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How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

As a business owner, it is important to provide your audience with a steady supply of interesting and engaging content. But let’s face it. There will come a time when you’ll run out of ideas and don’t know what to write about. If you find yourself in this situation, then a content calendar may be just what you need.

Creating a content calendar allows you to plan your content in advance and schedule them across multiple channels at once. This allows business owners to come up with well-researched and valuable pieces of content and then schedule them on multiple platforms in one go. Plus, it will spare you the trouble of having to come up with a topic just before the deadline.

You may not realize it, but creating posts and content on the fly is more prone to mistakes and typos. With a content calendar, you’ll have enough time to write your content and proofread them before publishing.

Ready to create your own content calendar? Here are 4 tips to help you get started.

1. What content does your tribe want?

It is important to know what your audience is looking for before you just start posting. What do they like? What are they engaging on, sharing, talking about? Look at your past social media posts if you have them or your competitor’s posts and see what is working. One way to do this is looking at your social media analytics to get a good idea of what posts people have engaged in. What if you are just starting out and you don’t know what your audience is looking for yet? This is where your competition comes in, take a look at a good competitor and see what are they talking about, what type of posts are getting the most engagement?

Be sure to mix up your content, have posts with just text, articles, blogs, images, videos, gifs, to make sure you are grabbing their attention. Once you have a good idea of what type of content your tribe/audience likes then you can start creating!

2. How often should you be posting to each platform?

This is a question we get asked all the time! Each platform is different. As a business owner, you will have Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and maybe even more than that. It is important to keep your audience in mind when posting. Meaning, how often should you post and what times should you post. When you were doing your research in step one, also check out the times that people were engaging.

You do not want to bombard your audience by posting too much and you don’t want to post too little so they forget about you. It’s kinda like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you don’t want your porridge to be too hot, too cold, but just perfect!  

Here is the common rule of thumb for posting to the social media platforms:

  • Facebook: 1 time per day and 3 on the high-end
  • Twitter: 3 times a day on the low-end and 30 on the high-end
  • LinkedIn: 2-5 times per week
  • Google+: 3-5 times per week
  • Pinterest: 5-10 times per day
  • Instagram: at least once per day

Each platform is going to be different for you, some you will have more engagement so you can post more and some you will have less engagement so you may need to only post a few times per week.

Remember to use the analytics to look at the numbers and see what they are reflecting so you can stay top of mind to your tribe/audience!

3. Time to Create Your Content

Once you know what your tribe/audience is looking for and how often you should be posting, it is then time to create!

Remember to keep it fresh and mix it up. Here are a few different content ideas for you:

  • Create a custom image through Canva, WordSwag, Typorama, Prisma, etc.
  • Create a video through Ripl, iMovie, Videorama, Animoto
  • Post your blog post from your website to social media
  • Find outside sources, articles, other blogs and videos you like, that align with your brand to share
  • Gifs to increase engagement

Here are a few tools we use to help keep our outside sources organized:

Feedly

The content you need to accelerate your research, marketing, and sales.  Stay ahead of the curve. The content you need to accelerate your research, marketing, and sales.

Stumbleupon

Discover the best of the web, one click at a time.

4. Time to fill in your calendar

Now that you have put your plan together and figured out the type of content you are going to write, where you are posting it and how often, you can fill out your calendar.

We have found that there are a few tools to help you with that content calendar. Everyone is different, some people like more of a visual calendar and others like more of an excel type of calendar. We love creating the content calendar in Google Sheets then using Trello to write the content and copy from there to our platforms. Others like to use Google Calendar for their topics and then put the posts directly into Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule them at one time to the correct social media networks.

You have to explore each option to see which one resonates with you the best! So we wanted to give you some to choose from:

Trello

Trello is a project management tool that’s very popular with bloggers, marketers and social media managers. It’s a good way to keep track of your content ideas and even has an additional calendar add-on you can use to get a monthly view of your planned content.

Google Calendar

If you want to keep it simple, you could always just create a new Google calendar for the process and invite everyone on the team to view it. Those teammates could also add all of their own posts and ideas to the same calendar.

Google Sheets

We have created our clients content calendars into here for topics and it will look like this:

Or this is how our Social Speak Content Calendar looks, you can be as general or as detailed as you want:

Buffer

Buffer is a new and smarter way to share what you want to share on Social Media. People have called it great names before, like your Social Media Assistant or the Siri of Social Media.

What it does is simple. Posts in your queue will be sent out automatically by Buffer, according to the posting schedule that you put in place.

Select the social account you’d like to customize the posting schedule for, select the Settings tab at the top, and then select Posting Schedule. From here, you can choose which timezone is best for this account and customize the days and times your posts should go out. Select the days you’d like to include and add the individual times you’d like your content to be shared.

Hootsuite

Manage all your social media in one place. From finding prospects to serving customers, Hootsuite helps you do more with your social media. Save time by scheduling your social posts. Keep your social presence active 24/7 by automatically scheduling hundreds of social media posts at once, across your social accounts.

How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

How to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your BusinessHow to Create an Effective Content Calendar for Your Business

 

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How to Create a Strong Video Marketing Strategy

How to Create a Strong Video Marketing Strategy

I’m sure you have heard the craze around video marketing, right?

It’s 2021 people! At this point in the digital marketing game, you HAVE to implement video marketing! And I am not talking about the cheesy videos, or you hiding behind a presentation and just having your voice being heard. I am talking about getting your face in front of the camera and really connecting with your audience.

One of the biggest trends in the social media marketing world is building an authentic brand, allowing your patients to see behind the scenes, and really know, like, and trust you.

Video marketing allows you to build patient loyalty and keeps you top of mind, by using video your fans can share your videos and are more likely to refer you to family and friends because they have a deeper connection with you and your office.

Why is Video Marketing SO Important?

I totally get the fear of video marketing, we have been in business for over 10 years, and it wasn’t until March of 2018 that we started implementing videos into our own plan.

It was something we ALWAYS recommended our clients did, but not something we DID for our own business! Funny how that works, huh?

You don’t need to have a studio, expensive equipment, or celebrities, you would be amazed at what you can do with the technology you probably already have, like iPhone, or smartphones, a digital HD camera, etc.

This rock can hold people up and get in their heads, it then becomes an excuse, I don’t have a fancy studio, backdrops, big lights, huge camera, etc. therefore I can’t produce a good video.

We will discuss this process below.

Before we jump into the 5 steps for a video marketing strategy, I wanted to give you a few stats from our friends over at HubSpot.

In their words – “Video has absolutely dominated social. According to a recent HubSpot Research report, four of the top six channels on which global consumers watch video are social channels. In addition, a Facebook executive recently predicted that the platform will be all video in less than five years.”

“According to a report from HubSpot Research, more than 50% of consumers want to see videos from brands … more than any other type of content.”

Video is useful for more than entertainment, too. Video on landing pages is capable of increasing conversion rates by 80%, and the mere mention of the word “video” in your email subject line increases open rates by 19%. 90% of customers also say videos help them make buying decisions.

So, let’s dive into the top 5 steps to have a clear video marketing strategy.

Step 1 – Find your Target Audience –

A great place to start with this task is your current patient list, who are you currently serving?

A few questions to ask yourself:

  • Who is my ideal patient?
  • What are they visiting my office for?
  • What problem or pain points do I help them with?
  • Where are they located?
  • What is their lifestyle like?
  • What can you offer them for free to help with a pain point?

Having a clear understanding of WHO your target market is and WHY you want to work with them is key!

Look at your current patient list and think of all your favorite patients, why are they your favorite, what do you like most about them, and what is their living situation like?

You want to attract the right patients into your clinic, right?

Patients who:

  • Value your services and team
  • Pay you on time or have good health insurance to cover the bill
  • Respect your time
  • Loyalty – Patients that are going to stick with you and brag about you to everyone they know!

Step 2 – Have a plan –

Imagine that! In order to have your video marketing working FOR YOU, you need to write out a clear plan. Now that you understand who your target market is, it’s important to create the videos that are going to connect with them.

There are many different types of videos you can produce:

  • Brand videos
  • Events
  • Interviews with patients or colleagues
  • How To’s
  • Animation videos
  • Case Studies
  • Testimonials
  • Facebook or Instagram LIVE
  • Personalized messages
  • Promotional or exclusive offers
  • Product launch
  • Behind the scenes
  • Tips & Tricks
  • National Observance Days 

The best way to organize your video marketing strategy is to implement it into the content calendar we have shared before LINK HERE I would create a new tab for your video marketing, then on the main calendar tab 1, you want to be sure you know when you are sharing those videos and to what platforms.

Step 3 – Figuring out the tactics and techy stuff –

Once you lay out your video marketing topics, then you want to figure out what videos should go on what social media platforms.

As I said in the beginning, you don’t need fancy equipment or a fancy studio in order to produce a good video. These videos are more about building long-lasting relationships with your patients. Building brand loyalty.

We are not talking about a commercial we are talking about 1-3 minute videos. Some of your videos if you are showing a “How To” or interview, those may be longer. Just keep in mind your goal for each video.

What is that videos purpose?

A few things to think of before you hit record are:

  • Do you need to write out a script or have bullet points? I like to write down the bullet points for each video and what the length should be. When I put a script in front of me I get really nervous, I like to wing it in a way! But. you have to find the best process for you.
  • Picking the right place – setting the stage. You don’t need to have a fancy studio, but if you pick a spot in your home or office that has good natural light, good sound, that will make a difference. Thinking of doing videos during the day with the natural light, rather than in the evening when it can be darker inside.
  • Recording Process – How are you going to record the video? Here are a few options
    • Mac – Quicktime player
    • Zoom – Screen share option
    • iPhone or smartphone
    • Computer Camera (Make sure quality is good)
    • HD camera
    • Microphone – you can use your headset or external mic if needed
  • Editing
  • Publishing

It may seem like a lot, but see where your team/staff can come in handy and where you may need to outsource a few things.

Be sure to time block for the recording process and the wrap-up (Editing, publishing, thumbnail, etc.)

Step 4: Uploading Your Video

Now, that you have the video recorded and ready to show the world, there are a few steps you will need to take to upload your video correctly.

When you are creating a video it may have a certain purpose, most videos should go onto YouTube regardless, but you may make one specifically for Facebook or Instagram. If that is the case you can upload them directly to those platforms.

YouTube is owned by Google and the 2nd highest trafficked website, they have over a billion users and people are recorded to watch more than 500 million hours of video daily! This number is growing each and every day. So, yeah your videos should always be uploaded to YouTube in addition to social media platforms!

To upload to YouTube:

  • You will want to make sure you have a YouTube channel set up.
  • Then you can click upload video
  • Find the video on your computer
  • Have a good SEO friendly title
  • Write a description with call-to-action and link to your website
  • Create a playlist to keep videos organized
  • Add tags – keep them SEO friendly
  • Then upload a Thumbnail image (Create in Canva)
  • Once a video is uploaded to YouTube it gives you a link where you can share to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest, it also gives you an HTML code that is how you can put that video onto your website or into a blog.

*** BONUS – Download TubeBuddy TubeBuddy is a browser extension which adds a layer of amazing functionality right on top of YouTube’s website. They help with finding the right tag words and making your video as searchable as possible!

The other thing to think of if you are planning on doing a lot of videos . . . which you will be is where do you want to store your videos? They end up taking up a lot of space on your computer. Look into Vimeo, Dropbox, Zoom, iCloud, etc.

Step 5: Track your results and analyze

One thing I love about doing videos is being able to monitor the results, the views, the comments, the shares, etc. It makes me feel like people are really interested in what I have to say HA!

Just because you do one video doesn’t mean you will get a million views, some of the videos we have done haven’t gotten any views.

It’s important to track these results and find out why, was it a poor title or description, are people not really searching for that?

Remember each video should be addressing your target market and sometimes your messaging needs to be fine-tuned. This is why the planning piece is so crucial because you want to hit the pain points your audience is searching for.

Ways to monitor ROI from video marketing:

  • Google Analytics
  • Your YouTube channel stats – check views on each video, comments, likes, etc.
  • Total views
  • Clickthrough rate, this would be for email sign-up or on social media
  • A conversation started through landing pages or on website
  • Social Media
    • Likes
    • Comments
    • Shares and retweets

I would look at your video marketing each month, at the end of each month analyze each video and collect your data. Make notes of what videos got the most ROI and see how you can create more videos around that topic, then the videos that didn’t do as well, look at the title and description, can it be edited or does the video need to be redone?

What happens if you have high views but little or no engagement? Maybe you do not have a clear call-to-action in the video, ask a question at the end to start the conversations.

Pay attention to the numbers and the platforms you are getting the most engagement.

In conclusion, as you can see it is important to have a plan and logic behind your videos, to make sure each video you make is serving a purpose. I wanted to end this blog with some free tools that can further assist with your video marketing strategy, a few of them I have already mentioned in the blog.

Free Tools to Use for youTube:

  1. BuzzSumo – Analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor. Find the key influencers to promote your content.
  2. Canva – Allows you to create the correct size Thumbnails for your videos
  3. TubeBuddy – Free browser extension that integrates directly into YouTube to help you run your channel with ease.
  4. Scheduling Tools like CoSchedule, Buffer, or Hootsuite 

I would love to hear your success stories with how video marketing has been a successful marketing tool to grow your business.

 

How to Create a Strong Video Marketing Strategy

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The Importance of Googling Yourself and Your practice

The Importance of Googling Yourself and Your practice


Hello everyone. Happy Wednesday. I’m excited to talk about Googling yourself today in today’s blog. If you listen to our podcast on Monday, the first two questions that we had spoken about were, why is it important to Google yourself and your practice and how do you fix the information that is out there if it’s incorrect or outdated.

This is something that people sometimes tend to overlook. You don’t realize that if you are a practice owner or if you’re a physician and you’ve been at multiple practices that your information is most likely out there on the web. It’s important to make sure that as a physician or a business owner, you know exactly what is out there and that it’s the correct information, sometimes we’ll get, our phone number will update or our address will change locations, maybe we add a service and we forget to add that to our online content. So in today’s blog, we are talking about Googling yourself, and although that seems kind of silly, it’s actually really important, and you wanna make sure that you are Googling your name, you wanna make sure you’re Googling your name with your abbreviations, you wanna make sure that you are Googling your practice name, your hospital name, wherever you are working because there’s going to be a listing for both your business and you personally.

You want to make sure that you know what is out there, and when you do find something, if a Google listing comes up, you wanna make sure it’s the correct information. So sometimes we’ve had maybe different marketing people work for us, or in the beginning, we may be set up three different Google My Business pages or three Facebook pages, and that happens, but let’s talk through how to fix that. So when you Google your practice name, most likely what will come up is on your Google search, you will have the websites that come up that list your name on them, and then usually on the right-hand side of your screen, if you’re looking at your screen, you will see most likely a Google business listing. And this could be something that you have put together. This is something that Google may have put together. And on the search side, a lot of times those are different directory listings or different websites that you are on, it could be your social media account. So you wanna go through and take inventory of each of those sites that come up that lists either your name or your practice name, and you wanna make sure those are correct.

Now, you can have, Vitals may come up, WebMD, Healthgrades, a lot of different directory listings could come up for your name and practice, so you wanna make sure that, that information is current and that you own that directory listing. So if you click on that website and it pulls up your listing for your name or your practice, there should be a button that says, “Claim this listing.” And you wanna make sure like with Healthgrades and Vitals, it’s one email per listing, so if you are the marketing director of your hospital and you have seven doctors that work there and you’re trying to do this for each of them, it needs to be their email address, so we recommend the physician’s email address with each listing because then that doctor can go there and update it whenever they need to. So you’re gonna go to claim the listing. If you’re the business owner, the same thing, claim that listing, put in your business email account, and then you will have to go back in and create the account, go in and edit the information. And with Google, if there are multiple Google listings that come up, you’ll want to see which accounts that you’ve created and edited that information, if there are accounts that other people or other companies have created, then you can either claim them, you could have them make you an admin, so you can merge pages together, so you only have one Google My Business.

Same with Facebook, depending on if you have a couple of Facebook pages out there, you may be able to just delete one if it’s an old one, or you can merge them, so just making sure you are aware of what is showing up when people are Googling you. The other tool that we use a lot is a Moz, M-O-Z.com. There is an annual fee to this, I think it’s $129 a year, but this makes sure that it keeps all of the information about you or your center current and up-to-date across all different online directories. It does not cover Vitals, WebMD, or Healthgrades. So those are ones you need to do individually, but it does help with the Google listings and other directories that are out there.

One more thing that you kinda do before the end of the year, it’s important to do this once a quarter. You don’t know, and especially if you’re being featured in a different online magazine, Googling yourself. You could also set up Google Alerts, and if you just Google Google Alerts and you put in your… You can set up an alert if you… Any time something goes online about your practicing or your name, you would get an email and you can have a weekly email, a monthly email, you can even have a daily email if you want it to, but this just allows you to say, on top of what’s going out there that has your name on it, or your practices name.

Just to make sure that, that information is current and correct and that it is all consistent amongst all different platforms. So if you have questions or you need help cleaning up your Google search and making sure everything is on the same page, please let us know, and request a free 30-minute consultation today. Be sure to follow us on iTunes.

The Importance of Googling Yourself and Your Practice

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Digital Marketing Q&A – Tips and Tricks

This is our first podcast for our monthly Q&A  series. In this podcast, we will go over – Why is it so important to do a social media audit and get rid of old accounts?  – Does blogging help your SEO and how can you find keywords/phrases to blog about?  – Why is it important to mix up your social media content?  – What are a few tools we use to make our digital marketing life a bit easier?  – Why should you be running Facebook ads, even if you feel they haven’t been successful before.

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Online Health & Fitness Coach Tips with Digital Marketing

Online Health & Fitness Coach Tips with Digital Marketing

We had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Suzanne, who is a Health & Wellness Coach on a mission to help women thrive in each area of their lives. Jess shares with us the challenges and successes she has had as an online coach, reaching her target market, staying connected, and growing her business.

To learn more about Jess visit her website at https://www.jessica-suzanne.com/

A little bit about Jess

I help ambitious biz babes boost revenue through increased energy, improved cognition, and time-efficient fitness!

You’re probably wondering, why do I care so much about your health… and the health of your business?

Why am I so passionate about creating a healthy lifestyle?

How do I understand your challenges?

Before I really started focusing on my health, I was a scattered hot mess of stress.  I was trying to start and run a business, but my tank was running on empty and I just couldn’t catch any momentum.

I lost my mom unexpectedly one year prior, which was undoubtedly the toughest obstacle I’ve ever been faced with.

Not to mention, the transition out of corporate life was turning out to be way more difficult than I thought it would be!

No routine, no structure, no boss telling me what to do, and no real solid direction…

I thought once I got my health coaching certification, I was going to build my program and all the people were going to come running…

It was going to be easy, right?  Wrong! 

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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.

Remember to Subscribe to Our Podcast

 

 

Digital marketing Review 2019

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5 Reasons Why Doctors Should be on Social Media

Why doctors need to be on social media

Having an active social media presence has become mandatory across different industries, even the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, many physicians find social media marketing intimidating.

The way patients approach healthcare today is different than it was a decade ago. Today, social media is the most relevant advertising channel for you and your practice. It is a cost-effective way to increase reach, build credibility, and attract new patients.

Still on the social media fence?

Here are 5 reasons why you should include social media in your marketing campaign.

Increase reach

With over 3 billion social media users, it is almost inevitable that the majority of your target audience has a presence on popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The majority of them log in on their accounts on a daily basis.

While social media was originally created to cultivate personal relationships, you can use it to get you and your practice in front of your target audience. Your existing patients are probably already following you, but social media allows you to reach more than just the patients you see in your clinic or office.

With the right strategies, it can help you broaden your audience and bring more patients through the door. Don’t be one of the many practices that are missing out on the opportunity to reach millions of people on social media.

Build a relationship with your audience

According to a study that was published in the Annals of Family Medicine, doctors spend an average of 17 minutes with each patient. That is not enough to address the patient’s immediate concerns, much less to build a relationship. Social media gives you an opportunity to connect with your audience and communicate with them outside the office.

As a healthcare professional, you have an opportunity to help people by correcting the spread of medical misinformation, helping chronically ill people feel less isolated, and encouraging them to pursue a healthier lifestyle. Of course, you need to make it clear that you won’t be providing medical advice. This should be done in the office.

With time and consistent effort, you’ll be able to gain their trust and loyalty. If you can create the ultimate experience for your patients, they aren’t likely to go to another doctor.

Attract new patients

The internet has changed the way people find doctors. They are no longer limited to physicians in their area. Although word of mouth and referrals still rank high as a means of finding new doctors, many patients would turn to the internet to find healthcare practitioners of all kinds.

In a survey that was conducted by Doctors.com, they revealed that 63% of respondents choose one doctor over the other because of a strong online presence. You want you and your practice to be at the front of a patient’s mind when the need for your practice arises. And that’s exactly what social media marketing is for.

Social media can be an invaluable resource to attract new patients. As mentioned above, it provides a way to reach a new audience, engage with them, and promote your services. When done right, it will bring you a steady stream of new patients and grow your practice.

Patients want you out there

According to a survey conducted by the National Research Corporation, over 40% of internet users rely on social media for health information. Some would turn to social media for advice when they have questions about healthcare problems or issues.

Your potential and existing patients are already on social media, and using these platforms to get in front of them makes sense. There is already a demand for health-related content, so why not give it to them?

In a hyper-connected world, people want to be able to communicate directly with major brands in their lives, including their doctors. Take advantage of this opportunity to market your practice and services to the exact people that are looking for you.

Become a thought leader in your field

More and more people go online to look up medical information. Since anyone can post practically anything, health information online is often unreliable. As a physician, you can’t just remain quiet and uninvolved while people spread inaccurate information.
Information sharing is one of the greatest benefits of social media.

Doctors have a powerful voice. It is time for you to dip your toes into the virtual waters and disseminate scientifically-proven medical information to the general public.

Always bring value to the community. Give tips on how to stay healthy. Share information about current illnesses going around. Upload links to new research about your area of specialty. If you can make complicated topics easier to understand, then you’ll be able to help millions of people across the globe.

 

Why doctors need to be on social media

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5 Healthcare Marketing Trends That Will Help You Stay on Top

Change is the only permanent thing in life, they say. That’s never been truer in the world of healthcare marketing.

Healthcare marketing is continuously changing. Keeping up to date with the latest digital trends and consumer preference is key to remain competitive and acquire a steady stream of patients.

Keep these trends in mind when planning your healthcare marketing campaign.

Excellent digital experience

Most hospital websites focus on providing information such as the address, business hours, doctor’s bios, specialties offered, etc. As competition in the digital landscape heats up, more and more hospitals and healthcare providers are putting a greater focus on patient experience.

83% of patients visit a hospital’s website before booking an appointment. That means a patient’s experience begins with your website. Their online experience will determine whether or not they will convert from leads to actual patients.

For a better online experience, make sure that your website loads quickly and is easy to navigate. Patients love the idea of convenient scheduling. If you offer online booking or have a customer service chatbot they can communicate with, that would be a plus.

You are bound to see a high ROI if you focus on creating an exemplary online experience for potential patients.

Video Marketing

According to a study that was conducted by Hubspot, 45% of people watch more than one hour of video a day. Out of the 45%, an astounding 81% have been convinced to buy a product or avail a service after watching a branded video.

Incorporating video content into your marketing strategy can help build trust and provide a much deeper understanding of what your healthcare company has to offer. Prospective patients are now researching doctors who specialize in the procedure they’re looking for before scheduling an appointment. This is where video content proves useful.

Through videos, you can verbally and visually explain how the procedure work. This can help ease fears or uncertainty. Plus, it helps prospective patients get to know the doctor before a consultation, so they gain a sense of trust beforehand.

If you haven’t already, we urge you to start creating video content, both for your website and social media accounts, sooner rather than later. 

Search engine optimization

They say the best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google. Why? It’s because 55% of users won’t go past the first three organic results. 

According to studies, 89% of consumers turn to the internet when they’re looking for answers for their healthcare queries. You want your website to show up at the top of Google’s search results. Otherwise, you’ll be losing to your competitors.

With more and more people turning to the internet for medical advice, it is important to capitalize on these searches by making your website as visible as possible. To get on page 1 of the search engine results, you’ll need a strong website and an even stronger SEO strategy.

Online reputation management

Your online reputation will have a significant impact on your practice. Why? It’s because a huge majority of patients turn to the internet to research physicians.

The survey revealed that 84% of patients read online reviews to help them gain insight into healthcare providers. 86% of them will be hesitant to schedule a consultation with you if they read a negative review or comment.

To stay competitive, you need to make a concerted effort to manage your reputation, both online and offline.

Whether you like it or not, patients are going to leave reviews. The sad truth is that dissatisfied customers are more likely to leave feedback than happy customers. With a single review, comment or article, the reputation of any healthcare organization can be tarnished.

You can’t make negative feedback go away, but you can encourage happy patients to speak out for your brand. It is in your best interest to encourage patients to leave reviews.

Mobile healthcare apps

Gloomy faces of ailing patients waiting outside the doctor’s office, long queues, and a dull, monotonous hall – this is the picture one would imagine while waiting at a doctor’s clinic or a hospital about a decade ago.

Millennials are the largest U.S. generation, and they demand convenience. They are switching to providers that offer a much higher level of convenience. This is where mobile healthcare apps come in.

In today’s era of the smartphone, keeping in contact with a healthcare provider has never been easier. Patients can chat with their doctors and ask for advice about a symptom or a condition. They can also book appointments with their doctors, access doctor’s prescriptions, and even purchase medicines through their mobile devices. In addition, patients can easily monitor their health conditions themselves through apps. This helps them stay one step ahead of the disease; hence, reducing the need for invasive treatments.

Healthcare apps are also beneficial for doctors and medical staffs. They can check the patient’s reports and prescribe medicines if required. Doctors can even make referrals through the apps. 

 

 

 

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How to Use a Content Upgrade to Grow Your Business and Email List

In today’s world of digital marketing, it is important to stand out from the crowd and really be able to provide your audience value.

Today, we will be discussing the importance of utilizing content upgrades for your business.

These are FREE downloads and added benefits to your blogs that your audience wants.

How it works:

  1. This shows your audience that you are an expert in your industry, by providing valuable content on a topic your audience is already looking for. You are able to connect with them and start building trust with them. It’s about the – Know, Like, Trust factor. 
  2. By utilizing Content Upgrades it allows you to grow your email list. Having a strong email list to market to is like gold. This happens because in order for your audience to receive their free content upgrade they need to enter in their name and email.  Another key factor to using Content Upgrades is you are able to understand your audience more and really know what they are looking for so you can write more content for them. 
  3. Once you have their email address you can remarket to them with future items similar to your content upgrade, this is called the nurturing process, building the trust with them so they will want to do business with you.

So, let’s take this one step at a time and go through the process of what a content upgrade can be and then how to create one.

Content upgrades are the free downloads that you sign up for in exchange for your name and email address. The content upgrades can be a variety of things. 

One key place you can look to start thinking of what your content upgrade should be is your FAQ section on your website. This FAQ section gets a TON of SEO benefits from Google, so looking at what your top questions are or event turning those FAQ into a content upgrade.

Here are a few examples of content upgrades.

These upgrades can come in many shapes and forms, but typically include:

  • Tools and Resources List
  • Secret Podcast Episode
  • Checklist of the steps taken in the blog
  • Regular Checklist 
  • Additional Related Content
  • Downloadable PSD files or other design assets
  • One Month Free of your product or membership site
  • A Printable
  • Swipe Copy (people love swipe copy, FYI, this is used more for affiliates, content they can copy and paste to promote your product or program)
  • Transcripts for Audio or Video Recordings
  • Worksheets to support a blog post
  • eBook
  • Case Study
  • Interactive handout
  • Video series

You can also think outside the box and include:

  • 15-minute phone calls
  • Strategy reviews
  • Free sessions
  • Etc.

The goal of these upgrades is to increase the number of subscribers on your email list.

All of these items can be used to grab the attention of your target audience. You are creating a valuable piece of content that your audience wants, they then give you their name and email to download this content upgrade.

Now, that you have an idea of WHAT a content upgrade is, it’s time to start planning what you should be creating for yours.

We have a worksheet for you to go along with this blog and to be able to jot down your ideas. Please download your free copy now to continue with this blog. (See how we are using a content upgrade?!?!)

Download Your FREE Content Upgrade Worksheet

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It’s very important to be clear about what you are going to create, and understand that you will have multiple content upgrades. You may do a content upgrade for each blog post, or each service you offer.

For example, if you are a nutritionist and work with clients one on one, you may write a blog and your content upgrade would be a grocery checklist or a food substitute checklist that your audience can download for free then they learn to trust you.  Then if you have another blog or maybe even promoting your coaching services you may have a 3-part video series as your content upgrade to help your audience know, like, and trust you along with giving them valuable information within the video series.

Now, that you have figured out your topic and then format you want to create your content upgrade on, it’s time for the fun part!

How to Create Your Content Upgrade

To create your content, you could have a:

  • PDF: These are great for workbooks, checklists, Guides, etc. Simple tools like Word, Pages, Google Drive Slides, or PowerPoint are all easy to save as PDF’s.
  • Email Course: These don’t even require PDF’s. In an email course, you are sending valuable information over the course of a few days. This makes it so the recipient isn’t overwhelmed by information and sees your name pop up more frequently. MailChimp allows for automated email sequences, which is a great free way to share this content.
  • Free consultation: All you need here is your phone. You can use Calendly.com to set time blocks that you are available for consultations to reduce the back and forth.

As subscribers are added to your email list, it is important that you are tagging these individuals with what they were interested in. For us, for example, someone who is interested in information on how to manage their Facebook, won’t be interested in information designed in educating other social media managers. We want to make sure any future emails we send to our list align with the topics they initially were interested in.

Let’s dive a little deeper and talk about how to create each of these things. 

1. Use Google Docs or Word to put your thoughts on paper or screen

I love using Google docs because it is a live document and you can use it from any device, it is also great if you have a team that will be working on this project together.

Don’t worry about fonts, colors, visual appeal at this point. It is just about getting the words on the paper at this point.

You can add images and change font later once you have the content complete. Sometimes, I worry too much about the visual appeal at the beginning that I lose focus on the value of the content.

2. Time for the Creative Part – Creating your Cover

Graphics are very important to your content upgrade, they are the main thing that drives the attention of your viewers. We use an awesome tool called Canva, this is where we create the cover image, you can use the 8.5×11

They have Free themes you can edit, add your own font, brand colors, images where you can do one of two things here, you can just create your cover

3. Creating Your Google Doc into PDF

If you choose to use Canva just to create your Cover image then you would download that image to your computer, then head over to your Google Docs and insert that image on the first page.

Then you will want to make sure you have a footer with your contact info:

  • Company Name
  • Website
  • Email Address
  • Logo

Check to make sure you have the images in the correct areas, the fonts you want and the right brand colors. If you do not have the correct brand color number you can use this FREE Chrome extension ColorPick Eye Dropper, this works to pull the correct color number that then you can add to Google Docs and Canva.

Once that is complete you can go to File > Download As > PDF

Save it to your computer. This saves it in an 8.5×11 PDF.

4. Adding the PDF to your website

You want that PDF to have a URL so you can add it to your sign-up form within MailChimp or Lead Pages. 

You can upload this PDF to your WordPress website into the media area, this gives you the URL so you can hyperlink the download within your welcome messages in your sign-up form. We love to use MailChimp because it is free and very simple to use.

5. Bringing it all together

Now, you have everything created and ready to start having people sign up, right?

It’s time to create your landing page and your form so people can start signing up to get your free content upgrade.

Like we said in step 4, we use MailChimp because it is simple and easy to use.

There are other options like using your website or LeadPages as well. In the video below it walks you through the MailChimp process.

Wrapping it all up

I hope from this blog you are able to see the big picture behind these content upgrades/free downloads. There are so many different ways you can tie these into your marketing. One thing I love about content upgrades is it gives that extra oomph to your blogs. I love the creative process of creating a content upgrade.

Have fun with this process and maybe create 2-3 to start and see which one performs better!

Lead Growth Management

Social media networks and search engines can change their algorithms without warning. Email marketing is currently (and historically) the most effective way to continue building trust with prospects, increase recurring revenue, and see an ROI from other marketing efforts. The Social Speak Email Marketing team works with your strategist to build content upgrades, welcome series, and newsletters to stay top of mind.

We are here to help!

 

 

How to Use a Content Upgrade to Grow Your Business and Email List

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