larger audience, like Facebook.
It is also a good idea to add Instagram links to your website. This is a great and cost-effective way to increase your fan base.
Final thoughts
There is no doubt that Instagram is a great platform for marketers and entrepreneurs. But with more than 25 million business accounts on the platform, it can be a tough battleground for those who do not have a well-planned growth strategy.
While it is possible to grow your Instagram followers organically, you need patience and consistency. Remember, building an authentic and engaged audience doesn’t happen overnight.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/8-Ways-to-Grow-Your-Instagram-Following-Organically.png12602240Kathlyn Angeleshttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngKathlyn Angeles2020-11-11 08:00:552020-11-10 17:57:418 Ways to Grow Your Instagram Following Organically
This is our first podcast for our monthly Q&A series. In this podcast, we will go over – Why is it so important to do a social media audit and get rid of old accounts? – Does blogging help your SEO and how can you find keywords/phrases to blog about? – Why is it important to mix up your social media content? – What are a few tools we use to make our digital marketing life a bit easier? – Why should you be running Facebook ads, even if you feel they haven’t been successful before.
Today we are going to talk about growing followers organically on social media. This is something that our clients ask all the time: “How do I increase my followers? How do I increase my followers?” And you can do it organically. We’re gonna talk about Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn company pages today, okay so we have a lot to cover.
Twitter
With your Twitter account, you need to make sure you are tweeting consistently. So whatever that schedule is, make sure you’re sticking to it. Maybe it’s one time a day, two times a day, three times a day. Optimize your posting time, so try different times. Thinking of your ideal client or patient, when are they home? Usually, Twitter’s always done by your mobile device, so most likely they’re on Twitter from their phone, so think of lunches, break times, maybe if your patients are parents, maybe later in the evening. Get creative with that posting time. It doesn’t always have to be 9:00 to 5:00. It could be at 6:00 AM, it could be 9:00 PM. So playing around with those posting times and seeing where, what times, and what days you’re getting the most engagement. You may be thinking, okay because you’re open Monday through Friday that that’s when you need to post, but maybe doing weekend posts is a great idea as well.
Post visual content. So Twitter used to be just all text. It doesn’t have to be now. Upload images, upload videos, make it eye-appealing, and utilize hashtags. We will put in the description below different hashtag tools to help you, but Twitter and Instagram, even LinkedIn, they thrive off of those hashtags, and you can follow different hashtags. People are always searching certain hashtags, and those are the people they follow. So look for those hashtags, follow the people that are utilizing those hashtags, make sure that you are Retweeting. So have a list of people in your industry that are like-minded. Not necessarily competition, but maybe it’s news articles. So if you are a OB-GYN, you may wanna look at the Women’s Health Magazine and Retweet stories that they’re posting. Look at those resources and make sure that you are utilizing those Retweets because then their audience will start to see you as well.
One great thing with all social media is that famous little search button on every single social media platform, whether it’s in the right-hand corner or in the middle, up top. Usually, it’s always up top. With Instagram, there’s a search icon when you open up the mobile app and search for certain people. If you are looking for… If your office is only within a 25-mile radius in that location, search for people in that location. Start following more people, and set a goal to maybe follow 20 people per week. One thing with all platforms and this is just a personal preference, but when you’re following people, don’t go follower happy, okay, and what I mean by that is you’ll look at some accounts and they’ll say they’re following 1000 people, but they only have 60 followers. Well, that ratio, it just seems kind of spammy, so when you start growing your followers, follow people, but do ’em in low numbers. So follow maybe five a day, 20 per week. Figure out what that looks like and make sure that those people are following you back. The more people that you follow that are in your niche, in your target market, they’re more likely to follow you back. Okay. So those are just a few tips for Twitter.
Instagram
Let’s go into Instagram. So again, you’ll see these… The same tips are, again, staying consistent, making sure that you’re posting at least once a day on Instagram, utilizing different content, trying live videos, doing Instagram stories, doing Instagram TV, along with just your regular posts. Share content from other users. So it’s user-generated content, so mentioning them, “This is a great article or a great story from so-and-so,” and make sure that you are collaborating with others. So thinking of your referral partners, is there a way where you guys can share a post every week or a couple of posts per month? How can you work with your referral partners on a much bigger scale to be able to help grow each other’s social media? Look at your analytics. Find out… Instagram does a great job with letting you know who’s looking at your posts, what days are your best days and what times, and then also your demographics. So where are they at, are they male, female, what stories are getting the most engagement? So paying attention to your analytics so you can make sure you’re giving that content back to them and that they are engaging with it.
Engage with your fans. Every follower you have… And again, you can search for your target market and follow them, engage with them, take the time to like their posts, to comment on them. Also look at those resources, those same people that you are gonna be retweeting on Twitter or sharing stories on Facebook, look at what they’re posting and start commenting on it because if they are a resource that you like, again, if it’s Women’s Health Magazine, and you start commenting on their stuff on Instagram, their followers are gonna see those comments as well. So being active and engaging with these platforms is a great way to be able to increase your followers. Again, it takes time. It’s not gonna be an overnight success by any means, but to have somebody that’s dedicated to your social media to make sure that they are reaching those correct people, that is key.
Facebook
Facebook, you can always invite your friends to like your page. So that’s always a great starting point. And then really with Facebook having your icon on, and all your social media icons and your email signature, having a sign at the front desk, follow us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, you know, because each person is gonna have that social media platform that they like, and they trust, and that’s kind of their go-to. So giving them the option of where they wanna follow you and engage with you as great.
So being able to put those signs up there, you know, on your marketing materials, but then with Facebook, working on having a little bit of ad spend, and you’ll see with especially with LinkedIn, as we get into that, you know, running those targeted ads, and having like campaigns following, follow our campaigns running, that’s where we’ve been able to see the most growth with our clients. And again, this is a paid feature, this isn’t an organic feature.
Start by inviting your friends and family to like your page. You’re always gonna have more friends because that’s where you most likely started doing Facebook was having a personal profile, and then you created your business page. So you could also have your employees of your company, also invite people to like the Facebook page. So consistency, inviting and then working on some of the paid options of boosting and running a paid like campaign to reach your target market.
LinkedIn
Going into LinkedIn, so you have your LinkedIn profile, and LinkedIn company pages are really growing. LinkedIn, what they’re doing with their platform I mean, it’s huge. And it’s a great b2b tool. So again, thinking of those referral partners, and inviting them to like the page, inviting your contacts to like your page, adding your employees to your page. And so they can say, “Okay, but it’s not just this one person, but they have a whole team and what their roles are.
Then for them to share the page to their personal profile, and for them to invite their contacts to like that page. So that process is really important too, is really to get your employees involved with your LinkedIn company page. And so that’s a great way to grow your followers organically with LinkedIn, you know, utilizing LinkedIn groups and Facebook groups as well, finding those targeted groups, being able to… Now with Facebook, you can share your content from your business page into a group, which is awesome. With LinkedIn, you can’t, but you can still post and be able to mention the company page.
Utilizing those LinkedIn groups, inviting your connections to like, following the page, and sharing your content from the company page to your personal profile, as well, is a great way to grow those followers organically.
YouTube
So last but not least, is YouTube. YouTube is a little bit different. It’s not so much of a social media platform, as it is more of a search engine. And really, that’s what it is. It is a video search engine. Google owns YouTube. So having videos on there is great for your SEO as well.
A few things to help your channel be found and to increase those subscribers to your channel is making sure you’re utilizing playlists and that they’re clear. So when people go there, they can see what type, what categories, and that’s really what the playlists are, they are categories that you have of different videos. Publishing longer videos, so having a mix between short tips, you know those three to five-minute videos, and then the longer ones that are 10 plus minutes that are really educating your audience on certain topics.
You know, maybe again, I always like to use the OB-GYN’s example, you know, maybe you’re talking about a eating plan for a pregnant woman or a birth plan or certain tips. These videos can be longer because they’re going to be educational. Maybe you’ll put together a PowerPoint presentation, and you’re walking through that as you’re talking. So publishing 10-plus minute videos is a great way to increase your subscribers.
Promoting your videos on an end-screen. Using those options that YouTube gives you, it will say end screen, you can say subscribe to our channel there, it will also allow you to promote your… Like another playlist, or if you’re doing a video that’s specific to that playlist, you want them to stay in that loop of that playlist. And so utilizing those tools to be able to do that.
Reply to every comment, if you get comments, and a lot of them, not a lot of them, but some of them can be spam. And just, you know, like it, but reply to the comments that need to be… That need to have a reply because those are gonna be the people that are gonna subscribe to your channel. Another one is just making sure your channel’s optimized completely. So having a tagline with your channel, making sure you have your channel app up top, and it’s clear and that they can… YouTube does this where it will show you what it’s gonna look like on a computer, on a TV because smart TVs people are watching YouTube all the time from their TV, and then what it’s gonna look like on their mobile device.
So you wanna make sure that that header is clear so when they come to it, it’s not cut off on every device that they are watching your videos from. They know exactly who it is. Making sure that you have a clear description, that your contact information, your website is in there, so they can reach you if they need to from your channel, but then also each video making sure you have that clear description, that keyword friendly title, the tag words, you know, making sure you have a YouTube thumbnail.
Just going through that little checklist to make sure everything is filled out correctly with your channel and your videos. Then also when you’re doing these videos, we always take our video and we put it onto YouTube and then we take the code from YouTube and we embed our videos into our blog post, which is a great way to get viewers to watch your videos, promote them on social media, have a video within your email signature, use them in your newsletters, people love listening and watching videos. So being able to utilize them in multiple places and having them link back to YouTube is a great way to be able to grow your subscribers.
I know we covered a lot today, if you need help putting together this strategy, this… And again, what we talked about today was really looking at that organic growth. You can run ads on all of these platforms to increase your followers and that we do help our clients with both the organic growth and the paid growth to make sure that you’re reaching your target market. If you need help with that and would like to talk more about the increasing your followers on all these platforms, head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and click on free consultation.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Growing-Your-Followers.png7201280Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2020-10-28 15:40:172020-10-28 15:41:36How to Build Your Followers on Social Media
There is no denying that videos are the most engaging type of content. They bring concepts to life, captures attention, and engages viewers. But let’s face it. Creating quality video content requires a lot of time and effort. It only makes sense to maximize its potential by converting it into different content formats.
Repurposing content doesn’t just save you time and resources, it also increases reach. Ready to stretch your video content as far as it can go? We listed down some of the most effective ways to repurpose your video content.
Create branded quote graphics with snippets from your video
Are you creating branded graphics for your practice? If not, then you should be. Branded graphics tell your story with visuals, attract your target audience, and create a uniform look across all your available channels.
Create branded graphics by using quotes from any of your video content. Use tools like Canva to create a visually appealing quote graphic. Make sure that your brand colors and fonts are reflected in your images. You want to ensure that your branding is consistent across your social channels.
Turn video content into a blog post
Are you running low on ideas for your blog? Consider turning your video content into a blog post. You can do this by either creating a blog post on that particular topic or posting the transcript of the video. Make sure to add the video recording in your blog post.
While video content is great, search engines like Google cannot crawl videos. By posting the transcriptions in the form of blogs posts, you’re creating content for Google to crawl. This can help your content rank in a number of ways. Plus, it provides a way to broaden the reach of your video content.
Trim clips and share them on Instagram
Videos are one of the most common types of content shared on Instagram, and for good reasons. They capture the attention of your target audience and get better engagement.
Instagram videos can be anywhere between 3 and 60 seconds long, depending on the post type. Instead of trying to cram everything you want to say into a 60-second video, make a one-minute trailer for Instagram. Find the most important tidbits that you can share with your audience. Or better yet, find a hook that tells people what value they’ll get from watching the whole thing.
Create a webinar highlight reel
Webinars take so much time and work to organize. Not milking every cent of its worth is a huge mistake. Offering a 5-minute highlight reel will help you extract even more value from your webinar.
A highlight reel can be beneficial for those who missed the webinar. It provides a short digest of what they missed. At the same time, it creates the understanding that they’ll have to show up in future webinars if they want to get the full content.
You can also use a highlight reel to promote future webinars and attract new audiences. This will give prospects an idea of your style, tone, and what to expect if they participate in the webinar.
Turn your videos into a podcast episode
Podcasts seem to be a growing trend, and it’s here to stay. If you’ve been planning to start podcast, but didn’t have the time for it, then this may be the solution to your problem.
If you’ve accumulated a ton of video content, you may want to repurpose your best content into podcast episodes.
Extraordinary podcasts are born out of everyday conversations. If you’ve had interviews or conversations via Zoom or Google Meet, you can also share them as podcasts for everyone to hear. This is one simple way to make the most out of your video content without a lot of work.
Use patient testimonial as a video ad
Patient testimonials help build your credibility. If you’re looking to build a larger, more invested audience, you want to use customer testimonials to promote your brand.
Providing social proof and real customer testimonials is one of the most effective ways to gain the trust of potential clients. Let your happy clients and patients do the talking and make an impact on your conversion rates. Make sure, though, that you got the patient’s approval first before using the video for this purpose.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/6-Ways-to-Maximize-Your-Video-Content.png12602240Kathlyn Angeleshttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngKathlyn Angeles2020-10-21 10:38:302020-10-20 18:13:006 Ways to Maximize Your Video Content
This month we have been asked numerous times for a logo to be centered on the WordPress Website. As we typically utilize the Enfold Theme for our WordPress Websites, we needed to do some customizations to the header and menu to make the formatting work.
It is simple enough, however, with just a bit of CSS to center the logo on the menu so menu items appear on either side (and in line) with the logo image!
/*————————*/
/* CSS – Logo center split menu
/*————————*/
@media only screen and (min-width: 780px) {
/*In the below code nth-child(x) the value of x should be half the number of total menu items*/
#top #header .av-main-nav li:nth-child(3) {
/* Adjust the width of the logo */
margin-right:150px;
}
When a logo is centered on Enfold using CSS, the social media icons appear behind the menu. To fix this, simply add the following to your General Styling Settings under Quick CSS to have the icons Float Right.
#top nav .social_bookmarks { float: right; }
This video tutorial for the Enfold Theme goes into the Header and Menu Settings specifically for:
Appending search icon to the Main Menu (Theme Options – Main Menu)
Adding Social Icons to the Main Menu (Theme Options – Header – Extra Elements)
If there are other items you have questions about on Enfold, please let us know! And don’t forget to subscribe to the Social Speak Network YouTube Channel!
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/enfold-theme-menu-customizations.jpg5951203Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2020-10-14 04:43:472020-10-14 14:58:09Enfold Heading and Menu Settings - Center Logo on Menu
