Social Media and Healthcare

The healthcare industry is finally catching up with the rest of the business world in expanding their social media offerings. Many in our industry are worried about social media due to HIPPA and other regulatory concerns. Those fears are slowly subsiding as a recent study published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research said 58% of the physician respondents stated that social media enabled them to care for patients more effectively, and that 60% stated it improved the quality of patient care they delivered. Many physicians and hospitals want to know how they can increase engagement within their Facebook community.  Here are three simple proven tactics that will increase your EdgeRank and engagement on Facebook.

People love photos, it’s human nature as we’re naturally visual beings. The proof really lies in the pudding of Pinterest which is a photo heavy platform and continues to explode in popularity. HubSpot confirmed this theory in late 2012 showing that Facebook posts with a photo generated 53% more engagement than posts without a photo.

Fill-in-the-blank posts are a great way to build up your EdgeRank. These posts are easy to engage with and allow your community to show of their creativity. It doesn’t take much thought or context on part of your followers to comment therefore you should see much higher engagement and a higher EdgeRank score for your page. When using this tactic you’ll often see the comments outnumber the likes.

This basic marketing principle isn’t lost in the social media world. People need clear instruction on what you expect them to do. It still takes great content and a cleverly written post for you to get a conversion, but a call to action has shown to a critical element in increasing post engagement. Below is an example of a great photo of a nurse interacting with a sick infant in a neonatal ICU in Colorado Springs, CO. The photo is cute and heart warming, plus it has a beautiful infant in it. Both are huge pluses when it comes to engaging content! With a clear call to action the post did extremely well.