Maximizing Social Media to Reach Patients

Last month, I was honored to present at the Urgent Care Association’s Convention along with Kish Pisani, digital media specialist for the UCA, at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. Kish and I educated attendees on the “must use” social media channels to develop relationships with patients and community members. Our session included examples of highly engaging content in the areas of news, health tips and people. We also discussed best practices for each of the steps to building a social presence, including:

• Think through your audience – Knowing just who your reaching is key to understanding when, where and how to communicate.

• Identify your channels – There are many ways to engage patients but only a finite amount of time. Once you have identified your key audiences, you can prioritize the channels that will help reach the most people.

• Build a content calendar – Having a strategic plan of attack for the week, month or quarter is much better than tackling content “on the fly.” Laying out a calendar to ensure you spread out messages and hit key timeframes will help your content work harder.

• “Boost” and microtarget for more reach – Speaking of working harder, social media offers amazingly detailed opportunities to reach extremely targeted audiences by demographic, geography, job title or interest. Spending a few dollars to “boost” posts can grow your audiences in the right way.

• Monitor and respond to negative feedback – Engagement is a two-way street. Taking the time to review the comments and reviews or customers, and respond to them appropriately, will pay dividends in building relationships.

• Analyze and adjust – The world of social is ever changing. It’s essential to have an understanding of goals and keep a close eye on progress, so that you know when you are successful, and when you need to change course.

The Urgent Care Association has been a healthcare PR client of LCWA for four years, and it was nice to be able to translate our efforts and digital marketing expertise into actionable lessons for urgent care centers around the world.