Instagram – Practice Marketing Tips For Healthcare Providers

Brand recognition by curating content that embodies your brand’s aesthetics.

Competitor analysis and learning how to outperform your competitors.

Accessibility and customer engagement through targeted posts.

Increasing audience engagement and brand reach.

Keeping up with trends and technological advancements in the field and monetizing growth opportunities.

Analyzing your public reviews and optimizing products and services to improve customer experience.

As a healthcare professional or practice owner, your ultimate goal is to maximize your patient base while retaining current patients. A marketing strategy is put in place to achieve these business goals. It can include social media marketing or traditional marketing techniques; however, the current times call for a healthy mix of the two.

For example,

“The time when Taylor Swift joined Ryan Seacrest for his studio opening at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital in Nashville, Insta-fam went crazy leading to Tennessee hospitals creating a buzz.”

Another exciting way to raise awareness is by digital fundraising. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis partnered with Lancome’s Hand Heart Campaign and asked its 145k Instagram followers to support the cause by “heart” -ing and to use the targeted hashtag #LancomeLovesStJude.

Each hand heart would result in Lancome donating $1 to St. June.

Medtronic is a medical device manufacturing company that took to Instagram and has over 62.5k followers currently. They develop insulin pumps for diabetics and use their Instagram platform to market their services and raise awareness about the autoimmune disease that affects people globally.

Notice how they have incorporated the subject within their username to increase their visibility. The use of relevant hashtags in their bio along with prompting hashtags that encourage users to engage with the brand makes it a success story.

Unlike other social media platforms, Instagram focuses on societal ailments such as mental health awareness, body positivity, and LGBTQ support.

Since Instagram rolled out a reporting and support tool to help Instagram users susceptible to self-harm and suicide, it has been a while. One can use this tool to anonymously flag posts and offer support in private messages.

Check out the overwhelming amount of posts using #mentalhealthawareness as a hashtag to raise awareness about the issues; a total of 14,779,108 posts and counting!

Powerful hashtags like #iamenough encourage people to use these hashtags as a means of storytelling by incorporating them into their Instagram posts.

You can choose a variety of Instagram stickers and include them in individual stories to highlight mental health awareness and support for minority groups. Instagram works closely with mental health experts to identify eating disorders and is affiliated with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Save.org, and much more.

The late Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, who suffered from COPD, got memorialized by the COPD Foundation and Philips Healthcare’s joint campaign to raise awareness of COPD.

They launched the hashtag #Breatheboldly, encouraging people to post videos of daily life activities, such as breathing through a straw, to support people suffering from COPD.

Instagram has partnered with Seventeen Magazine to highlight body positivity and instill self-confidence among its users. Instagram uses mild language to communicate with users facing these issues to avoid intimidating and scaring users off.

With the addition of the 24-hour stories that vanish without allowing public comments, Instagram’s reach has expanded through private DMs. It enables healthcare providers to curate a customized message for prospective patients.

Pharmaceutical companies exhibited reluctance to join Instagram at first; however, once Boehringer Ingelheim took to Instagram, other major companies such as Pfizer, Novartis, and many more followed.

• Flonase is an over-the-counter allergy treatment that has one of the most interactive and engaging Instagram pages. It uses vibrant seasonal images and addresses the user’s needs in a creative way.
• Flonase spreads awareness about how allergies affect people in changing weather and seasons.

• Pfizer believes in making its followers feel heard. Therefore, they refrain from deleting trolls and negative comments, which may reduce engagement.

With the Coronavirus pandemic, the need for vaccines, from how they are made to why one should use them, has spiked. It has enabled pharmaceutical companies to communicate with the general public using Instagram as a critical tool in their healthcare marketing strategy.

Through its fundraising campaigns, awareness drives, and other inbuilt marketing tools, Instagram has effectively interacted with patients and built an informative community.

Like traditional marketing tactics that are strategized around their target audience, Instagram marketing focuses on its user base, primarily millennials. Statistics indicate that millennials, or people under 35, make up 90% of Instagram’s 500 million active users.

This data indicates the need to curate content that resonates with a younger audience for their medical practices to be successful on Instagram.
For example,

As a dentist, your Instagram profile should focus on teeth whitening rather than dentures.

Even if your target audience isn’t the younger demographic or your services are not catered to millennials, you can still use Instagram to find your niche and blossom in it. Instagram is much more than a marketing tool; it helps you establish a robust digital presence, helping you rank better on search engine results.

Having an Instagram account for your healthcare practice serves as validation, instilling trust in prospective patients, generating brand awareness and credibility for long-lasting patient relationships.

It is important to remember that Instagram is essentially a personal app that showcases your individuality and can be customized to highlight your or your brand’s personality.

Going overboard with too technical or promotional posts may result in a decreased engagement rate and often fail to attract user attention.

Instagram is a visual platform with its users more inclined towards looking at vivid pictures. You can edit your images and add relevant texts containing informational material to boost customer engagement and keep up with the events happening around the community.

Another excellent way to capture local patients’ and users’ attention is by geotagging your posts so people can easily find you.

For example,

Suppose you are a plastic surgeon and your post showcases a patient with successful rhinoplasty, including before and after photos. In that case, you can add the location of your clinic for prospective patients to quickly locate you.

Using Instagram stories to provide a glimpse into behind the scenes of your healthcare practice can enable prospective customers to relate with you, improving engagement levels.

Instagram followers are more likely to get invested with your healthcare practice than posts. You can use Instagram stories to encourage your followers to participate in charity events and fundraising, as well as generate awareness regarding mental health and other issues.

It is vital to keep up with the trending topics and hashtags such as throwback Thursday’ or ‘install good’ or trending audio and reel concepts. Hosting content can help drive traffic to your account, and giving freebies and hosting giveaways can maximize your practice’s engagement.

Remember to participate in competitor events and collaborate with other professionals from your industry. You can go live with experts from the industry to validate your practice. It is crucial to maintain the tonality and theme of your Instagram account. Various editing tools such as Canva can be used to plan your content ahead of time, ensuring consistency on your Instagram profile.

Instagram was born to fulfill our primary visual needs, which gives it an edge over its competitors.

It features a constant flow of never-ending feed consisting of visually appealing content allowing users to break from the monotonous text-based information found on other social media platforms.

Humans are visual creatures; our emotions are directly related to the visual and auditory triggers around us. Medical practices can leave a long-lasting impression on their target audience using impactful visuals and compelling storytelling.

You can use an Instagram carousel to talk about issues relevant to your industry or videos to generate interest in your prospective clients. Since anonymity plays a crucial role in Instagram engagement, you can interact with your target audience, encouraging them to leave feedback on your posts without cornering them into revealing their personal information or identity.

Hashtags directly link the interested user to see every post on Instagram that has used that particular hashtag.

For the rookies or newbies: a hashtag is a keyword or keyphrase written without ‘space’ that begins with the pound sign (#).

While it is essential to post high-quality and engaging content regularly, hashtags are the tool that enables users to find you on the vast platform of Instagram. Hashtags guide interested users to your medical practice and help you expand your following.

For example,

If you are a dentist who uses the hashtag #smile #braces, anyone searching for braces or smiles would be directed to the collection of posts that have used this particular hashtag.

1. #healthservices
2. #pharmacy
3. #familydoctor
4. #healthprofessionals
5. #nurses
6. #healthcareprofessional
7. #pharmaceuticals
8. #medicalcare
9. #medical
10. #healthcare

• Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post.
• Hashtags help Instagram users search for targeted content.
• Using a combination of trending and relevant hashtags can help your content rank higher, making your practice
  easily discoverable.
• Overusing hashtags may increase the spam content on your profile; use hashtags carefully.
• You can omit using hashtags on your post and use them in a comment instead for a sleek-looking post.