Social media has tremendous power, especially for businesses. It allows you to build a relationship with your audience and generate leads. While it provides an easy and convenient way to connect with your audience, this connectivity carries risks.
In order to ensure that your business creates a respectful, valuable, and welcomed presence on social media, it is important to adhere to the etiquette. Keep in mind that social media is a public forum. One small mistake can have a negative effect on your brand’s reputation. A careless Facebook post or tweet can spiral into a full-blown crisis.
Here is some basic social media etiquette for businesses to help you get started.
Build a positive social media image
Social media provides the perfect platform for you to get maximum exposure and strengthen your brand image.
Building a positive social media image means building a reputation. The best way to do this is to build a relationship with your audience. Create content that would get people talking. Make sure to respond to messages and comments to keep the conversation going.
Spread positivity by sharing uplifting content and inspirational news. Celebrate your wins and spotlight your employees on social media. This puts your company or organization in a good light by showing your audience that you care about your people.
Avoid over-sharing
Consistency is the key to social media success. You need to have a posting schedule and stick to it. Your audience will forget that you exist if you don’t post regularly. However, posting too often can annoy your fans and followers.
According to studies, one or two posts a day is enough to maintain an active presence on social media. This will help keep you relevant without becoming a nuisance. You are likely to see a 50% drop in engagement per post if you post 3 times or more per day.
Be self-centered in small doses
Most businesses use social media to provide their audience with updates about their business. Often, they use it to advertise their products and services. Although it’s fine to use social to promote your business, make sure that you encourage two-way communication. Don’t just bombard people with promotions, updates, and advertisements, communicate with them.
Use social media to engage your audience. If you want people to buy your products or use your services, you need to gain their trust. To do that, you first need to build a relationship with them. Strike a balance between entertaining, informative, and promotional to keep your audience engaged. Also, encourage people to comment on your posts and join in on the discussion. Ask questions, respond to their comments, share user-generated content.
Creating a social media calendar will not only help you plan and visualize your social media content but will also prevent you from publishing poorly written content.
Tame your hashtags
Hashtags can be quite beneficial to your social media marketing plan. They can help put your content in front of people and expand your reach. They can be advantageous as long as you don’t go overboard. But if you use too much of them, they can be distracting. It can also make you look desperate.
Just because you can use 30 hashtags on Instagram, it doesn’t mean you should Use hashtags wisely. To make sure that you get more engagement, choose hashtags that are relevant to your business. For best results, create a unique hashtag for your business.
Don’t badmouth your competition
Some businesses badmouth their competitors in the hopes of discrediting them. However, this can do more harm than good to your business. You probably already hate your competitors, but bashing them makes you look silly and childish.
Focus on the great things about your business and keep the conversations positive. As the old adage goes, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.”
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Social-Media-Etiquette-Golden-Rules-for-Posting-on-Business-Accounts.png1200800Caitlin McDonaldhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngCaitlin McDonald2021-10-27 09:53:422021-10-22 13:38:56Social Media Etiquette: Golden Rules for Posting on Business Accounts
In today’s social media era, engagement is like a form of currency. The more likes, comments, and shares you get, the better your online visibility is.
Instagram engagement isn’t just about the number of followers. It’s more about how your audience interacts with your brand. The good news is that boosting your engagement isn’t rocket science.
Wondering how to improve your Instagram engagement? These six tips are all you need.
Have a visually consistent Instagram feed
A visually consistent gallery is a great way to make an impression and earn yourself a follow. When creating social media posts, don’t forget to spare a thought for building your overall visual brand.
You might want to start by deciding on a color palette or selecting 2-3 filters you can maintain throughout all your posts. For instance, you can create a visual feed that features some light colors. Or you can go all black and white.
Of course, you want your Instagram feed to look appealing to your audience. But you also want to make sure that it’s in tune with your brand.
Write engaging captions
While high-quality images are necessary, they aren’t enough to capture the attention of your audience. You should also include interesting and engaging captions.
There is no such thing as a perfect caption. But people are more likely to like and comment if they find your posts helpful or if they can relate to them.
You want to create captions that evoke emotions, highlight the value of your products and services, or something people will find valuable. You can share a story your audience can relate to, provide actionable tips, or share something informative.
Embrace Instagram stories
More than Instagram posts, Instagram stories pique immediate interest and engagement for most users. They sit at the top of the screen. They’re displayed with a colored ring and only take a few seconds to watch.
A simple yet clever way to increase your story’s engagement is to use stickers. They’re fun and will make your stories more interactive. You can use the poll stickers to encourage your audience to provide feedback or get in on their preferences. Question stickers are a great way to connect with your audience or answer questions about your products or services.
Add geolocation to your posts.
Most businesses encourage their customers and clients to check in on their location. However, many fail to realize the benefits of adding geolocation to their posts.
Make geotagging a key part of your social media strategy if you have a physical location. Adding a place to your posts can expand the reach of your posts and make it easier for users to find you. Instagram users will be able to see where your business is located on a map and how far it is from their location. They can even see recent posts from this location.
Activate Instagram Reels
Are you already using Instagram reels? If you haven’t already, now is the best time to get started.
Instagram reels are short-form videos that allow you to express your creativity and bring your brand to life. It will enable you to play with creative tools and add effects and music to make your videos pop. It is an excellent way to share sneak peeks of your products and services or show what goes on behind the scenes.
Time your posts for maximum effect
Instagram’s algorithm loves posts that generate more engagements in a short period. In fact, the more engagement your posts get, the more likely will it appear in users’ feeds.
You can limit your engagement when you post at the wrong time. This is why it’s essential to discover your best time to post. This can help you reach more people, increase your engagement, and grow your brand.
Every Instagram account has different followers with different time zones. Spend time tracking and monitoring your Instagram analytics to find out when your audience is most active.
Final thoughts
Amplifying your Instagram engagement is no longer just about posting high-quality photos. It’s also important to get to know your audience, interact with them regularly, and double down on creating content that will keep them coming back for more.
If you need help developing a concrete strategy to increase your Instagram engagement, we’re here to help. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation call, and we’ll help you build your brand and cultivate an audience online.
In the last decade, social media became the most influential marketing tool. Every business, big and small, has incorporated social media into its marketing campaign.
While the practice of social media marketing has evolved over the years, there are still a lot of myths and misconceptions around it. Worse, a lot of people are still holding on to them simply because they find it hard to stay up-to-date on what’s really going on with social media.
To help you separate facts from fiction, we listed down some of the most common social media myths you need to leave behind in 2021. Believing these myths will only cripple your marketing campaign.
Social media is only for young people
Some people think that social media is just for millennials and the younger generation. That’s not really an accurate picture of social media users today. In fact, studies suggest that a huge majority of the U.S. adult population is on Facebook. 52% of adults aged 55-64 have a social media account.
Almost everybody is on social media. Having a business account will help you reach your target audience. If you don’t already have one for your business, then you’re losing a lot of great opportunities.
Set up an account in every social media channel to maximize reach
We all know that social media makes it easier for businesses to connect with their audience. But that doesn’t mean that you should set up and maintain an account on every platform. If you do, you’ll only be wasting your time.
In order to yield great results, you need to know which platform your audience frequently uses and then focus your marketing efforts there. Maintaining a presence across different platforms can help your business, but if it isn’t helping you out, just cut it loose.
You need a lot of followers to succeed
Most people think that more is always better. Sure, having millions of followers is great. It means that people are familiar with your brand. But more than the number of followers, what’s more important is the type of followers you have.
Let’s say you have 100,000 followers. Sure, that’s a great thing. But it won’t benefit your business if the majority of these people are not reading or responding to your posts. What you need to focus on is interaction. It doesn’t matter if you only have 1,500 followers, just as long as these people are actually interested in what you’re selling. Having lots of likes is only valuable if you have the right people following you.
It’s okay to use the same posts on all social media platforms
Most businesses publish the same content on all their social media platforms to save time. That’s understandable. However, you also need to understand that different platforms cater to different types of audiences.
LinkedIn, for instance, is a professional platform. The majority of LinkedIn users are business owners, executives, and professionals. That said, your posts should be tailored to appeal to this group.
Instagram, on the other hand, caters to younger audiences. Since it’s a visual platform, you need high-quality images and a strong brand message to succeed on this platform.
Ignoring and deleting negative comments is the best way to get rid of them
Social media is an open platform where your target audience can give you direct feedback after using your products and services. Whether you like it or not, you’ll receive some negative feedback at some point.
It might be tempting to just delete the negative comment, but this will only make the situation worse. Instead, contact the person directly and deal with the problem. It will show your audience that you care about them.
Talking about your business all the time
Social media is a great place to connect with your target audience. But that doesn’t mean you should bombard them with posts about your business.
Social media’s main purpose is to engage with your followers. Talking about your business all the time won’t do you any good. Post content that your audience will find valuable and interesting to capture the attention of your audience.
Keep the 80/20 rule in mind when creating social media posts. That means 80% of your posts should informative and entertaining, while only 20% should be about the products or service you’re offering.
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Increasing sales is undeniably the primary goal of many businesses, small and large. But the biggest challenge business owners face is how to increase traffic to their e-commerce store. Once you’ve accomplished that, your goal is to turn those visitors into paying customers.
Here are 4 simple things you can do to boost your online sales.
Post fresh content
Just because you have a website, doesn’t mean that you can relax and just wait for potential clients to visit your site. You also need to post fresh content to encourage visitors to return to your site. Having well-written content and product descriptions are important. The more they return, the more likely are they to buy your products and services.
Be honest in your sales copy
Honesty is crucial, not only in building trust in your brand; but also in improving your business’ reputation. Your goal is to show people that you are the best person to provide the products that will help solve their problems. But in order to do that, you need to add credibility to your copy. Be honest in your sales copy and include customer testimonials in your sales letter. It is through this process that people will come to trust you and feel comfortable enough to buy from you. The golden rule – Know, Like, Trust.
Go social
Social media is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness, sales, and customer satisfaction. Actively engage with prospective customers via social media. Talk to them. Answer their questions as quickly and as honestly as you can. Studies show that customers are more likely to purchase products if they receive fast and honest answers from the company.
Don’t forget about your customers once you get them to purchase your products. Send them an email, offer discounts or free shipping on their next purchase. The more attention you pay to them after they have bought something, the more likely are they to turn into repeat customers. Think relationships, not sales.
Offer fewer products
Most businesses create an extensive list of products and services, thinking they’ll get more sales if they have a little something for everyone. But the problem is that prospects will have a hard time deciding whether to buy or not when you have an exhaustive product list. Instead of trying to please everyone, you might want to streamline your products and offer one set of related products. Then, describe those products as best you can.
Also, buyers need to see the benefits of purchasing your products. Try to answer all doubts and questions your visitors may have about your products and really focus on one key set of benefits.
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When you manage several social media channels and create lots of content, it can be challenging to keep up.
A social media content calendar helps you plan your content and visualize your strategy over time. It allows plenty of time to fill the spaces with relevant content, preventing you from publishing poorly written posts. It will prevent you from going into a full panic mode since everything was planned and pre-scheduled.
Need help in creating social media content calendar? Follow the tips below.
Audit your social network
What’s great about digital marketing is that almost everything is measurable.
Take time to go through your social media accounts and posts to see how your content is received.
When auditing your social media profiles and your previous posts, you will begin to notice a trend. Identify what types of content are getting more engagements on each platform. Also, identify which posts sparked the most conversation. This will clue you in to where you should focus your efforts over the next month or two.
Define your goals
Before you start creating content, it is a good idea to ask yourself: what is the primary goal?
Do you wish to drive more traffic to your website? Are you hoping to get more leads? Or do you want to grow your following? By defining your goals early on, you’ll have a clear idea of the expected results.
Pushing out content without a clear purpose won’t benefit your business or your practice. Instead, it will only lead to wasted time, effort, and resources.
Plan your content
Once you’re clear on your goals for social media marketing, it’s time to plan your content.
When you hit a high-performing piece of content, it can be tempting to keep posting similar content week after week. While this might work initially, it will have diminishing returns over time. Come to think of it. Even the best dinner gets old if you serve it every night.
When creating content, make sure you’re not posting the same sort of content. If you do, your followers may find your posts boring and can lead to disengagement or unfollowing.
Decide on the publishing frequency
Now, it’s time to decide on the publishing frequency. You see, social media success isn’t something you can achieve overnight. It will require hard work and patience. Posting consistently on social media makes you more visible to your audience. But that doesn’t mean you should spam them with too many posts each day. Posting seldomly may cause your audience to forget you.
This is why it’s essential to choose a publishing frequency that works for you. Think about how often you can publish fresh content realistically. If you can only commit to posting three times a week, then that’s fine as long as you stick to your posting schedule.
Keep evergreen content at hand
Evergreen content is something that can provide value to your audience over long periods.
If you’ve been interviewed, you are free to share it again at a later date, so those who missed it will have the opportunity to watch it. You can also share blog posts that list out various tips and tricks. We bet most of these tips are timeless and can be shared with your audience again and again. Of course, you can also post evergreen content from other websites.
Don’t miss out on relevant moments
There are so many holidays and pseudo-holidays each year. Some marketers tend to consider social media holiday posts as “fluff’. But your audience doesn’t see it that way. As long as you keep your audience in mind, they’ll create emotional touchpoints in your marketing campaign and get the engagement you seek.
Holidays and special events are a great way to connect with your audience. You may find companies that use unusual holidays to sell their products and services. Don’t be left out – become one of them.
The year is full of special events. Do your due diligence and take note of local, national, and international holidays. Identify those holidays and somehow connect to the products or services you provide. A content calendar will reduce the risk of forgetting or missing out on these events.
Choose your publishing tool
Forget setting the alarm to remind yourself to post. Instead, choose a publishing tool that will help you make the most of your time.
Automation helps you save time, achieve consistency in your social media marketing efforts, and gives you greater control over the content.
Buffer, Hootsuite, and SproutSocial are just some of the best tools that can help you streamline and automate your social media content so that you can focus on more critical aspects of your business.
Final thoughts
A well-thought-out and organized social media calendar serves as a framework for what you plan to share and promote across all social platforms.
If you need help planning and creating a social media content calendar, please let us know. Book a 30-minute consultation call with us, and we’ll help you take your social media marketing game to the next level.
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LinkedIn is an amazing networking tool. It provides a valuable opportunity to connect with decision makers, business leaders, and other professionals within your industry. That said, it is best to include LikedIn into your social media marketing mix.
An optimized LinkedIn profile will contribute to better networking opportunities and help you stand out from the competition.
Need help optimizing your LinkedIn profile? Here are 6 easy tips to get you started.
Create a banner photo that represents your brand
This is the background image at the top of your profile. It is usually the first thing people see when they visit your profile. Optimizing this section will help you stand out, attract ideal clients, and woo them into your funnel.
Your banner image should capture the full picture of who you are and what you can offer. Think of it as your company’s billboard. It’s the perfect place to showcase your work, products, or services in a creative way. For example, you can use a quote that describes the service you provide, a picture of your office space, or tools you use in your everyday work.
Don’t forget to include a clear call to action to encourage visitors to take the desired action.
Choose the right profile photo
Your profile picture matters. It reminds people that there is a human being behind your online persona.
According to LinkedIn, profiles with professional head shots get 14 times more views and nine times more connection requests than those who don’t. So if you want to increase your acceptance and engagement rate, you need to invest in your profile picture.
It might seem obvious, but your profile picture should be up-to-date and professional-looking. However, professional doesn’t necessarily mean serious or intense. Smiling makes you look more approachable. So choose a profile photo that looks professional, authentic, and confident because that’s what you want to convey.
Do not use a selfie, your company logo, group photo, or a cropped picture.
Make your headline more than just a job title
A headline is the line underneath your name. It lets you communicate your entire professional brand in under 5 seconds and give prospects a reason to click on your profile.
Simply adding your current job title and company name isn’t going to work. You want your headline to be impressive and attention-grabbing. It should explain exactly who you are, what you do, and what you can bring to the table. Take time to create one solid statement that shows your awesomeness in 120 characters or less.
Turn your summary into a story
Profile visitors are hoping to get a glimpse into what makes you unique professionally.
While the headline allows just 120 characters, you’re given about 2,000 characters for the summary. Here’s your chance to share your story and blow people away with a 360-degree snapshot of who you are, what you have to offer, and what makes you awesome.
LinkedIn only shows the first three lines of your summary, so make it count. Start with a catchy hook that would encourage readers to click “see more”.
Tell a cohesive story, offering an overview of your skills, career highlights, unique value proposition, and your mission. Make sure you focus not only on what you do, but also on why it matters.
Be sure to incorporate keywords relevant keywords in your summary to improve your profile’s search visibility. Lastly, end your summary with a clear and concise call to action.
Highlight your experiences
Your work experiences are a big part of who you are today, and you should include them on your LinkedIn profile.
List down all the relevant jobs you deem relevant to where you want your career to go. Include a short overview of what the job entails. Use action words to show what you did, the impact you’ve made, as well as what you’ve accomplished in each position.
Get endorsed
One great way to have your skills validated by others is to get endorsements from other LinkedIn users. These seemingly simple endorsements can help make you and your profile stand out from the millions of users on the platform.
You are free to add up to 50 skills on your profile. Sure, having lots of skills can be quite impressive. However, there is no point in adding 25 skills that do nothing to help you stand out.
Be strategic with your endorsed skills and only list down skills you want to be known for. Then, have people in your network endorse you for these skills. Endorse fellow professionals and they are more likely to return the favor.
When Instagram stories were first introduced in 2016, most users didn’t even give it much attention. They thought of it as a “copycat” of Snapchat. After all, Snapchat came up with the idea first, right? It was a bold, unthinkable move… or so we thought.
Over the years, Instagram stories have continually evolved, introducing new features that businesses can take advantage of to engage with their audience. Eventually, it has leapfrogged its competitors and actually became a better version of Snapchat.
Instagram stories are something you should consider incorporating into your social media marketing strategy. Here are 8 reasons you should give it a try.
Preserve a high-quality business profile
Normally, the content you publish on Instagram gets saved on your profile. But with stories, the content you share disappears after 24 hours. That means you can share as much as you want throughout the day without cluttering your profile with less-than-perfect images.
Now, you can treat your profile as a portfolio, showcasing only your best and evergreen content.
Stay on top of mind
Instagram puts stories at the top of your feed, marked with a purple ring. This indicates that there is a new story published. This feature enables you to stay top of the feed – and mind – of your followers. With stories, you no longer have to compete for a spot in your follower’s feeds.
Instagram seems to favor accounts that use stories often. If you want to stay connected with your followers and show up at the very top of the newsfeeds, then you need to bring in new ones. Don’t just post stories, watch other accounts’ stories too!
Have some fun with your audience
Instagram stories have tons of features that encourage audience engagement – using stickers, taking polls, asking questions, linking music, and so much more. Dressing up your content with these features can work wonders for driving more audience interaction.
With stories, you have the freedom to let loose and have some fun with your audience. You can experiment with different types of content and test out what works. Plus, you don’t have to worry about making each post so polished. In fact, more and more consumers find unpolished and goofy content increasingly endearing.
Show another side to your brand
It can be difficult to show the fun side of your brand on Instagram since you want to maintain the quality of your feed, but stories allow you to show another side to your brand.
Instagram stories let you humanize your brand. It enables you to add a personal touch to how you engage with your audience and showcase your products and services in exciting ways.
You can use stories to share your ideas with the community, ask them questions, or share some out-of-the-box content. You can also try showing some behind-the-scenes videos, feature people who are working behind your brand or share photos and videos from team events. Light-hearted, humorous posts also work well in helping you build rapport with your audience.
Grow your audience
Instagram Stories are discoverable. Meaning, even non-followers can see your stories. This provides an excellent opportunity to reach a wider audience. If your content is interesting and engaging enough, this could lead people to check out your profile and follow you.
Instagram stories are a must if you’re looking to expand your reach and grow your audience. But if you need more tips on how to Grow Your Instagram Following Organically, we have a separate blog post for that.
Real-time marketing
Instagram stories are usually real-time, which makes them feel more human and authentic, and people like that.
Instagram Live is a growing trend, and for good reasons. Live videos allow followers to see you face-to-face and take a peek as to what happens behind the scenes. Here, you’re developing real conversation, and people appreciate it when you’re genuine with them.
Going live can also be a great strategy if you’re looking for an instant engagement boost. It triggers a notification to followers who are using the app at that moment. You can live stream events, host Q&A sessions, or just to speak directly to your audience.
You won’t be bombarding your audience
Being active on Instagram is good, but you don’t want to annoy your followers either. This is where Instagram stories come in handy.
With stories, you can post as much as you want without being intrusive. The stories appear on top of a user’s Instagram feed and it’s highlighted when there’s a new post. Users can watch them at their convenience or choose not to view them at all.
Create buzz around a deal
These short, immersive clips are visually impactful and come with a range of features that are sure to capture the attention of your audience. The temporary 24-hour time frame is a great way to create a buzz around a deal or event.
When used appropriately, Instagram stories can help you promote discounts, deals, and events, and even urge people to take decisive action quickly.
Final thoughts
More than half a billion people consume Instagram stories on a daily basis. It’s a great opportunity to open new pathways to increase engagement and brand awareness. If you’re not using stories to your advantage, now is the time to get started. Use Instagram stories to share ideas in a creative way or tell stories about your product or services.
If you need help creating a more solid Instagram marketing strategy, we’re here to help you out. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation so we can get to know you and your business better, and see how we can be of help.
In today’s digital world, social media has become the go-to place for brands and businesses. It’s no longer optional. It’s an essential way to reach your audience, generate leads, and grow your business.
As someone who has worked as a digital marketer for years, it pains me to see businesses and healthcare providers who struggle to get results on social media because they keep making the same mistakes over and over again. They may seem like minor mistakes, but they can cost you reach, engagement, and even followers.
Here are seven social media marketing mistakes you need to avoid.
Buying followers
Having a massive following on social media is impressive. You might be tempted to buy followers, especially if you’re struggling to gain online traction, but please don’t. Why? Because purchased followers are likely bots and inactive accounts.
What’s the point of having 10,000 followers when no one even reads or engages with your post? Plus, Instagram recognizes and purges fake accounts. So buying followers is nothing but a waste of money.
Not having a social media marketing plan
Doing social media marketing without a plan is like driving a car without knowing where you want to go. The last thing you want to spend countless hours creating content without a clear objective.
So ask yourself, what do you want to achieve?
Is it to generate leads?
Is it to increase brand awareness?
Is it to increase the engagement rate?
Having a clear vision of what you want to accomplish will be easier for you to measure results. Thus, allowing you to create a concrete plan of action to outline what you want to achieve.
Being boring
There are more than 8.9 million posts per day on Instagram alone. With millions of posts being published every day, it can be easy to get lost in the noise.
If you want to stand out from the competition, you need to be different. Use different content types. Share videos, visually appealing images, and mix them up with plain texts.
Keep your images and videos as high quality as possible. Most importantly, try to make your captions compelling while adding value to your audience.
Being on all social media platforms
New social media platforms pop up almost every day. Most business owners try to open an account on different social media platforms, hoping it would help them reach a wider audience. Sure, it can help increase your reach, but is it worth your time?
The key is to identify which social platform your audience uses the most and then focus your time and effort into engaging your target audience. The last thing you want is to spread yourself thin across too many platforms.
Focusing on quantity over quality
Social Media Week recommends posting on social media 5-10 times a week to increase engagement. That means you need to post at least one post a day to get results.
But here’s the thing… Just because you’re posting regularly, it doesn’t mean you’ll get positive results. If you want to increase your engagement rate, focus on publishing your quality content rather than the number of posts.
It doesn’t matter if you publish posts five times a week, as long your audience finds them interesting and valuable.
Failing to engage with your followers
So you regularly post content on social media. That’s great! But the question is, do you engage with your followers?
Social media is a two-way engagement platform. You can’t just post content and then leave. We know creating high-quality posts can be time-consuming, but you also need to make time to engage with your followers.
Ask questions. If someone asks a question, answer them. Interact with people who comment on your post. Showing your followers there’s a human behind your page goes a long way in building a relationship with your audience.
Deleting negative comments
Negative comments are unavoidable. At some point, you’ll come across a dissatisfied client or someone who misunderstands your message.
It can be tempting to delete negative comments on social media, but please resist the urge to do so. Why? It can imply that you don’t care about the person’s feelings, giving them enough reason to dislike your brand.
The first step to resolving a conflict is to apologize sincerely. Then, invite the commenter to send you a private message so you can deal with their problem privately. Use this as an opportunity to make the situation right.
Final thoughts
We all make mistakes, and sometimes, we aren’t even aware of them. They may seem like minor mistakes, but they can negatively affect your business in the long run. The first step is to become aware of these mistakes.
If you need help with social media marketing, please feel free to reach out to us for a free 30-minute consultation call. We can help you create a social media strategy to help you reach your prospects online.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/7-Social-Media-Marketing-Mistakes-You-Need-To-Avoid-Banner..png12602240Kathlyn Angeleshttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngKathlyn Angeles2021-05-26 10:52:582021-05-24 20:22:017 Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Need to Avoid
Digital marketing is becoming the new wave of healthcare marketing. With the growing competition in the healthcare industry, it is important to stay on top of digital marketing and keep your organization at the forefront of change.
Today, the competition is getting tougher and patients are getting smarter. Many of them even turn to Google for quick answers to health-related concerns. If you want to get more customers to your door, then you need to get in front of your audience and have a solid online presence. Otherwise, someone else will. This is why it’s important to have a healthcare marketing plan — so you can reach potential and existing patients at the best time.
Ever wonder what it takes to create a successful healthcare marketing campaign?
We listed down some tips that you can incorporate into your marketing plan right away.
Know your target audience
A successful healthcare marketing campaign starts with knowing who your audience is and what they value. To produce great results, you first need to create a well-defined persona profile.
Vividly picture who is it that you want to attract to your doorstep and what matters most to them. The more specifically you define your audience, the more likely you are to inspire a positive response.
Carefully and precisely defining your target audience will ensure that you’re not making the wrong assumption about what your audience values. Plus, it will improve your efficiency since you’ll have a good idea about what media to use and how to shape a compelling message that brings a response.
Combine healthcare and social media
Today, social media isn’t just a place for family and friends to stay in touch. People also use them to promote their business and reach their audience.
The power of social media extends to all industries, including healthcare. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn can help you reach a wider audience and connect with your followers. It can also help you drive traffic and leads to your website.
Now that you know who your target audience is, it will be easier for you to reach your key audience. Tapping into online communities and sharing health information can be a game-changer in your healthcare marketing plan. Keep in mind, though, that each platform has its own voice and audience. When you create social media content, make sure that the message is tailored to different audiences and channels.
You can also use paid advertising to increase brand awareness, improve visibility, and widen your reach. Don’t worry. You don’t need to spend a huge sum of money in order to get results. In fact, you can run a Facebook ad for a minimum budget of $5 a day. So go ahead and try it out, and adjust your budget later on.
Make wellness a lot more fun
Health and wellness is a serious topic, but that doesn’t mean that your campaign should be boring and uninspiring. Let’s take cues from UnitedHealthCare’s successful healthcare marketing campaign – We Dare You.
UnitedHealthcare created an interactive campaign that dares people to make one small change to live healthier lives and document it on social media. Each month, there are new challenges and quizzes aimed at inspiring people to live a healthier lifestyle. There are prizes involved too.
The multi-awarded “We Dare You” campaign not only led to healthier habits, but it also fostered an interactive online community of brand loyalists.
Establish an email marketing plan
Email marketing is an effective means of transmitting messages to your current and prospective audience. In fact, studies suggest that email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers as compared to Facebook and Twitter. When done right, it can help you grow your practice and reach a larger amount of patients.
With email marketing, the audience is openly receptive, and relative cost is low, and the rate of return can be exceptionally high. You can promote your services in a cost-effective way while building a relationship with your patients.
If you’re new to email marketing, you might want to start with growing your email list. To do that, you need to focus on reaching as many people as possible. Don’t worry. Getting your first 100 email subscribers isn’t as complicated as it seems. With an irresistible lead magnet, a killer landing page, and the power of social media, you’ll be able to grow your email list in no time.
Google yourself
Studies suggest that physicians and other medical practitioners receive up to 45% of new patients through referral. Though most patients would consider the referral of other doctors, family, and friends, the majority of them will run a Google search of your name and check out your reputation before booking an appointment.
The survey revealed that 60% of patients wouldn’t book an appointment with a medical practitioner that has bad reviews. This is why you should Google yourself now. It might seem silly, but it’s actually important.
By running a quick Google search of yourself, you’ll have a good idea of how your practice looks from a consumer’s perspective and know where to start when creating your digital strategy. You also want to make sure that all the information about you is correct and updated.
If you unearth some negative results when you Google yourself, try to have the post taken down. But if that doesn’t work, then the best thing you can do is suppress them with positive content.
Be a source of helpful information
In today’s digital world, most people’s inclination would be to open up a browser in Google and research about their own or their loved one’s condition. With so many people turning to the internet for answers, it is important that healthcare marketing is there to be a helpful and supportive guide.
Regularly post high-quality content that answers people’s questions. This will help them learn more about medical conditions they may be searching for or procedures they may have to undergo. It is also a good idea to share important and relevant medical information to help people improve their health. This will help build your credibility and position yourself as an authority in your field. People may not run off and make an appointment, but you will be in their minds the next time they get sick.
In today’s blog, we are going to cover LinkedIn, and LinkedIn is actually the oldest social media platform. It has been around since 2002 but it wasn’t considered a social media platform back then. As of now, there are over 660 active monthly users and in 200 countries and over 30 million companies on LinkedIn that are actively using it each and every month. This is huge, this is huge. LinkedIn, I feel, is a very overlooked platform. A lot of people still think of LinkedIn as just a recruitment tool, just to find jobs, and that is not the case whatsoever. LinkedIn has come such a far way and they have really implemented some really cool things to help you grow your business, and it is… I see a lot of B2B but I also do see a lot of B2C, business-to-business, and business-to-consumer.
I wanted to cover today the differences between your personal profile and a company page. LinkedIn works similarly to Facebook where you have one username and password and from that username and password, it brings you to your personal profile which then you can get into your different groups and your company pages. Once you log in, this is what you’re going to see. You’ll see your personal profile over here, you’ll see your news feed which is the people you’re connected with, the topics you follow, the company pages that you follow, this is where it’s coming into your personal news feed, okay. Then you have your pages on the left-hand side, you have different groups that you’re a part of here if you’re doing any events, also hashtags. Hashtags are huge on LinkedIn which is great because you can really find those niche hashtags and follow them similar to Instagram.
Personal LinkedIn Profile Tips
On your personal profile, there are a few things that you can do on your personal profile that you cannot do on a company page such as write an article. This is great if you are actively blogging, you can write a… You can take some of the content from your blog or your entire blog and put it into here. You can have a weekly thought, you can have… If you are a physician, you can have maybe a weekly FAQ article that just highlights the questions that your patients had asked you through the week that you’re just typing in here, answering, and maybe each week can have a theme. You can add an image here, and this is a great way to just really add value to your personal profile. Now, with the personal profile, you can also add your photo, a video, and a document. These two things are just for your personal profile.
Again, it’s similar to Facebook in a way that you… It’s easier to get connections on LinkedIn and when you post onto your personal profile and you’re building that personal brand, you’re going to get more engagement than you would on your company page. It’s important to use both of them ’cause they each have great features and they each serve a purpose. If you’re utilizing LinkedIn, make sure you’re utilizing this write an article feature and you’re posting to your personal profile as well as your company page. If maybe you’ve had LinkedIn for a long time, but you haven’t updated your profile, let’s start there. So making sure that your profile is filled out. This is space for advertising or your personal brand. To me, this image speaks of digital marketing. We’re always on the computer and this is something that I really… It just kind of resonated with me. You have a professional headshot or it’s you, it’s not you and your kids or you and your husband, this is more about you and your expertise than it is the personal side of things. You want to make sure that you have all of your information filled out and that…
One great thing about LinkedIn is it will tell you what else you need to add to your profile. It will give you a percentage of your profile as, like here, you can add… It’ll tell you what else you need to add. And they’re always adding new things it may not always be 100% filled out. You want to make sure that you have the about section filled out that this is talking about what it is you do use keywords in here: Healthcare, digital marketing, content marketing. Make sure that you’re utilizing those keywords of what it is you do. You can also have featured videos and this is something that you want to make sure you update and as you can see, I have not updated I’m going to come back in here and make sure that I update my featured videos as well. And maybe add that to your monthly list is as you’re creating different videos and blogs or infographics, you can add different things to this featured section, you want to make sure that this stays up-to-date or even if it is maybe a year old video, but content that’s super valuable and things that are able to provide that value to your audience even if they click on it and it’s a year old.
This is just your profile, this is your activity, this is what I’ve posted, things that I’ve liked, things I’ve commented on, things I’ve shared, this is what your activity is. And then it goes into your experience. You do want to make sure that your profile is 100% filled out before you start posting because people are going to view your profile and they want to know who you are and what you do. Once you have your profile updated and you start utilizing these different features on your personal profile in what’s called My Network, you can start adding connections, and, again, with LinkedIn I love how niche you can get. You can really look for those people that you want to connect with and as you can see, I have a ton of invitations. I’m very picky about who I want to connect with, sometimes, I will let them sit here. I’ll look at their profile, I’ll see if it’s really something that makes sense for me to connect with. If not, then I click ignore.
My connections on LinkedIn, I want to make sure that they are quality over quantity. I don’t care about this number but I want people that I’m connected with that are going to engage on my posts and make sure that we have things in common. Maybe they would be a great referral partner, maybe a potential client, and that’s the important thing about your connections. LinkedIn is going to give you suggestions on who to connect with based on your profile. This is going to say similar roles as me or in the location, I’m in. This is great because, again, it gives you that opportunity to connect with people that you may not have a chance to connect with and one of the great things is once you hit this connect button, you can also, you can click connect but then you can, if you’re searching for someone, let’s say… I’ll just say a family, let’s do a family physician. Okay. And I’m obviously wanting to search in people because I want to connect with these people and right here… Oh, great. Ken, I want to connect.
Once you click connect, I can add a note, “Hi, Ken. I was looking at your profile. I love what you’re doing.” So before you click that Connect, be sure to click on their profile, learn a little bit about them, see if they’re actually active. Right now, it says that he has commented on things. You can look at if he’s posted any articles, you can see when the last time he posted. And the reason why I say… he hasn’t posted anything for a year. The reason I say that you want to do your research on someone before you connect with them, again, is that quality. You don’t want to connect with people that aren’t active because then they’re not seeing your messages and they’re not going to be responding because they are not actively using LinkedIn. Make sure that before you click that Connect button and you add a note that you take a look at their profile and more importantly, their activity. What have they been posting?
Even if they haven’t posted anything but they have shared a lot of things or commented on things, that’s okay. A week ago, he liked this post that’s great. He may not be actively posting but he is actively using LinkedIn. That’s a great connection. So this is how you build the personal side of your LinkedIn account. Now, let’s go into the company page side of things. If you click here underneath your profile and you go down to, it will say, company and we have a few company pages but we’re going to go to Social Speak Network. And on here, this is your company page. Again, you have this header, utilize it to highlight what you do. Digital marketing management for healthcare professionals, that is what Social Speak does. I’m here and it is… I keep referring back to Facebook because when you have, especially now, if you just set up a Facebook business page, to increase those likes, it’s hard because you have to actively be inviting people or paying for ads, and that’s how LinkedIn is as well. It’s hard to increase this follower unless you are actively doing an ad campaign on LinkedIn to increase those followers or inviting people.
This is a great way to do this: As you’re adding connections, you can click here and invite more connections and you can look at… Again, I don’t want every single person I’m connected with to like my page, I want specific people that I am connected with that are in the healthcare and health and wellness industry to like my page because our content’s going to resonate with them the most. Again, each month as you’re adding that featured content to your personal profile and you’ve been adding new connections each month, invite them to like your company page. This helps increase the followers and it gives you your analytics, how many visitors you’ve had. We’ve had six new visitors in the past 30 days, which is down from last month, that lets me know. We have no new followers, hat lets me know, “Okay. Is my content not right or I’m just not getting people to the page?” Monitoring those analytics is a good idea to do, and you can really dive deeper into what does this means and it will let you know to share trending articles, invite your connections to follow.
Using LinkedIn for Business
LinkedIn does a great job of actively promoting you on what you need to do, or prompting you on what you need to do next. This is your company page, these are the hashtags that we follow, these are the posts that we put up every day. We do post daily on our LinkedIn platform and you need to create that content strategy of what works best for you. And so, you just need to know, is it going to be one time a week, is it going to be three times a week, five days a week, what does that look like for you and stick to that consistent schedule. One thing with LinkedIn, and you can see, you can add a document to your LinkedIn company page but you cannot do the article. You can, however, do a poll which is great to really dive into your audience and see, what are they thinking? How can you interact with them? And maybe doing different polls as a piece of your content strategy to help increase that engagement is a great idea try out that feature for your company page.
The other thing is, on your Facebook business page, you can go to your page and can click the little share button and post it directly to your personal profile. With LinkedIn, you cannot do that. What you would do is follow your own company and then as you post to your company page, it’s going to show up in your news feed and then from there, you can click share. And when you click share, it’s going to bring up exactly similar, again, to Facebook. You can type in, “This is a great blog that we just published.” Make a comment to the post that you put up, add hashtags, and then click post. These are just a few different ways to utilize LinkedIn to increase your network, grow your followers on your company page and start building your business.
Utilize LinkedIn just as you would Facebook. Take the time to engage yourself on here. Take the time to upload a video to your personal profile and to your company page and if you’re utilizing a scheduling tool such as Buffer or HootSuite, you can also schedule posts to your personal and your business account. If you’re utilizing HootSuite, you can upload a video to HootSuite for your company page but you cannot upload a video to HootSuite for your personal page. If you want to do those videos, I suggest just coming directly to LinkedIn and posting. You can also download the LinkedIn app and post directly from there, which is great. It’s very user-friendly, just jump on there. The mobile version’s great. You can upload your videos, your pictures, write an article from the app as well. Just figure out how you want to use LinkedIn, jot down some ideas, jot down who do you want to connect with. If you don’t have a company page, if you go under Work and at the bottom, it will say Create Company Page, that’s where you can create your page there.
Groups are great for LinkedIn and, again, you’re going to be posting in those groups as your own personal profile but groups are a great way to be able to share your blog posts, your videos, answer questions, ask questions and get involved with very niche groups. You can browse groups and make sure that they are a good group for you. And then, if you do have a job, you can also post a job on here utilizing LinkedIn Premium, or they have different options depending on what your needs are. Take time to go through your LinkedIn profile and see how you can have it work for you and implement this into your social media strategy. If you are needing help with LinkedIn and you just don’t know where to start or what that strategy should look like, let us know. Let’s schedule a free consultation and go over your LinkedIn strategy. Thank you.
https://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/How-to-use-LinkedIn-for-both-personal-and-business.png12602240Amber Irwinhttps://socialspeaknetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/SocialSpeak-Logo.pngAmber Irwin2021-04-28 10:00:322021-06-18 14:40:16How to use LinkedIn for both personal and business
