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Social Media Overview and Scheduling Tools

Social Media Overview and Scheduling Tools

 

Today, I want to talk about looking at your social media strategy in the big picture. A lot of the questions that we get a lot are, “How do I schedule my social media post? Where do I schedule my social media post? And how do I really just organize my social media post?” And so we’ve done a few videos on this with creating that content calendar and making sure that your posts are organized. And I just wanted to walk you through how we do it on our side, and then also show you a couple of the scheduling tools that we utilize for ourselves and our clients.

Content calendar template

So one thing that we’ve done is a content calendar template. The biggest thing with social media is making sure you are consistent and you have a plan. Most of the time, we get so caught up in work that we forget about what we want to talk about on social media, and whether you’re doing your social media internally, or you have a team like us that’s managing your social media. It’s important to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

Contents ideas for your social media posts:

  • Blog post – You can share your most recent blog  post.
  • Share a tip from weekly blog post with a link back to the blog or website – You can pull information from a past blog
  • Visual image with logo on it – It can be  a motivational quote or tip of the day. You can create that in Canva.
  • Article or blog from outside source – Share articles from other like-minded sources. You want to remember that 80/20 rule
  • Product from website linking back to the page – If you have products or different services that are on the website, you can link back to those.

Switch up the content

What I like to do is the information, the post that go on to Facebook and LinkedIn, I think it’s okay if it’s the same content. I would swap the days, and then I would change around the content for Instagram. So maybe what you used on a Tuesday for a Facebook and LinkedIn post, you can reword it, add some bullet points, add in some hashtags and use it for Instagram maybe the following week. So you want to keep that content going, you can utilize it on other platforms.

I do not recommend putting the same post out at the same day, same time to all networks. It doesn’t give any value. We found that most people that follow you on Facebook are also following you on Instagram. So if you’re posting the same thing the same day, there’s no value there. So you want to be able to switch up that content. And having some type of a monthly overview, we found that to have really helped us and our clients kind of know what topics are coming next. So this is kind of that monthly overview.

Content resources

Now it’s time to write the content. So on the social media calendar, you’ll have different topics that you want to talk about.

You’ll have content resources – different websites for that curated content, the like-minded websites that you’re looking for, maybe it’s newsletters that you’re a part of  – put them in here. This is supposed to be an easy place that you can just go and pull an article from the source you’ve already approved, your team has access to it.

Google sheet

You’ll notice this is all done in a Google Sheet. The reason we use a Google Sheet is because this is a platform that everyone has access to. So I can share this Google calendar with my team. And so the person that’s writing the social media posts, the person that needs to approve them, they know what’s going out.

It keeps everyone together on one platform rather than having to log into something or download, if someone has a Mac and someone has a PC, from Excel to whatever, it’s just too complicated. I like things simple and very clear. So we use Google Sheets for that.

Here, we have the content resources, we have blog topics, so this can be where we organize our blogs for the month so we know what’s going out.

Creating a content calendar

Google sheet

There are two things you can do here. Now that we know what we’re talking about for the month, we need to have a place of where we can write those social media topics.

One thing that we have done is you can, say here like the date, platform, content, image. Now the other thing that we’ve done is instead of doing this, we may say the date and then we’ll say Instagram copy, Facebook copy, LinkedIn copy, and then we’ll either say image, and then on here we’ll put hashtags as well. You can also place the key code, and then you can pull from the content calendar.

So you can change up, you can create this however it works best for you. We’ve seen a lot of different techniques on creating where you’re gonna write your social media post.

It can be blog title and first paragrah. Now obviously, you are going to put that content in here. You’re gonna have the link in here, and then the image, you can actually go to Insert, and then go to Image, and upload the image directly into this sheet.

So this is one way to keep it all in one place to be able to see, “Okay, this is going onto Instagram, this is going out onto Facebook and LinkedIn. Here’s the images that needs to go out to there, the hashtags.”

So for writing, I always like to write posts a week or two weeks or three weeks in advance. So we have our date here, so we would say Monday, then we can have Tuesday, and then through Friday, and have the copy on one sheet.

Google doc

The other way that we have seen it done is through a Google Doc. And this can be the same thing. This can be a week – May 4th to 8th. You can do a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And if you post on Saturday and Sunday, great.

You can insert your copy here and your images as well. Now, one thing that I would do is make sure that you are utilizing your images, you’re creating your images in the social media template in Canva, so they show up nicely on all platforms.

So you know that Monday, May 4th for Facebook and LinkedIn, this is the copy that’s gonna go out to those two platforms. So it’s really figuring out what works best for you.

Social Media Scheduling Tools

Now let’s get into the scheduling tools. Some people like to just go directly into those scheduling tools. They have the overview of the content calendar and they say, “Okay, this is what my month will look like,” and then they go right into the scheduling tools and write their content directly in there. And that’s totally fine too. It’s just figuring out that process that works best for you.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a paid service. The one thing I really like about them is I love that they do monthly reports. So that gives you your activity for whatever platform you have that you’re utilizing on here. It gives you an overview of exactly what posts you have going out.

When you come over here to publishing, it will pop up what posts you have already scheduled for the month, the week, so it’s very clear, and then you can see each platform right here. If you go to compose, you can upload up to four pictures through Sprout Social, which is good because you like to have multiple photos on the different networks. Here, you can drop down and you can click the platforms that you want it to go to.

One really cool thing about this as well is it has this option for Instagram, the Instagram first comment. So a lot of people will have their Instagram content, and then that first comment is where they put in their 30 hashtags. So that’s a really cool feature that Sprout Social has, and then it will preview what your post will look like. Again, if you have Twitter on here, you want make sure you do Twitter separately because of that 280-character count. Now, with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, it will show 1,300. So it gives you that option, if you take off LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram 2,200. So it gives you that option. So you can go right directly into here, write your post, and then you can go to choose a date, time, and schedule it. So that’s one way of being able to just utilize a dashboard like this and be able to have all your posts in one area.

So I really like Sprout Social because of how user-friendly it is, and you’re able to see what you have scheduled. And some days you’re gonna have posts for certain networks that you just wanna go out and not for the other networks, and that’s totally okay. So just, again, figuring out that strategy for you. You can do drafts in here. With Sprout Social, it does automatically post to Instagram, which is another bonus. So it will actually post whatever post is here to your Instagram account.

Hootsuite

The second tool I want to show you is called Hootsuite. Hootsuite has a free version and a paid version. And I believe it’s still free for one or two social media platforms.

Hootsuite also schedules and posts directly to Instagram, which is great, because Instagram I feel is the social media platform that is the most manual because they didn’t have a scheduling tool before. So in here, you’ll have streams, which I really like how these streams.

Besides the reporting of Sprout Social, I love Hootsuite as a overview piece, because I can see what posts have gone out, what mentions people have mentioned us in, what activity, if people have posted to our page or what we’ve put up, what messages we have. And then we can also put on here our scheduled, unpublished, so you can go in here and again, write drafts and be able to see, organize everything in here, and it would show up like this for your scheduled ones.

So I really like Hootsuite because I do think it’s very simple to use. Again, you would go to New Post and you would type in your content, you can upload your image, videos. You’ll just click here to select the platform you want it to go to, the media you want, your text. And I really like this feature. So this is Hootsuite. Again, very simple, very user-friendly.

Buffer

The third one is called Buffer. I think they do have a free plan. It’s still very similar to the other two scheduling tools. It will tell you what you have going out. It can give you some analytics.

Now, with Buffer, it does not automatically post to Instagram. It will give you a notification on your mobile device that you have a post, and then you would need to go into your Instagram and push that post out.

So Buffer is a great tool, there’s a lot you can do with it. Like I said, it does give you some analytics. And we’ll look at the Instagram stories, strategy recommendations, and obviously that is for the paid package, but it does provide a lot of details.

When it comes to a publishing tool, it’s really a personal preference of which one aesthetically you like, which one will be the best for you and your team. And if you choose not to use a Google Doc or a Google Sheet to organize your posts and you choose to use just a platform like Hootsuite or Sprout Social, you want make sure, again, if it’s not just you doing your social media post, you want to make sure that it’s user-friendly for you and your team.

Bonus tool: Grammarly

One thing that I’ve also installed is a plugin called Grammarly.

Grammarly works on:

  • Google docs
  • Hootsuite
  • Buffer
  • Sprout Social

I like it because it  adds that extra layer of making sure that your posts are grammatically correct going out, which is important.  If you put in a misspelling, it usually highlights the spelling mistake.  I will go like, this doesn’t make sense, and then you can click on it, and then it will either to give you a word, “Hey, what did you mean to say here?”

Mistakes happen. It’s not a life or death thing. And I also think that with social media, having that strategy is really good because it will allow you to stop and think about what your plan is and paying attention to those details and making sure when you’re creating the images in Canva.

Final thoughts

We go back to that brand consistency that we’ve talked about. So this is just giving you the overview of your social media strategy, looking at thinking of a month at a time with your social media posts, how many times per week do you want to post, and then what’s the action you’re going to take to create those posts, and then be able to schedule them out?

There’s tons of other tools out there. These are just three scheduling tools that we have used and we enjoy using. And there’s a lot of different content strategies out there, but again, it’s finding the one that works best for you.

So if you need help creating that strategy and putting together that content calendar and getting one of these scheduling tools set up, we are here to help you.

Social Media Overview and Scheduling Tools

Social Media Overview and Scheduling ToolsSocial Media Overview and Scheduling Tools

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Top 6 Telehealth Software of 2020

Top 6 Telehealth Software of 2020

Over the last decade, telehealth has gained much traction on a global scale. It is quickly becoming a pillar of modern healthcare and is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.

Through telehealth, patients are given the option to consult a healthcare provider at the comfort of their home. This translates to happier patients, more revenue for your practice, and improved workflows that save you time. In order to facilitate these virtual visits, you will need an intuitive interface and a secure system.

What is telehealth software?

Telehealth software is the platform used by healthcare providers to provide remote clinical healthcare when they cannot meet in person. Through this software, healthcare becomes more accessible and cost-effective.

Telehealth software is not just a simple tool. Healthcare providers will need a secure portal where they can conduct remote patient examination, collect data, as well as store, share, and analyze confidential medical information and records.

There are literally hundreds of HIPAA-compliant telehealth solutions in the market. Use this as a guide to selecting the best telehealth software for your practice.

Doxy.me – https://doxy.me/

Pricing: Free for limited services

Professional: $35/month

Clinic: $50/month

Doxy.me is safe, simple, and secure platform that lets physicians meet with patients remotely. The cloud-based system can be accessed via any web browser or smarthpones.

Simple, accessible, and free of charge, doxy.me is on a mission to make telemedicine simple and easy for you.

Features include:

  • Free for all to use
  • Business Associate Agreement (BAA) included on all accounts, even the free version
  • High quality audio and video
  • Accessible from anywhere – desktop, laptop, and mobile devices
  • No download required
  • HIPAA, GDPR, PHIPA/PIPEDA & HITECH compliant

Healthie – https://gethealthie.com/

Pricing: Beginnings: $29/month

Small practice: $89/month

Practice Plus: $129/month

Group Practice: $149/month

Organization: Custom

Healthie was built specifically for nutritionists, dieticians, health coaches, and other wellness professionals. It is a web and mobile platform that allows nutrition and wellness professionals run their business and collaborate with their clients. It includes core business features such as scheduling, client education, charting, bills and payments, virtual care and more.

Healthie has all the functionality you need to run and grow your nutrition and wellness business in one software. No more cobbling together different tools.

Features include:

  • Access from any device – laptop, desktop, mobile phones, and tablet PCs
  • Range of customization and white-labeling options
  • Integration resources to fit your specific needs
  • HIPAA and PCI-compliant security
  • Extensive support and resources

Practice Better – https://practicebetter.io/

Pricing: Sprout Plan: Free

Starter Plan: $19

Professional Plan: $49

Plus Plan: $79

Team Plan: $135

Practice Better is a complete, secure cloud-based practice management platform for health and wellness professionals. It is packed with features designed to relieve health and wellness professionals of burdensome adminstrative tasks.

It saves you hours of work, so you can help more reach their health goals. With Practice Better, you can manage your professional recommendations from one secure place.

Features include:

  • Telehealth video chat
  • Record and manage sessions
  • Uncompromising security
  • 24/7 access to files and records
  • Branding and customization
  • Automate tasks and appointment reminders
  • Secure chat and instant alerts

Simple Practice – https://www.simplepractice.com/

Pricing: Essential Plan: $39/ month

Professional Plan: $59

With Simple Practice, you get a secure, fully integrated video solution. Your client communication, notes, calendar, and billing are combined in one system. That means, you’ll have more time seeing your clients, getting paid, and growing your business.

Features include:

  • HIPAA compliant
  • Conduct secure video appointments with your clients
  • Free telehealth resources
  • Automated billing and insurance processing
  • Paperless notes and documentation
  • Share videos, goal tracking, worksheets, and more from your screen
  • Start a video call from anywhere, on any device

Chiron Health – https://chironhealth.com/

Pricing: Independent: $150/month

Enterprise: Need to request quote

Chiron Health is a powerful telehealth software solution that is designed for practices of all sizes.  The system makes it easy to successfully implement a telehealth program in your practice with simple patient features, streamlined workflows, and customized plans. It allows users to schedule appointments with patients based on their availability, updates practitioner calendar.

Chiron Health also offers eligibility checks to verify informed consent documentation and insurance information.

Features include:

  • Streamlined patient workflow
  • HIPAA-compliant
  • Signed BAA for each client
  • Custom patient marketing
  • Patient notifications
  • Co-pay collection

swyMed – http://swymed.com/

Pricing: Not available on the website

swyMed is a patented telehealth software that is designed for community paramedicine programs, emergency response encounters, home and hospital health monitoring.

swyMed’s patented software overcomes traditional connectivity issues. It allows hopitals to use their medical expertise in the ambulance and at the scene of an emergency by delivering reliable, real-time video telemedicine, even in low bandwidth areas.

Features include:

  • Community paramedicine made easy
  • Extend the reach of your hospital
  • Reliable, real-time video telemedicine
  • Connects specialist and patients in live video
  • HIPAA compliant and fully secure
  • Home health solutions

Final thoughts

Considering how much traction telehealth is gaining during the current pandemic, it is important to choose a software that works for your patients and the specialty you practice. The right telehealth software has the power to change the way you provide healthcare for the better.

If you need help finding the right teleheatlh software or you’re interested in integrating telehealth into your practice, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to help.

We’d love to offer a free 30-minute consultation call to discuss the ins and outs of implementing a telehealth feature into your practice.

Top 6 Telehealth Software of 2020

Top 6 Telehealth Software of 2020Top 6 Telehealth Software of 2020

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6 Strategies to Increase Patient Referrals

6 Killer Strategies to Increase Patient Referral

In today’s competitive healthcare environment, it is important to have a strong patient referral base. As a healthcare provider, you are probably aware of how powerful referrals can be for generating new patients and growing your practice.

When done right, a patient referral program can add years of income to your practice. Let’s take a look at some of the best practices your office should maintain to get new patients through the door.

Listen to the Medical Marketing Podcast

Build a strong relationship with referring practices

Professional referrals are the lifeblood of every healthcare organization. Building and nurturing those relationships is essential for bringing in new patients.

Always keep the communication lines open with the referring practice and let them know what steps you will take to address the patient’s condition. Email them, call them from time to time, or arrange lunch appointments with them. Quick updates to the referring physician about the condition and progress of the patient tells them that you are committed to patient care.

Don’t forget to thank anyone who refers a patient to your practice. This will motivate your colleague to refer you more often.

Improve customer experience

Not all referrals come from other practices. Happy patients are more likely to give you good feedback as well as refer you to their family and friends.

To create a memorable experience, it’s important to get your internal house in order so it’s ready to welcome new patients to the practice. You want to ensure that patients feel comfortable and cared for, both in the reception area and exam room. You and your staff should pay close attention to the concerns and queries of your patients and make sure that they are cared for.

A percentage of your new patients should come from referrals by existing patients. If not, then you may need to address your customer service policies. Remember, unhappy patients won’t refer you to their family and friends. Worse, they’ll tell them to stay away.

Reach out on social media

Many patients turn to social networking sites to establish an ongoing relationship with their primary care physician.

The point of social media is to effectively reach your target audience and connect with them. It gives you a tremendous opportunity to interact with patients in ways that are not possible during appointments and consultations. This is your chance to talk to them and have a friendly relation with them.

Promote engagement by starting conversations on various health topics, providing healthcare tips, and alerting patients to new services and discounts you offer. Sharing your blog posts on social media is a great way to provide valuable healthcare information while driving patients to your website to learn more.

When done right, social media marketing can help you enhance your online reputation, solidify your brand, and bolster your authority among patients.

Be a thought leader

Most doctors go into medicine to help patients, not bask in the spotlight. But there is no denying that being a thought leader can help you attract new patients.

Being a thought leader in the healthcare industry requires lots of knowledge, effort, time, and desire to impact change. To achieve this status, you need to make your expertise and ideas known.

Write blog posts that are relevant to your practice, but don’t just write just to have content out there. Make sure that you produce quality content. But it shouldn’t stop at blogging. You can educate existing and potential patients on your healthcare practice by creating videos, podcasts, and newsletters. You can also offer speaking engagements at local hospitals.

Have a web presence

Many healthcare professionals feel as though their practice should be able to thrive on its own through referrals. But given the certainty of change in healthcare, it is important for healthcare providers to have a strong online presence.

Many patients will go online to acquaint themselves with the practice prior to making an appointment. Making a good first impression starts with a well-designed, patient-friendly website. Not only will it give potential patients an easy way to get to know you, but it also makes your practice look and feels engaging.

By having your credentials, education, services, and procedures on your website, you can help instill a sense of trust in your future patients.

Get more mileage from patient testimonials

Patients want to make sure that they receive care from the best doctors in their field. Testimonials can help build trust in your practice and offer validation for the quality of your services.

Tell your patients’ success stories in a way that people will take notice. Quotes and written testimonials can be powerful marketing tools, but videos can bring testimonials to life.

Short two-minute video testimonials will capture the attention of potential patients and drive more patients through the door. To get higher-impact testimonials, you can guide patients by asking leading questions. If you are an eye doctor, you may ask questions like “How has LASIK impacted your life?” or “Are you happy with the results?”

6 Killer Strategies to Increase Patient Referral

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How Patients Find and Select Healthcare Providers and How to Use it to Your Advantage

How Patients Find and Select Healthcare Providers and How to Use it to Your Advantage

Not too long ago, patients relied on word-of-mouth referrals from family and friends when looking for a healthcare provider. Others would browse through the Yellow Pages and find a hospital or practice closest to their location. Today, however, the internet has become a major force in patient decisions.

With volumes of information available online, it has empowered prospective patients to find the care they need in the moments that matter most. Patients no longer have to rely on their gut instinct, guesswork or their friend’s advice.

If you want to reach new patients, then you need to know how patients are looking for providers online. Use them to your advantage to convert those searching prospects into patients.

Social media

More than 3.5 billion people are using social media. 54% of them use it to research products, services, and even healthcare providers.

Although word-of-mouth still ranks high as a method for finding healthcare providers, social media largely contributes to how patients choose one. Many prospective patients, millennials in particular, are apt to solicit input through social media. They put a lot of trust in unbiased opinions and recommendations from other patients.

According to a PwC Health Research Institute report, 41% of patients said that social media content impacted their choice of physician or hospital. Always bring value to your patients and give them a reason to follow you. This is one of the best ways to establish a trustworthy reputation for your medical practice on social media. It can be as simple as giving tips on how to stay healthy, reminding patients of essential vaccinations or sharing information about current illnesses.

Patients turn to Google  

The internet is a fantastic source of medical information. When patients do not feel well, they don’t usually think about scheduling an appointment with their doctor. Rather, they would consult Dr. Google first and research their symptoms to learn more about their condition.

Once they have a good understanding of their condition, that’s the only time they would search for a medical practitioner. They would key in keywords such as “cardiologist near me” or “diabetologist in Miami”.

If you want to reach new patients, then you want your page to rank well on Google. That means, your name must land on the on the first page of Google search engine results page. Otherwise, prospective patients won’t find you.

Use SEO to rank higher on Google. Start by dominating long-tail keywords. Research keywords that are relevant to your practice and create content based on that keyword.

Long-tail keywords are easier to rank for as the competition is lower. That means, it will take less time and money to rank compared the big and popular ones.

They read online reviews

Majority of patients would conduct online research even after receiving a recommendation or referral. They want to know what being your patient is like before scheduling an appointment.

88% of patients use online reviews as a step towards finding a new doctor. This helps new patients make a more informed decision about who to choose. They will quickly eliminate providers with poor reviews.

In the age of internet, your reputation is whatever Google says it is. If prospective patients do not find reviews online, they’d think twice about making an appointment. As a healthcare provider, you want to have a positive online brand reputation that earns the trust of patients.

A great way to improve your reputation is to list your practice on doctor review sites such as Zocdoc, WebMD, RateMDs, Vitals, and Healthgrades. These sites that can help you improve your reputation, generate new patient leads, and gain trust.

More positive reviews will ensure that you are listed ahead of competitors in search results and will drive traffic to your website.

Location-based services

Convenience is a key factor in selecting a new doctor. In fact, according to Healthgrade’s data, location is a highly significant consideration when a patient chooses a doctor or a hospital. Majority of them prefer physicians and healthcare providers within their area who can assist them with their needs.

Building your local search presence will help you gain a significant step over the competition. Google My Business is a great tool that can do wonders for your local SEO. It puts your business on the map so potential patients can find you.

It is also a good idea to optimize your website for local search. To boost your local SEO, make sure that you include your location in keyword phrases across your website. Instead of using keywords such as dentist, use dentist in Phoenix.

How Patients Find and Select Healthcare Providers and How to Use it to Your Advantage

 

How Patients Find and Select Healthcare Providers and How to Use it to Your Advantage

 

How Patients Find and Select Healthcare Providers and How to Use it to Your Advantage

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How to Use Canva for Your Medical Practice

How to Use Canva for Your Medical Practice

A question that we get asked a lot by our clients is, how do you create professional looking images for your social media posts and your blogs?

It can get a little pricey if you have a graphic designer that’s creating every single image for your digital marketing strategies. Every social media image, every Pinterest image, every Instagram, every blog. And so, we wanted to talk to you today about a tool that we use for our clients called Canva.

Reasons why you should use Canva

It’s affordable

The one thing I really like about Canva is, it’s really affordable. Now we’re talking about your social media posts and your blogs.

If you are needing images for your website, your branding materials, we highly recommend working with a graphic designer, and a branding expert to really pull in that voice. Once you’ve worked with a branding expert, you usually have a set of thoughts and brand colors that then you wanna be able to incorporate into your social media posts and your blogs.

With Canva, there is a free site and a paid site. I think the paid site is only, $14.95, and I highly recommend it.

Maintain brand consistency

One piece with social media is really to make sure that you have that brand consistency. So whether they’re looking at your website mobile-y, on the computer, they have a brochure, a business card, social media posts, they know that it is your practice from your brand’s colors.

If you look at any large company, they follow through with that. Their TV commercials to their promotional products, their social media, their website, everything has the same look and feel. And that’s exactly what you want to do with your social media marketing strategy.

You can also upload your brand kit, which is really cool, because like I said, we have those brand colors, those brand thoughts and we want to make sure we have the right logos. So, we can upload the logos in here. You can upload the exact brand colors and your brand thoughts.

In every image, our three brand fonts are gonna be this playlist correct? This one the playlist here and then Raleway. And so on each of our images for our blogs or our social media, you’re going to see one or all three, depending on the text of these fonts. You’re also going to see our brand colors.

Now, if you look on our website, you’re going to see more of these teals and the light mauve and beige. Sometimes what we have is aspect color, so we have a logo that is this yellow and this teal and that helps kinda just make up that image pop, but it’s still within our brand’s color, so we may not use this orange all the time, but we may use it as an aspect color on one of the images. So this is a great way to really stay true to that brand that your design team have put in place.

Create images for your digital marketing

The other thing with Canva is, if you click on Create A Design, they have every size you need. So this makes it really easy. You can do a poster, a logo, a card, you can do brochures, but most importantly, you have all of your digital marketing templates in here too. You have a YouTube cover. You have, if you need help making your Twitter header the right size, or your Facebook page, but most importantly social media.

So, the social media template is what we use for Instagram and for Facebook, it also does work on LinkedIn.  Canva does link to Pixabay. So there’s free images in here and there are paid images.

Resize images for you

The one thing that’s also really good about Canva is you can resize them.

So let’s say you want this image you’re doing and you did a video to go with it, but you want to resize it to the YouTube thumbnail. You can click resize and you can either create a custom size Pinterest, you can type in YouTube, so this can be the YouTube thumbnail. It will look just like this, but in the YouTube thumbnail size.

So it’s going to be easy to upload, keep that brand consistency, and not have to recreate that image. Like, okay, what size was this? What did I have here? It does all the hard work for you. So that is a great tool.

Free ready to use templates

So, with Canva it will tell you if something is free, or if you have to pay for it. And they have by categories too. So if there’s something that specific that you are looking for, so let’s just type medical and they have all these different templates already in here.

Now some of them are free and some of them are paid for. One thing that I recommend if you’re looking at, let’s say you love this template, but it is not free, you can purchase it. They’re usually between $1 and $5 and then you can re-use them, but you can also create that image by yourself without having to pay for that template.

How to use Canva

This is my favorite part of social media, creating the images. It’s also the most time-consuming because you want that image to be perfect.

And so, what I always recommend and what we do for our clients is we create different templates. So we may create 7 to 10 different templates for that client. Let’s say these are the recent ones I’ve used, and so, they’re all gonna be within these 7 to 10 templates with their branded colors, their brand fonts and we rotate that.

Choose a template

Start by choosing a template. So let’s say we want to use this one – It’s world day for safety and health at work today.

So sometimes, this is the National Nurses Day, happy National Nurses Day, so sometimes they already have templates in here, and you can come in here and just change the brand colors, so we can just change this to the colors that we would have for our client.

Make necessary changes

As I have said earlier, we can change the colors to suit our brand colors. Then, we can add our logo on to it. We would change the content here, so if we wanted to change this to an accent color, but then keep this message, we can do that, or we can take out this content all together and put in our own content.

Edit texts

Now, the fun part of the text. So February is National Heart Month, so let’s add in this. So we wanna make this larger, so they have obviously different sizes that we can have, maybe I wanna make this really big, and then do this. And then National Heart Awareness Month. And let’s make this larger. So I’m using my brand colors and I can move that content wherever I want it.

So we go back to that template that we liked, we have the content here, maybe we want this to align with that there, and then we wanna have, we want this to come up a little bit, and then we wanna have in our just like our website down here, www.heartplus.com whatever your website is. We want to bring this down here with maybe some contact information.

Pick an image

Now, we obviously need something here. So you can type in a keyword. It will show you that these are the paid ones. If you click on to here, it will say free, and then you can apply filters.

So you can pick any image that you want. And again, this is where it can get a little time consuming, so you do have to play around with this a lot because it’s important to know how to search for the different images.

Play around with templates, images, and texts

I also like using ones that have the image in the back with the text overlay. I think that those are very clean and you just want to make sure that whatever your brand message is, whatever that message is, you just make sure that this image is clean and easy to read.

So maybe you’re talking about healthy eating. So again, you can just drag this image over on top of the image that’s already there and it will automatically replace it.

So now, you can change out your content here, you can change the background color if you want it to be one of your brand colors, you can do that.

Save the image for future use

So all you have to do is come in here each month when you’re creating your content, and there’s two ways of doing this. If you come back to the main page here and you go to all your designs, you can copy this design for each week.

Let’s say February is National Heart Awareness Month. And so then now you have created this template. So then next month, all you have to do is come in, change February to March and put in whatever March’s National Awareness Month is.

Change out the logo if you need to, or move it down here, add more content, or contact information. So now we have two templates, so we’re going to do the same thing. We’re going go to add new page and go to templates again. Now, if you didn’t like any of these, you can use any of these that you want and change it around.

I always like to be able to look back at the images and especially if you need to make a change, you don’t have to re-create that image all over again. So you can come in to here and you- can, the templates that we have created right here, we can then just click this and do make a copy, and then you can label them every week.

So week of February third, week of February 10th, and then you have five or seven templates in here with the content, so you can just download them.

Canva has templates based on holidays

Again, I would take some time with this to really look at which templates you like. Are you doing a lot of testimonials? Testimonials are a great way to promote your practice. So maybe something along these lines, you can do something like this where you have the testimonial here with maybe pictures of the staff that, that patient is talking about, there’s a ton of different templates in here and the thing with Canva is they’re always adding new templates based on the holidays.

So if you wanted to put out a Happy Valentines Day, you’ll find some templates here. Even if you want to use this template, you can change these colors to your branded colors. And so that’s a really great way to still have that, those posts that are, Happy Holidays, Happy Valentines Day, Groundhog Day, whatever you wanna talk about, but still keeping that brand consistency.

So take some time scrolling through here to really figure out which templates you want, and you don’t have to always just use those 10, maybe you have a brand template of 20 of them.

Final thoughts

Canva is simple, it’s fun to use. It does take a little bit of time in the beginning, but really once you have those brand templates down, it’s just changing the content and being able to download those and implement them in your social media strategy.

If you need help on how to create your branded templates or if you would like help with the management of your social media marketing, we are here for you. You can head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and schedule a free 30-minute consultation, and we would love to see how we can help you with your digital marketing strategy. Have a great day!

How to Use Canva for Your Medical Practice

How to Use Canva for Your Medical PracticeHow to Use Canva for Your Medical Practice

 

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How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Medical Practice

How to Use Instagram to Promote Your Medical Practice

At this point, it’s no question whether or not your practice needs to be on social media. Almost everyone understands the importance of having a solid social media presence. However, most are overlooking the benefits of Instagram as a marketing platform.

Why Instagram?

Instagram is one of the most popular social networks on a global level. It has grown immensely over the years, with over 1 billion monthly active users.

Whether you’re a dentist, dermatologist, cosmetic surgeon, plastic surgeon or an oncologist, marketing your practice on Instagram is going to bring you the business you seek.

Here are some tips on how to make use of Instagram to promote your medical practice.

Plan out your grid

Instagram is a predominantly visual platform. If you’re looking to turn your viewers into followers, then you’ll need to put aside time to visually plan your feed.

Your Instagram feed is one of the first things a visitor sees when they land on your profile. You want to create a cohesive Instagram aesthetic while still showcasing content that aligns with your field of specialization. This will give visitors a feel of what your brand is about in a matter of seconds. Plus, they are more likely to follow you if they see a visually attractive and cohesive grid.

Share images people can connect with

As a medical practitioner, the last thing you want is to put off your audience with gory surgical images or pictures of intimidating medical equipment.

There are 3 things you want to accomplish when planning your Instagram content:

  1. Engage your audience
  2. Provide content that is informative, interesting, and inspiring to potential patients
  3. Highlight a service you offer.

The goal is to share images people can connect with. If you’re a plastic surgeon, you may use your Instagram feed to show before and after photos. Consistently post photos of your best cases to keep people coming back for more.

With patient approval, you may also post about your patient’s success stories. This can go a long way toward alleviating fears and finding inspiration through a life-changing illness.

Use your captions to prompt discussion

While we agree that photos matter most on Instagram, that doesn’t mean that the caption should be treated as an afterthought.

People like to know that you value their thoughts and opinions. Ask them questions, tell a story or ask for their opinions. It shows you care about them and you’re interested to connect with them. Really get in there and converse with your audience.

It may seem awkward at first but go for it. You’ll be surprised at how many of your Instagram pals will be chatting and engaging with you.

Add video to your content

A picture paints a thousand words, they say. But videos can convey even more. Video has been found to drive more interactions and provides more opportunities for you to stand out. It gives you an opportunity to reach a much larger audience, show your personality, and educate your audience.

Videos can be shared in stories, in the newsfeed, and can be used to create a high-converting ad campaign. To maximize your use of video, make sure that the first few seconds of your video is attention-grabbing.

Find something that will set yourself apart

With one billion monthly active users, Instagram has become an integral part of every brand’s marketing activities. If you’re looking to amplify your presence on Instagram, then you need to up your Insta game to cut through the noise.

For instance, Dr. Sandra Lee (aka Dr. Pimple Popper) is a big hit on social media. She has more than 5 million subscribers on Youtube and over 3 million followers on Instagram. She has both entranced and grossed out her followers with her knack for popping.

Find something that will set yourself apart and give your audience a reason to keep coming back.

Hashtag strategically

Hashtags are a great way to categorize your content. It makes it easier for users to find you and reach out to your prospective audience.

Use trending hashtags to get in front of more people. Make sure, though, that these hashtags are related to your niche. You may also consider using a branded hashtag. It could be something as simple as your name or your tag line.

Prompt your followers to use your custom hashtag, and you’ll soon learn just who your superfans are.

Collaborate with influencers

These days, social media influencers are like modern-day celebrities. Consider reaching out to other influential Instagram users if you’re looking to increase your visibility.

When looking for influencers, look beyond the follower count. You want to find an influencer who will resonate with your audience and drive engagement amongst the community.

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Creating Your Content Calendar for 2020

Having a content calendar in place for your overall marketing strategy is key, having a plan will allow you to stay consistent and top of your content. In this video, we go over 4 different types of content calendars, the key here is to find one or pull components from each that you like and would work best for you and your team.

Social Speak Content Calendar
Hootsuite’s Content Calendar
Hubspot Content Calendar
CoSchedule Content Calendar

00:00 Amber Irwin: Hello. I am Amber Irwin and co-founder of Social Speak Network. I’m your host today on the Social Speak podcast. It is January of 2020, and we’re almost to the middle of the month already. So, you’re either in one of two positions. Number one, you have all your content planned out for the year, you are on track and have your content strategy put together. Woo-hoo. Number two, not there quite yet. This video and podcast are for the people that are number two that are still struggling to put together that content calendar. I want to talk about content calendars today, because it is the most important piece of your digital marketing strategy, and it is something… Usually, we have our clients do these content calendars beginning of December, planning out for the new year because once the holidays come, it’s just crazy. Time goes by so fast, and then it’s the new year, back to business, and it gets crazy.

01:07 AI: So having a content calendar is really about being able to have a really good overview of what your year looks like. What are the national observance days that you need to pay attention to? What are the seasons? So for medical practices, if you are a pediatrician, you need to pay attention to flu season, summertime, back to school. What are the other sicknesses that kids are dealing with? You may wanna be talking about just tips of handwashing and nutrition. So looking at what you are talking to your patients about. And that’s really the biggest thing is it’s changing that mindset from having these conversations in the office with your patients and taking that… Those conversations and turning them into content and implementing them into your content calendar.

02:04 AI: So, I always recommend having a sticky note, a pad of paper, your phone. Something where, you know, once that patient’s done taking a few minutes and either jotting down questions they had or giving it to a nurse to write down and then being able to take those questions and incorporate them into your content strategy. Because if this patient had that client like’s are, you’re gonna have more patients that have that question, and you wanna be able to be a resource for them. So, I’m gonna give you four different examples of content calendars. There’s no right or wrong way to a content calendar. It’s really what works for you and your team. So if you have a marketing team in-house that’s doing all of your social media, great. You guys are gonna figure out a plan together of what works, what works for them, what’s easy for… Maybe it’s the office manager, the practice manager that’s looking over everything, maybe it’s the head doctor. Whoever that person in charge is that wants to see the overview of everything, what format works for them?

03:13 AI: If you’re working with a marketing team, such as Social Speak, we have an intro call with you. We show you the different content calendars. And then, the last one I’m gonna show you today that we’re gonna talk about is the one that we put together. And we’ve taken bits and pieces from content calendars that we’ve used and the pieces that work for us. So, we have one with everything on there. So, the first two I’m gonna talk to you about are from CoSchedule and HubSpot. And these are more focused around your social media, which is great because a lot of your content that you’re doing for digital marketing is going to be social media, blog posts video marketing. So, these are a great way to just keep everything organized.

04:00 AI: So, I’m gonna go ahead and show you these two. So, this first one is from, let’s see, this one is… This one here is the one that is from CoSchedule, I believe. And this is outlined very nicely. It breaks it up by platform. So, obviously, you’re only gonna be putting the platforms on here that you’re using. So if you’re not using Twitter, you’re not going to have this Twitter section here. Google Plus doesn’t exist anymore, so you would have Instagram on here instead. Pinterest, we use a tool called Tailwind, and I’ll put a link below for that. But that’s really where all of our Pinterest scheduling goes, through Tailwind. So, I wouldn’t have Pinterest on here, but Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook. So, here you’re gonna have the post copy, the image, so you know what image is going with what post. The hashtags, the destination URL. So is this going to a curated content unit, outside articles? Is this going to a blog, a YouTube video? And then, on this one, one thing I liked was that this actually measures… Each week, you could come back and look at how those posts did. So, how many likes were there? How many shares? How many comments? So, this one is a great way to just get started for social media.

05:42 AI: The other one, this one here, is one that is from HubSpot, I believe. And this one has your overview schedule, what account, the date and time, message link campaign. And then, this one is your monthly calendar. Now, I really like it when… Having this monthly calendar. And this is something that we implement into our content calendar because I like seeing that overview. So again, if it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month or Diabetes Awareness Month, I wanna make sure that I’m talking about that topic each week and in different ways. So maybe we do a video around Diabetes Awareness Month. We’re writing a blog on it. We are getting testimonials. So figuring out how that National Observance Day ties into your practice and your clients, and then how can you deliver that information?

06:47 AI: I tend to be very visual, and same with our social media marketing team, they’re very visual, so we really like when we have this color-coded key, because, as we look at this, we can say, “Okay this is going to a blog post, this is going to a video, this is going to a holiday campaign,” or whatever it may be. But this helps break it down so we can attach that color to that topic. So, overview, we say, “Okay, this week I’m gonna do… Create two videos on this topic.” So it helps us and our team stay organized. The one thing I really like about this content calendar is it has tabs for each platform. Now, if you’re using one of the awesome tools like Sprout Social, Buffer, or HootSuite, it’s easy to put your content in there and share it to all the platforms at one time, which makes it really simple. At the same time, we recommend not doing that.

07:49 AI: So if people are following you on Instagram and Facebook, they’re usually checking both of those every day, and you don’t want them to get on Instagram and see your post and then head over to Facebook and then that exact same post shows up at the same time in their newsfeed. There’s no value there. So why would they follow you on both platforms if there isn’t value? So I like this platform here where it breaks it into each network. So you can see, “Okay, this is what we’re doing for this network.” And even if you have a blog post that you are promoting, you can have that blog post, you can pull different sections from that blog for each platform, it can link back to the same blog, but maybe you have a different image for each post.

08:43 AI: The other thing that you can do is, we are all about reusing content, so what you write for your Facebook posts one week, you can use the following week, or the next week, for Instagram and LinkedIn. So it’s really about writing the social media posts for the month and then organizing them to the different platforms. With Twitter and Instagram, it’s really important that you have those hashtags that you are implementing into the content. With Facebook and LinkedIn, and even Pinterest, it’s not as important. But here you can see what day it’s going out, that you may have two or three posts going out per day on one network depending on how many likes and followers you have.

09:35 AI: So this is the link it’s going to. Now, the next two templates I’m gonna show you, you can actually… With Google Sheets, and I’m pretty sure with Excel as well… You can insert the image into a cell. So we actually put the image in here and then we create all of our images in Canva, and so we can then put the link there too. So, as you’re scheduling them, everything is in one spot, it’s easy to pull from. The head person that wants to look over this, they can see, “Okay, this is the message. That looks good. This is the link. This is what the campaign,” if it’s linking back to a certain campaign. “This is the image. Okay, let’s go with this.”

10:15 AI: So, the other one I want to share is this one. And… Oops. So, here… So this is the one from HootSuite, and I really like this template. Because, again, it… Outlines by the network, which is really important, because, again, that social copy should be different for each platform, especially depending on your audience. So sometimes our clients get a lot more engagement on Facebook than they do LinkedIn or Twitter. So on Facebook and maybe even Instagram, we wanna make sure that we are asking questions, doing posts that are engaging our audience, because that’s where we see the most interaction. So this one here kinda takes that monthly calendar and puts it right into kind of a weekly column.

11:21 AI: And so if you are doing five posts per week onto Facebook, this post is gonna be the new blog post, curated content, evergreen blog post, a live video. So, with Facebook, doing live videos, if that’s what works for your practice, maybe it’s a weekly FAQ with a doctor, maybe it is a weekly kind of a health tip and one of the nurses can just jump on and do that. So I think it’s a great idea to implement those live videos, and then your promotion if you are running a promotion. Now, these content types will change based on what topics you and your practice wanna be talking about, but when you move down to Instagram, you wanna make sure that you’re implementing stories, sharing content, creating those images because it is visual. So this content calendar is great. Now, this just has one sheet, and this is just for social media. So each week you would put the date here and then have your content on here. So, this is another great way to stay organized. You have noted here, image links, where you need to pull that image from, but this is a great way to stay organized for your social media.

12:44 AI: The last content calendar that I want to show you is our content calendar. So, we’ve taken a piece of, as I said, different content calendars that we’ve used, different needs that our clients have had, and what we’ve done is, the first tab is that full content calendar. So we have our color-coded key here, so we can see each month what this looks like. Now, what we may do is I may duplicate this, so this may be the January content calendar. So I may do one for January, February, March, April, May, or I may have this due January and then copy below here for February. So it’s all on one sheet, but sometimes you wanna go back and look, “Okay, what did we talk about in January?” So then when you’re coming up for the following year, you know, “Okay, this is what really worked. These are topics that we talked about what we need to implement again.” And then what we do is here…

13:48 AI: Here are our social media topics. So, this is the little notes I told you to keep track of. This is where you can say in here like, FAQ and then the questions that people had asked. So, you know, “Okay, this is what we need to be talking about. We need to create social media posts or blog posts or videos around this topic, and then also like a link.” So, if you are on, let’s say, WebMD’s newsletter, and they send out a really good newsletter with some great tips that you wanna implement into your social media strategy as curated content. You can put that topic, you can even put the title of the article and then the link so as you need content, you can come back to here and pull from there. And you can also add it to what we have is the content resources and this just builds that list for curated content.

14:45 AI: Sometimes, it’s easier just to go to Facebook and share from WebMD’s Facebook page or American Heart Association’s Facebook page to your Facebook page and the same thing with Facebook, but you also may wanna use their blogs as resources or other… They may have other tips and tools on their websites that you wanna share. So, just having one place where you come in, put the name of the source and the link, so when you are writing that social media content every week, it’s right here. And then, the next sheet would be the blog topic, so you could tie in the month, the blog title, the topic, the due date, when you published it and the link. So, you can pull from here, come back to your overview of the content calendar and be able to say, “Okay, on this week, this blog post is… ” And then, the title so you know.

15:47 AI: Now, one thing you do not see on our content calendar is the place to actually write your content. So, the way we do our social media is we have found that it is much easier to have a content calendar like this as an overview that you can refer to, look at. “Okay, what do we have coming up? What videos do we need to make? What blogs do we need to write? What social media posts are we gonna be talking about?” And then, what we do for our social media posts is we actually then create a Google Doc. So, our content calendar is in Google, and our weekly social media posts are in Google. I like it better because Google Docs works like a Word doc or like pages on Mac, but everyone that has access to that article or to that document can look at those posts. So if you have… This is just kind of a side note, but if you have a Mac and you don’t have Microsoft, then that Word document gets translated into a page and then vice-versa. So using Google Drive and Google Docs is just kind of a universal way. Anyone that has that link that you share it with can open it, can make edits, can see it. It also checks for grammar, spelling. And so, I like to put all of the social media posts into there.

17:16 AI: I think that makes it look very clean, you know what the content is, the hashtags. So on the content calendar, we are very clear on what day, what that needs to be, what hashtags we need to use, so then we can just transfer that to our Google Sheet, have the image on there, and then be able to put that into whether it’s Buffer or HootSuite. If you are… I will always recommend our clients scheduling all of their posts through Facebook rather than using a third-party app like Buffer or HootSuite or Sprout Social. Facebook likes when you use them. And then using those tools for LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. HootSuite does Instagram so that’s great. Tailwind, it does Pinterest and Instagram. So, it’s just important to figure out what works best for you.

18:15 AI: Sometimes we have a few clients where we just have an open document, and we put our post on there, but they like the format of a sheet better. Like an Excel sheet where they can see the post, they can see the link. It’s all right there. So again, it’s just really figuring out what works best for you and your team. And if you are working with an agency like us, like Social Speak, then being able to know, okay, what system does that agency have in place and is it easy for you to understand? So you know what posts are going out for your practice because you wanna know what’s going on and you wanna know how to make edits. And if you say, “Okay, let’s use this instead of that.” So just making sure that when you are creating this content calendar that you and your team are on the same page.

19:05 AI: So, I will add each of these as links below, so you can make sure you can see each of them and see which ones work best for you. And if you want help putting together the content strategy for your practice and really understanding how to implement that, let us know. We are here to help you. You can head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and do the free consultation. That’s a 30 minutes free consultation that we can walk you through this. We can answer questions for you. And if you are looking for more help from having an agency manage this for you, we would love to have that conversation as well. So, I hope that this helped and really got you on the track of being organized. Even if you do it quarterly, but quarters go by just as fast as weeks. By the end… By the snap of the fingers, it’s gonna be the end of quarter one.

19:46 AI: So, it’s important to have that year even if you just have the topics and your blogs, because the blogs turn into social media content. If you do one cornerstone blog of 3000 words, and you have maybe two videos in there and each blog has 10 images, there is social media content for a month. So, it’s really about maximizing your content and where it needs to go in organizing it. So, hopefully, this gave you some good insights on a content calendar and how it can work for your practice. And if you have any questions, please let us know. We are here to help. Have a great day.

Schedule your 30-minute FREE Consultation today! 

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5 Holiday Marketing Ideas for Your Medical Practice

5 Holiday Marketing Ideas for Your Medical Practice

Patient’s interest and behavior change during the holiday season. During this time of year, people are usually focused on shopping, office parties, and family gatherings. There may be a significant decrease in the number of patients, but that doesn’t mean that there’s less interest in health towards the rest of the year.

Stand out in marketing your practice and boost patient engagement with these holiday marketing tips. 

“12 days” email series 

“The Twelve Days of Christmas” is one of the most popular Christmas songs. During the holiday season, it is heard everywhere – TV commercials, shopping malls, school programs, and even church functions. Why not use it as an inspiration for your holiday email marketing campaign? 

Email marketing is one of the best channels to help you stay top of mind and build a lasting relationship with your patients. During the holidays, it would be a great idea to create a “12 days” email series and send them to people on your email list. 

You can create countdowns with a different daily message – remind people to book an appointment before the year ends, share healthy holiday recipes, and offer tips for staying healthy through the holidays. 

Shine light on a worthy cause

The holiday season is the perfect time to focus on giving and gratitude. Aligning with a charitable cause will put your practice in a positive light and show your community what you value. 

One of the best ways for you to get noticed this season is to turn the spotlight away from you and highlight a charity that you support. Participate in volunteer efforts that are relevant to your target patients. It helps you cast a wide net and position you as an expert. 

Spread some holiday cheer by sponsoring a local charity event or a fundraiser. Encourage your audience to participate in the holiday giving campaign. You can offer a discount of a particular product or service in exchange for a gift donation. Your patients give back, needy kids get some gifts, and your practice gets more patients. It’s a win-win. 

Hold a social media photo contest 

Social media contests are great because they accomplish several marketing goals at once. When done properly and effectively, they can help you build a strong following, increase engagement, and really connect with your audience. With Christmas in the offing, it would be a great idea to run a contest that encapsulates this joyful festival. 

If you’re a dentist, host a “show us your smile” photo contest with a holiday twist. Have participants submit pictures of their smiling kids on social media. Don’t forget to create a branded hashtag that you can use to collect all those photos. 

The prize should be something that is relevant to your practice. For instance, you can offer free cleaning or teeth whitening. 

By adding a bit of fun to your marketing campaign, you can convince your clients that they don’t have to dread a visit to your practice. 

Film a holiday video 

Humans are very visually oriented. Studies suggest that people find video content more interesting, more engaging, and more memorable as compared to other types of content. 

Patients like healthcare providers who come across as gentle, kind, and human. Videos are a great way to show your human side and showcase your personality. The holidays are a great time to show off your holiday spirit and capture that cheer on video. You can create a short video to send your patients a warm, heartfelt message. If you are a pediatrician, you can dress up like Santa. Kids will love it. 

Get creative and don’t forget to share your video on different social media channels. 

Write holiday-related blog posts 

This holiday season, you might want to share some tips and information that your audience would find valuable. 

If you treat patients with diabetes, it is a good idea to provide tips on how to keep their weight and blood sugar levels under control during the holidays. If you’re a dermatologist, you can offer some skincare tips for winter or how to achieve healthy, glowing skin in time for their office party.  

Since the majority of people check on their social media accounts on a daily basis, we highly recommend that you share them on your pages. Creating timely and relevant content increases the likelihood that your blog posts will be shared.

Video Marketing Tools:

Shortcuts
iMovie

The 20 Best Video Editing Apps for 2019

Subscribe to our Podcast here

 

5 Holiday Marketing Ideas for Your Medical Practice

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5 Doctors Who Are Rocking the Social Media Game

5 Doctors Who Are Rocking the Social Media Game (1)

Online marketing for doctors is essential in the digital age. It provides a way to reach new patients, create a stronger connection with the ones you have, and promote your practice. Unfortunately, many doctors are still unsure about how to make social media work for their practices.

Here are 5 doctors who are rocking the social media game. Read on to find out how they used social media to their advantage.

  1. Dr. Sandra Lee
    Website: https://slmdskincare.com/
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrPimplePopper/
    Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrSandraLee/
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drpimplepopper/Dr. Sandra Lee is a board-certified dermatologist. She uses social media to showcase her expertise – popping pimples and extracting cysts. Many of you have probably watched or scrolled past her videos on your feed. Dr. Pimple Popper posted a video of herself doing a blackhead extraction 4 years ago, and it took off from there. Although not for the easily nauseated, people seem to enjoy her content. In fact, she has amassed a large following on her social media channels. Her devoted set of fans call themselves “popaholics”. Dr. Lee has over 5.8 million subscribers on Youtube and 2.4 million Facebook likes. Her Youtube videos have been viewed more than 2.6 billion times. Now, she is a guru of skincare with her own TV show and skincare line.
  2. Dr. Kevin Pho
    Website: https://www.kevinmd.com
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevinmdblog/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinmd
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinphomd/
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmdDr. Kevin Pho, best known as KevinMD on social media, is one of the most prominent healthcare influencers. He is a board-certified internal medicine physician, an acclaimed keynote speaker, and author. Dr. Kevin Pho is the founder of the blog KevinMD.com, the web’s leading platform where physicians, nurses, and other medical practitioners tell their stories and share their insights. He also shares some social media tips for doctors in his blog. The site receives more than 3 million monthly page views and is regularly cited in major media. Aside from his blog and website, he also has successful social media profiles. He uses these platforms to share articles published on his blog, share the voices of other physicians, and promote events. His largest presences are on Twitter, with 160,000 followers. His Facebook page has over 123,000 likes.
  3. Dr. Mike Varshavski
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/realdoctormike/
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doctor.mike
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/realdoctormike
    Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0QHWhjbe5fGJEPz3sVb6nwDr. Mike is a board-certified family medicine physician. With an impressive 3.4 million Instagram followers, it is clear that Dr. Mike knows a thing or two about social media. Doctor Mike uses his Instagram account to give people an opportunity to connect with him on a personal level. He regularly posts photos of his daily life – at work, at the gym, sponsored events, and even with his dog. He may be known for his dashing looks and fashion sense, but he also routinely disseminates health and fitness advice to his followers.
  4. Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson
    Website: https://seattlemamadoc.seattlechildrens.org/about-this-blog/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/wendysueswanson
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drwendysueswanson/
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-sue-swanson-md-mbe-353b1b22Dr. Wendy Swanson is a pediatrician and an avid blogger for Seattle’s Children Hospital. Known to her legion of fans as SeattleMamaDoc, Dr. Swanson is one of the most eloquent medical writers in the social sphere. As the first physician blogger for an American hospital, Dr. Swanson worked on bridging the gap between parents and doctors using digital media.

    Supporting her goal of keeping your family healthy and safe, her content centers on the latest health news, general illness prevention tips, and helpful tips for parents. Her posts are personal and conversational. Hence, she was able to build a close relationship with her patients, in and out of the office. Swanson recently ended a stint as chief of digital innovation for Seattle’s Children. Over the past decade, she gained over 40,000 Twitter followers with her SeattleMamaDoc brand.

  5. Dr. Josh Axe
    Website: https://draxe.com/
    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/drjoshaxe
    Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/doctorjoshaxeDr. Josh Axe is a doctor of chiropractic, a certified doctor of natural medicine, and a clinical nutritionist. His goal is to help people eat healthily and live a healthy lifestyle. In his website, DrAxe.com, he shares content about topics like natural remedies, weight loss, nutrition, healthy recipes, and essential oils. Following Dr. Axe’s Facebook page is like following your friend online. Here, he shares a sneak peek of his personal life – enjoying time with his wife or cooking in his kitchen. He also uses his social media accounts to share health information, promote events, his book and other products.

    With over 2 million Facebook likes, 540,000 Instagram followers, and 43,000 Twitter followers, it is clear that Dr. Axe has cracked the code to building a powerful digital brand that people recognize.

Your practice needs social media One tweet won’t necessarily bring in new patients. Creating a Facebook page isn’t going to help you fill a waiting room. But with valuable content and consistent effort, you’ll be able to create trust with the community, solidify your reputation, and be a helpful resource to patients.

If you’re new at this game and you feel that achieving online success is well above your head, we are here to help. Schedule a free consultation today and we’ll bring you and your practice into the age of social media.

5 Doctors Who Are Rocking the Social Media Game

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How to review your digital marketing strategy for 2019

2019 Digital Marketing Review

In this podcast, we will be talking about how to review and analyze what has worked digital marketing-wise in 2019. It is important to take the time to review what has worked and what hasn’t worked, along with making sure your content is attracting the right target audience you are looking for. We dive into Google Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and more!

We also mention this AMAZING tool we have been using for Pinterest called TailWind, it has significantly increased our traffic to our website!

 

00:01 Amber Irwin: Hello everyone, I am your host, Amber Irwin. Welcome to Social Speak Network and welcome back from the Thanksgiving holiday break. I know everyone is so excited to be back to work. And if you are a business owner, this is the last month of the year, so we have a lot of things that we want to look at and really analyze to see what has worked marketing­wise for 2019. So today I’m gonna walk you through a few different things to track what has really worked digitally for your company. And it’s really important to take the time to look at the past year, to look at your content, what’s gotten the most likes, the most shares, what blogs have gotten the most shares, what videos have gotten the most comments and likes?

00:55 AI: So it’s really important to see what your audience is liking because this time of year,  you’re putting together the budget for the following year, you’re putting together your content and your marketing strategy. And so you need to know what is expected of you, for at least the first quarter of 2020 and have a plan for the year, so you can stay on track. And this has been a really big year for us as a company as well because we really stayed consistent with our marketing mission, which is key because it’s easy to get in the mode of blogging and doing videos and then something comes up. Maybe it’s work­related, maybe, you know, whatever it is, something comes up and you fall off the track of being consistent. So by looking at what has worked and what your audience is looking for, that will help you create that strategy for the following year and really be able to stay on track and stay consistent because the content is king, but consistency is even better. That’s the Ace.

02:02 AI: So you wanna make sure that you are being consistent and you’re continuing to deliver that information that your audience is looking for. So I wanna walk you through a few things on how to monitor your year to see what’s worked. So the first thing I wanna start with is your social media. So looking at… Let’s open up Facebook, looking at just your posts, so we wanna look to see… You should be tracking each month, your likes, so you should be able to see how many likes you have increased this year. So if you go to your insights, it will tell you. You can change the insights to the past 28 days. And this is why it’s important to look at this on a monthly basis,  because unless you know what that beginning number was, at the beginning of the year, you may not know exactly what that number is now. So if we go to likes, it will tell us how many likes we have and then it will tell us just the beginning of November, what we had.

03:25 AI: So, it’s important to just check in on that math monthly, to make sure that your likes are increasing. And if you’re doing paid advertising with Facebook, you should be running ads to, go to our landing page to actually collect those emails and those leads. But then you should also be doing some page ads as well to increase the engagement and likes. So you’ll have organic likes and then you’ll have paid likes. So that’s really important to know the difference between where your likes are coming from, on Facebook. Is paid advertising really working and/or boosted posts. Are you getting, when you boost a post on Facebook, have you been getting more likes and more engagement?

04:11 AI: So it’s important to take the time to look at your insights to see what is working and then when you go to your posts, you can see what times of the day people are engaging. So for us, we get the most engagement early morning like 8:00 AM So moving into our content strategy for 2020, we may wanna make sure that our posts are going out between 6:00 AM and 8:30, 9:00­ish because if we… When we start posting at noon, our reach drops significantly and when we post on Facebook later in the day, at night time like 9:00 PM to 10:00 PM, it drops even more. So our prime­time on Facebook, is that early morning, that 6:00 to 9:00 mark. So that’s important to know as well, so that’s the time and the days.

05:12 AI: And then I can look at all your posts published and I can see which posts are getting either an organic reach or post clicks, reactions, comments, and shares. So you wanna see which ones are getting the most engagement, and then what type of a post was that? Because that’s really important to be able to monitor. If you’re putting up just shared articles, curated content, which is important, but there’s no personalization behind it, there are no videos. It’s just always sharing content, and you’re not getting any engagement, well, that then says, Okay maybe my audience isn’t liking that. But if you put up posts that talk about client stories, patient stories, it talks about the personality of your office, showing more behind the scenes and stats, that’s what works for us. Stats, people love when we put images up of stats in healthcare for marketing. So that’s what really works for us, are stats and content marketing strategy.

06:00 AI: So Facebook is the first place I would start looking at those insights, looking at what posts have been working. You can on your posts, you can go back for the whole year. It’s just your insights that you can only go back 30 days but your content if you go into Facebook, go to your page, click on insights on the top, and then go to posts, you can then… And you can break it down to all of your posts. You can look at if you did events, videos, stories, different types of posts it will break down, but you will be able to see what posts are getting the most reactions. And that’s what you wanna start implementing more of in your content strategy for 2020. The next platform… And you’ll wanna do this for any platform that you are posting to.

07:24 AI: So we use Facebook and Instagram the most. So again, I wanna come through Instagram and I wanna look to see how many people liked it, if we got any comments, what type of comments we were getting, and then what types of posts, again, were people liking? Were they like when we were re­posting from people? Were they liking when we are putting stats up, videos? So really looking at the types of posts, and then again, the number of followers you have. So at the beginning of the year, we are doing really great with Instagram Stories, and we were highlighting them. Well,  as you can tell, we stopped that. We were great on posting to our feed but the Instagram Stories kind of… They weren’t a priority of ours anymore, and so these… You can even just tell in these branded images, it doesn’t match the brand that we have down here.

08:27 AI: And so here we should have healthcare marketing tips, healthcare social media, health…  Because again, our target client is businesses that are in the healthcare and health and wellness industries that have one to six locations. So that’s what we need to work on, is getting our stories back up and going and re­organizing these highlighted stories. So our posts have done great.

Even with Instagram TV, we were really good at being able to stay on it and we are getting some great traction but again, it fell through the cracks and it wasn’t a priority. So looking at those analytics,  how many people were watching Instagram TV, how many people were commenting? And that’s something that we may need to increase for the new year. So Instagram’s the next platform.

09:28 AI: Pinterest, I’ll get into Pinterest in a minute, but we use Pinterest a lot, and going into, I wanna talk about Google Analytics really quick. Google Analytics is a great way to really wrap your head around where all your traffic is coming from because your website should be your hub. That’s where everyone should becoming. This is where your blogs are going, this is where your videos are going within those blog posts, so your Google Analytics can give you a huge insight into what’s working. And you may wanna start here and then branch out into social media and your blog. One thing I found interesting on ours is under Acquisition and then Social, and then I  just went to Overview, and I’m in Google Analytics, and on our overview for social, most of our traffic is coming from Pinterest, which is awesome. It goes Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube,  LinkedIn, Scoop.it, then Instagram, and then we have some LiveJournal, Twitter, Google+. But you can see it.

10:47 AI: So Pinterest, we’ve had over 1100 people come to our website from Pinterest and we’ve had almost 500 people come to our website from Facebook. So our Pinterest strategy is really,  really strong, and we do use a tool called Tailwind. I’ll put that link below so you can check that  awesome tool out, and it’s working. So obviously, we wanna increase our Pinterest strategy, we wanna make more images, we wanna get more content up there, because that’s where people are finding us. So this is working. Facebook is working. YouTube is working. People are finding us and then clicking back to our website. So Google Analytics is a great tool for you to really be able to identify where your traffic is coming from.

11:42 AI: And the other thing, even if you click on to Audience and Demographics, you can do… I  just did the overview, but you can look to see what is the age group of people that are coming to your website, what is the gender, and what’s the interest categories. So you can look and see where people are coming from. And I think that this is important because one thing that I always find interesting is the content that we work so hard every day, every month, where are we… What’s working for us? And is the content that we’re working so hard on, is that attracting the right audience? So that’s something else to look at, to say, okay, where else are… If I’m running this  content, and it’s directly around healthcare digital marketing, and our Google Analytics is telling us  that we’re getting a lot of foodies coming to our website, people are interested in food and… Well,  that’s not a good connect. That’s wrong… Obviously the wrong demographic.

13:00 AI: So how do we need to change our content or change our… Look at our SEO, our keywords, and figure out how do we reach that correct target market. So Google Analytics is a great tool to be able to do that. The other thing I want to mention is YouTube. YouTube is a great tool to really track and see what videos are getting the most engagement. And this year alone, I think at the beginning of the year, we were at maybe five or seven subscribers, and we’re up to 154. Now that’s still very low but in a year’s time of us being consistent, we’re getting anywhere between three and five new subscribers a month, which is great for us because we’re not doing any paid advertising on  YouTube. This is all just organic but they’re finding our videos. And, again, when we are putting our videos into… When we put our videos up, we’re putting a link in the description to our blog. So they are going to our blog or to that website from YouTube, which is awesome.

14:19 AI: So it’s really important to analyze that to see what videos are working and which videos… If you thought a video would be great and it only got one view, well, why did it only get one view?  And did you share it with social media? Is it on your blog? What can you do to increase that video?  So, YouTube’s a great place to really look at the analytics and see what’s working. The last thing I  wanted to talk about is your website. So, with Google Analytics, it will track all the traffic, and it will tell you where your traffic is coming from. One thing that we had installed on our blog is a  tool… It’s a sharing tool, it’s a plug­in, and this allows people when they’re on the site that they can share it to Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn. So it’s a great way to see how many people are coming to your website and actually sharing those social media… Or excuse me,  those blog posts to social media.

15:29 AI: And so one of our blogs, I think it was our content marketing strategy, that one had been shared quite a few times. So that shows us that people really want to understand more of that strategy, and how to put that content marketing strategy together. Let’s see here. I know it’s here. So just looking at going through your blog post, looking at each one, seeing which ones have got shared the most, and what were those topics? What were people wanting to know about? And I  think that that’s really important because, again, it’s all about delivering that content to your audience in such a way that they’re receiving it, they’re sharing it, and they’re doing it. So that’s… So this one. So why is it so important to have a digital marketing strategy? This is a blog we wrote. 106 shares. 102 of those were to Pinterest. That is awesome. Four of them were on Facebook. So this shows me that, again, that Pinterest strategy that we have worked is killing it, and we wanna keep doing more of it. So, again, we have four more weeks left in 2019. If you have kids, I know that you really only have two or three weeks to really finish up this year because then they go on winter break, and Christmas is here and the holidays are here, and it’s craziness.

17:22 AI: So take time this week or next week, block out two hours and look at what has worked digital marketing­wise for 2019. Take the time, jot it down, and as you’re… And at this point, you should already have that content marketing strategy started for 2020. And by knowing what types of posts have worked in 2019, what you wanna do more of, if video marketing is something that  you’ve really been putting off this year, but when you have done videos, you get a ton of likes and  shares and comments, that shows that you need to implement that more into the new year. If you post more… People want to feel like they are a part of your company. It’s that know, like, and trust factor. And showing more behind the scenes, so interviewing… If you are a healthcare practitioner,  interviewing the doctors, interviewing the nurses, have the Friday fun­day behind­the­scenes  pictures.

18:27 AI: I know this takes a little bit of extra time and planning, but I promise you this, if you do it and you stay consistent with it, you will see a huge difference in your social media and your digital marketing. You will see an increase in patients. You will see an increase in likes and comments and just that engagement, and if you need help managing this and putting together the strategy, that’s where we come in. That is our expertise, to work with healthcare professionals, to get the new patients in the door by using Google and Facebook ads, to put together the strategy for social media marketing, email marketing, and blogging. So you’re reaching your audience on every digital platform there is, on each level so they feel connected to you, and they wanna come into your healthcare practice. So if you need help, head on over to socialspeaknetwork.com and schedule your free 30­minute consultation today. 18:49 AI: Thank you. Have a great day.

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Digital marketing Review 2019

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