Social Media Marketing Trends the Healthcare Care Industry Needs to Know in 2017

Can you believe that the New Year is already here? It seemed just like yesterday we were ringing in 2016. But time flies, and as it does, it brings with it new change. This rings particularly true in the world of Social Media. Some things have stayed the same, but much has changed. And these changes are important to know and understand as you start to develop your marketing strategy for 2017.  

The biggest key to developing your marketing strategy in2017 is this; you must understand your audience. You need to know what makes them tick. What it is that drives them to social media or to certain sites. Finding out what they want and how they want it is crucial when trying to market towards your specific audience. Sure data is great, understanding the social media sites is great, tactics are great, it’s all great. But, if you fail to understand your audience, you will fail to secure them as potential clients.

One way you can start understanding your audience, and social media as a whole, is by recognizing the growing trends. According to research the biggest trends on social media right now are boiled down into 3 things.

1.      Video (live, recorded, and 360-marketing)

2.      Influencer marketing

3.      Bots

Let’s look at video. For a couple years now, video on social media has flourished. More and more people have started to use it as away of communicating, expressing thoughts, ideas, and opinions. They use it to vent, to make people laugh, or to show off their cool skills. As video grew in popularity, social media sites recognized this, and started making changes to make it their sites primes source of communication. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. all now carry some form of live feed. Because of this, Marketing Tips for sMALL bUsinEss are now being built around video and live feeds to better interact with customers and clients. So, keep video in the front of your mind as you start to develop your healthcare focused marketing strategy.

Influencer marketing is another big one on social media. People like people. People trust people. Especially, when the aforementioned people are people who are well known, famous, or are a social media god or goddess. A lot of times a business will approach a person with a large followings on social media to promote their business or product. You see it all the time these days. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are filled with people who are constantly advertising brands, products, and services. This trend as a marketing strategy continues to gain popularity. If you can find a person of affluence in your industry who has a good number of followers, you may want to consider reaching out.

Bots. Oh how the Terminator would love us for this. Bots are applications that perform an automated task, such as setting an alarm, telling you the weather, or searching online. Siri, for example, is a bot. They serve many purposes and continue to take the social media world by storm. Because after all, who really wants to do anything themselves?

It is important to understand and take into consideration all of these growing trends when you develop your SEO strategy for the year 2017. Social media has become the primary source of advertisement and growing a brand’s awareness. Which makes perfect sense because everyone is on it and everyone uses it. But, that doesn’t mean you can just post something on social media and be done. You need to make sure your content is quality, that you are building a following, and that you are taking into account what your clients and patients want. If you can learn how to do this, then you’ll set yourself up for success in the coming year of 2017. 

SEOs Top Ten Types of Content

There are so many rules to SEO today that it’s hard to follow them all. Do you do this, or not do this. Or if you don’t do this other thing, will Google penalize you? Plus, then you have content. What is quality content? What is bad content? Why types of content are you supposed to use? And the questions can go on and on an on. Well, don’t fear, we’re here to help make the world of SEO just a little bit easier for you and your healthcare practice. Recently, a study was done showing the top ten types of content that works for best for SEO. Today we’re going to share them with you. Now, before we do, that doesn’t mean you need to do all ten types. Rather, it’s a matter of figuring out what your users want, and giving it to them.

So, here we go, the top ten types of SEO content that work are:

1.      Blog posts – ones that are regularly updates or republished

2.      Short-form evergreen content articles

3.      Long-form articles

4.      Photo and visual galleries

5.      Detailed and information-rich lists of information

6.      Interactive tools and content

7.      Comprehensive category landers

8.      Multi-page guides

9.      Data or complex information

1.  Video

So, now the question remains, which type should you use? Well, this depends entirely upon what it is your potential patient is looking for. The way to determine that by figuring out what is the patient’s intent, and what are they trying to accomplish. Most times, in the healthcare world, a user is looking for information.  And that is exactly what content marketing is for. However, there are several different types of informational queries, i.e. a quick answer to a question, a deep comparison, a broad overview, sheer curiosity, professional and scientific interest, muti-threaded exploration, and the list could go on. And depending on the type of query you decide on, will affect the type of content you post. So, how do you narrow down and figure out which type of query should be focused on, so you can determine the type of content? That question leads us to the next step.

Once you have answered the question of what the patient is looking for, go online and search for it. See what pops up. This will help you determine not only the query that is most wanted, but also the type of content that is used to answer such query. For example, let’s say you concluded the user wants to know “How to combat seasonal allergies?” Well, go into Google, type that exact question in, and see what pops up. Now, what do you see? Do you see a quick answer? Do you see chat threads, do you see informative articles? What you find will help you determine how you will go about deciding your content. Weather if it’s you want to continue with the same type of content that seems to work, or try another type entirely just to be different.

The third and final question you’ll ask yourself to finalize your decision on the type of content is “What’s going to resonate with two groups – my audience and their influencers?” To determine this you have to answer the question, “what type of device are they searching from?” This will give you insight as to the type of person they are. For instance, if they are searching from a mobile device then it’s likely they are an on the go type of person. And let’s say you’ve established that they want an informative type of article. You now know it will probably be best to make it a short-form piece of content. And just like that, you’ve now figured out the exact type of content you should use.

Content writing doesn’t have to be difficult. By listening to your potential patients, and figuring out what it is they want. It can help you establish the types of content that will not only work best with SEO, but for your own practice as well.