Should Hospitals be on Facebook? Social Media Marketing for the Healthcare Industry

Across industries, sophisticated organizations are now committing both time and money to their social media marketing campaigns. But the healthcare industry (including hospitals, B2B medical manufacturers, and health clubs) has hesitated to embrace social media.

A survey of 1,060 U.S. adults by the PwC Health Research Institute found that one-third of respondents considered social media platforms appropriate for the discussion of healthcare. The Journal of Internet Medical Research found that 60% of adults surveyed used the Internet to access medical information. This is a major opportunity – it’s time to get ahead of the curve.

That said, there are some of the unique concerns for healthcare marketers when it comes to marketing on social. These include:

• Fear that social media may compromise patient or client privacy and security
• Challenges in creating a secure monitoring system, which could potentially lead to charges of malpractice
• Challenges in producing factually accurate content

Still, the benefits of engaging on social may outweigh the risks. Here are some ways that healthcare institutions can engage on social in a relevant, useful, and industry-appropriate way. And if you want more information, be sure to download the new ebook created by Infinigraph and Marketo, The State of Content Marketing and Social Media in the Medical and Fitness Industries.

Use Images

In a study by Infinigraph, we measured the effectiveness of different posts made by healthcare companies, including hospitals, clinics, and health care foundations. We found that healthcare audiences engaged most with posts containing images.

This image below from Cleveland Clinic received 1,140 shares, 24 comments and 1,995 likes on Facebook:

Note the visibly placed calorie count on the image – Cleveland Clinic knows that their audience is interested in nutritional information. Also, when you consider that more than 75% of health-related costs involve obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol, low-calorie recipes from Cleveland Clinic could potentially reduce health costs in the long-run.

This next image from WebMD received 1,377 shares, 48 comments, and 1,135 likes. Both attractive and useful, the image accompanied an article about the best foods for sufferers of food poisoning or the stomach flu.

Keep it Human, Keep it Useful

Here are some of the most engaged-with Facebook posts from our surveyed healthcare institutions over a 30-day period.

What made these post successful? All contain images, and all link to valuable content. These short posts link to larger articles which tell human interest stories, tapping into audience emotions, or provide useful health information.

As for placement, Facebook and Twitter are both crucial to your social media campaigns, but our research strongly suggests that Facebook posts generate the most engagement with the health and wellness industry. Facebook has more active users than Twitter, and content posted to Facebook has a longer shelf life – depending on engagement, Facebook posts can remain prominently displayed for days.

Closing Thoughts: A Few Best Practices for Healthcare Marketers

• Make your data available. Allow your ratings and reviews, as well as error rates within your database (if applicable) to be made public.
• Educate your employees on social media policies. Make the risk of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) clear, and prohibit posting inappropriate information about doctors or patients.
• Implement privacy settings. Be sure to safeguard personal information and content.
• Avoid using social media channels to communicate with patients on sensitive issues. Advise them on a secure, personalized server.
• Enlist at least one author, editor, or reviewer on every piece of content that you publish. Include references or links to the source of your content, and date it whenever possible.
• Include an “About Us” or “History” section on your website. Present information about qualified staff, services, and facility as well as your purpose, goal, or mission.
• Ask for audience feedback through surveys and questionnaires. Make your contact information easy to find, and encourage your audience to get in touch via email, Facebook, and Twitter. When they do reach out, respond promptly and thoughtfully.

8 Ideas for a Creative Facebook Cover Photo

If you’re savvy about marketing on social, your business probably has a Facebook account. You’ve picked the perfect profile pic, filled in all the missing information, and even written a pretty stellar bio about what your company does. So you’re done, right?

Wrong. So wrong.

One of the most crucial elements of a business’s Facebook page is the cover photo. It’s like the window display of your storefront – if it’s boring or ugly, it won’t generate interest.

So what should you put in your social media storefront window? Here are eight awesome ideas for creating the Facebook cover photo of your dreams, inspired by brands who already have an outstanding visual presence. Ready to get started? Here we go!

1. Align to the Right

Where is your profile picture? On the left side of your profile. So where should you put words, important images, or graphics when you’re designing a cover photo? On the right. It’s a pretty straightforward concept, but you’d be surprised at how many people and businesses mess it up.

On the WB’s page for the fictional Harry Potter, the picture is placed so that the focal point is clearly visible. Nothing of real interest is obscured by the profile image, and the page is compositionally balanced. Bonus tip: whenever you use an image of a face, the person should be “looking” in the direction of your content – in this case, the cover photo.

2. See the Big Picture

Your profile image will conceal a small section of your cover photo, but you can make that work for you – just look for the big picture! Some of my favorite cover photos are those that incorporate the profile picture as part of the larger image. These innovative pics really stand out.

You see what I mean? Carlsberg uses their profile picture to enhance their cover photo (and highlight their product, the beer itself).

This Captain Morgan cover photo/profile picture mash-up is so seamless that, at first glance, you might actually think that the bottle is on the page! Note that the profile picture works well independently of the cover photo. When you see that icon pop up in your newsfeed, there’s no mistaking its source.

3. Be Your Own Billboard

Facebook is about making connections and showing off your fun side, but it’s also a place to establish your brand. Think of your cover photo as free billboard space on one of the most popular social networks in the world – use it!

Sticking to the “Start Here” theme used in their television commercials, CarMax created this appealing, high-quality ad for their Facebook cover photo. Visually pleasing, this bright and cheery image also helps to reinforce CarMax’s brand.

In this cover photo, Cvent got a little more explicit in advertising their services. Who needs an “About” section when you can put everything that needs to be said onto your cover photo? Note that the image’s background is very simple, keeping the text-heavy image from appearing too crowded.

4. Use a Call-to-Action

From my college communication classes, to marketing seminars, to meetings at work – if I’ve learned the great importance of any one thing, it’s your call-to-action, or CTA. Social media is a powerful tool when it comes to lead generation, and including a CTA in your cover photo encourages visitors to act. Whether you want to gain likes, visits to your site, or entries in a contest you’re hosting, a cover photo CTA will help.

Marketo is currently using their Facebook page to promote The Marketing Nation Summit, using a cover photo CTA. As in the example from Cvent, an understated background image makes the CTA pop.

Wishpond uses their cover photo to overtly invite readers to take action, with a literal arrow pointing to the spot where viewers can enter their contest. This is a great example of how a cover photo can drive people to act.

5. Introduce Yourself

Are you proud of your team? Do you want to show off your staff? Do it with a cover photo!

In this older cover photo, The New York Times takes you into their office and shows you their whole staff. It’s a great look into the big, beautiful office of the people who write the news that you read.

Not quite as big as The New York Times? Not a problem! This small marketing agency uses their cover photo to show potential clients that they won’t be working with a big, “faceless” corporation.

6. Appeal to Emotions

While turning your cover photo into a CTA or a billboard can be great, an emotionally resonant cover photo can be equally effective.

Facebook’s own cover photo is a perfect example of how images can tap into emotions. It also is completely on -brand. What is Facebook about? Connecting. What does this photo convey? Connection. This image gets down to the heart of social networking, and makes visitors feel positive about their brand.

This Toyota cover photo, which is about two years old, also tells a specific, emotionally resonant story with only a single image. Visitors will automatically associate Toyota with freedom, and with enjoying the ride of life – no words necessary. Plus, who doesn’t love a happy dog?

7. Stay True to Your Brand

There’s nothing worse than a brand that changes mascots, slogans, or jingles every other day. People like consistency and familiarity, and your Facebook cover photo is a great place to reinforce your familiar message.

 

Ben & Jerry’s, for example, has always been about the cows. Their Facebook cover photo doesn’t stray from that fact.

 

Nike reinforced their brand with this simple, straightforward cover photo. All that they need is their familiar Nike swoosh, and their iconic “Just Do It” slogan. They’ve said everything they need to say.

8. Start a Conversation

A hashtag is a powerful thing, my friends – in recent years, we’ve even seen hashtags play a role in political revolutions. When you throw a hashtag onto your cover photo, you have the power to get people talking.

Coca-Cola’s current cover photo contains a colorful logo, a picture of three young women wearing sports gear, and a mysterious hashtag. You tell me that you’re not curious.

Ford Mustang’s cover photo hashtag is less mysterious, but equally powerful. You can use the hashtag to search for “#Mustang” and see what other people are saying about this famous sports car.

This has only been a brief sampling of the amazing cover photos I’ve seen. What are some of the most creative, engaging, or gorgeous brand cover photos you’ve encountered on Facebook?

The 10 most common Landing Page Optimization Mistakes

The first thing that most people think when they want to boost their online sales is to increase their website traffic. Thus they focus on getting more links, achieving better Search Engine Rankings, investing more on advertising, sending more emails and newsletters, finding more affiliates, becoming more active on Social Media and using other ways that can help them increase the number of their visitors. But is this always the right approach? Certainly not! Before spending all of your resources on trying to acquire expensive traffic, you should first ask yourself: “Are my landing pages optimized? Do they help me generate sales?”

The Landing Page Optimization is probably one of the most important but at the same time ignored part of the Online Marketing strategy. Have in mind that in many cases, increasing your traffic by 10% will not have the same impact on your revenues as improving your conversion rates by the same percentage. This is primarily due to the fact that increasing your traffic incurs several costs that can squeeze your profit margins. Thus as we discussed on a previous article building effective landing pages should be a top priority in order to improve your conversion rates and increase your sales.

That is why in this article we discuss the 10 most common Landing Page Optimization mistakes and we explain how these problems affect the online marketing campaign:

1. Hidden or Unclear Call to Action

As we said in a previous blog post, the Call to action is a simple way to interact directly with your visitors and encourage them to take an immediate action (such as buy, call, subscribe, register, download etc) after visiting your website or viewing your page. The call to action should be distinctive, it should be visible on the top of the page and it should communicate a clear message to your readers. Failing to use clear call to action or failing to focus the user attention on it, is something that can definitely lead to lower conversion rates.

2. Having too much Text

Having too much text on the landing pages of your website is not helpful for your visitors. Keep in mind that the landing page should get the user’s attention and make him/her understand the basic features of your product/service. The rule “less is more” applies in this situation. Present to the user the most importantaspects of your product/service and provide him a way to read more details if he wants. Use clever graphics/visuals to pass hidden messages and don’t forget that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Now I am sure that many SEOs will argue that such an approach will have a dramatic impact on the SEO strategy of the website. Think again! There are several ways to add this text below the fold (where it will not distract the users) or use JavaScript/jQuery to hide and show the content in case they want to get more information. There are several ways to solve this problem technically. Just think out of the box and have in mind that visitors have limited time and thus you have only few seconds to get their attention.

3. Too many Links/Choices

Providing too many choices to the users is not advised since it can confuse them and make them leave your website. Make your users navigate easier on your site and increase the odds of focusing them on the Call to Action by keeping the number of choices short. This applies especially when the visitor lands on the page from an Adwords or PPC advertisement.

Again you don’t have to sacrifice your SEO campaign and destroy the Link Architecture of your website in order to create effective Landing Pages. You can resolve these issues easily by using several web development techniques and by implementing clever designs. The links can remain on the page as long as you focus the user attention on the choices that you want him/her to make.

4. Visual Distractions

Avoid at all costs any visual distractions that will make user ignore the call to action. Removing flashing advertising banners, floating boxes, popups or any other similar distractions is essential to increase the conversion rates. Keep in mind that using too many call to actions on the same page can also be considered as a distraction. Even though you can have more than one call to actions on the same page, make sure you prioritize them and not confuse/distract the user from your main goal.

5. Request too many information on the forms

In many cases the landing pages contain HTML Forms where the visitor has to fill in his/her information in order to proceed (download, buy, subscribe, register, contact sales etc). If possible eliminate the forms that are not necessary since they are considered as barriers by many users. In case they are needed, try to request from the user only the information that is absolutely necessary and avoid asking for things that are not useful/relevant or that he/she might be reluctant to provide immediately. Don’t forget that you can ask later for this information, once you gain the trust of the user.

6. Message Mismatch

It’s a common mistake to use Advertising campaigns with misleading texts in order to drive traffic to the landing page. A message mismatch between the ad and the landing page can lead to high bounce rates and low conversions. By using misleading ads not only you attract not-targeted traffic and you waste your resources but also you risk getting banned by the advertising networks since this is a clear violation of their Terms of Use. The same applies not only for ads but also for all of your promotional campaigns and links that you place across the web.

7. Lack of Trust

Another reason why you might have low conversion rates is because the potential clients that visit your website do not trust you. In order to resolve this problem first of all make sure you have a well designedwebsite which is an indication that you are a serious company. Also make sure you include the logos and reviews of your satisfied clients or provide reviews from experts of the industry. Finally keep in mind that you should include in a visible position any Trust Seals or Badges that show that you website is safe for online transactions.

8. Not tracking the results of your landing pages

In order to be able to optimize a landing page, you must be able to know how well it performs. A major mistake that lots of people make is that they don’t monitor and track the results of their landing pages. Make sure you invest time and effort on reviewing your traffic logs, tracing the behaviour of the user within your website and above all track every click of the user by using Google Analytics Event Tracking or Virtual Pageviews or similar techniques. This information will be invaluable for you when you start evaluating and optimizing the results of each landing page.

9. Not testing the results of your landing pages

If you don’t test different versions of the landing page you can’t be sure that it works properly (or how well it works). By using A/B testing you can get lots of useful data about the behaviour and needs of the user and use this information to improve your pages and make the right marketing decisions. Don’t forget that in order to be able to evaluate the results of the A/B testing you need gather results over a period of time and of course to set all the necessary mechanisms that will help you monitor the results of each page. Google’sWebsite Optimizer is a useful service that can help you perform such tests, nevertheless there are several other solutions and tools that you can use.

10. Not optimizing your Landing Pages

Webmasters and Online Marketers optimize their Ad/SEO/Social Media/Online Marketing campaigns all the time. Why should not we do the same for the Landing Pages? Redesigning the Landing Pages of the website by taking into account the results that we track, the A/B testing and the feedback from the users is absolutely necessary in order to improve the conversion rates. Don’t forget that it’s your client that should “design” your website and not your Web Designer or Online Marketing consultant. And since different clients have contradictory needs you need to find a solution that satisfies most of them. This can only be done by dedicating time and effort on monitoring, testing and optimizing your landing pages.

The Landing Page Optimization is a difficult and challenging task that requires you to present the information in an optimal way, to know your clients and understand their needs, to monitor closely the performance of the pages and to invest time and effort on improving their results and on trying new approaches. Still Landing Page Optimization is not rocket science and as a result in many cases by dedicating the appropriate time you can achieve very good results just by making few targeted changes on your marketing approach.

4 Steps for Effective Web Content Development

First of all, what is Web Content Development?

Web content development is the procedure of researching & gathering valuable information, defining objectives, finding & evaluating keywords to be used & organizing the structure for writing & finally publishing a content.

Undoubtedly, in the world of internet and web development, content is the king. Content is the medium through which you can provide interesting and valuable information to your audience. By providing well optimized information, your content becomes visible by search engines, increases ranking results and therefore it is easily found and read.

So, content development is all about keywords & appealing information! In this blog post you will find all the principal steps needed for setting up a right SEO strategy for a well optimized content.

1. Researching & Analysing Competition

Specify your competitors & extract information from competitors’ sources, regarding the subject you want to write about. Gather as much information as you can! The initial research will help you significantly find ideas concerning which keywords to use when developing your content.

2. Defining Objectives

You must specify the main goals (products or services) that need to be promoted through your content (blog post, article, image, video or other interactive forms). If the content to be developed refers to a website, then define the pages of your website that need to be optimized. It is really important and take it into serious consideration, that each page of the website needs to be optimized for unique keywords / keyword phases that are related to one and only subject.

3. Finding & Evaluating Keywords to be used

Make a list of possible keyword phrases that are going to be used for the optimized content. If you are going to create content for a website, then make a different list of keywords, for each page you are going to optimize. The keyword phases listed should be both head terms and long tailed ones. Be inspired from:

The initial research you have performed & the objectives & goals you have set. Ask yourself:

• Which are the keywords / keyword phrases that best describe the product or service that needs to be promoted?
• What kind of terms have you found through the competitors’ sources that can be used to describe the relevant product or service?
• Which terms do your competitors use? Be careful to select only those keywords that are highly relative to your goals and objectives. And the fact that you are selecting them for your initial list does not necessarily mean that you are going to use them as well. The list will be finalized after evaluating keywords performance
• If you were a user, which search terms would you choose to use in order to find the specific promoted information?

Google analytics account excluding the branded terms. In the organic results, exclude the branded terms and narrow down your keywords list with the keywords that have brought the highest traffic.

PPC keywords (Pay Per Click) provided by Google Analytics. Write down the PPC keywords that have generated the most traffic.

So, after you have ended up with a list of keywords: Use an effective keyword tool such as google adwords Keyword Tool or the very effective Keyword Research tool of Web SEO Analytics and check your keyword phrases performance. The greater the number of searches is, the more popular a keyword is. The greater the competition is the more difficult it is to easily gain good ranking results for the specific keyword phrases.

After the research, select the best keywords / keyword phrases that define your content according to relevancy & query popularity.

Then, use the Keyword Difficulty of Web SEO Analytics so as to evaluate the possibilities of achieving good rankings for each of the selected keywords.

By combining both the Keyword Research and Keyword Difficulty tools you will be able not only to find all the popular keywords that are related to your specific subject but also to decide on the keywords with which you will more likely accomplish high rankings in search engine results.

After you have ended up with the final list of the top keywords, try to spread them through the content accordingly. How?

4. Organising the Structure

1. There is no ideal number of times to use a keyword on a web page. And if this still remains confusing, it is advisable that the density of each keyword/keyword phrase should not be more than 3 times, per 300 words (e.g. page of a website). The key is to make the selected keyword phrases appear naturally inside the content of each page and at a reasonable rate.

2. Try to use the specific keywords / keyword phrases on important positions inside the page such as:

• The URL
• The title
• The first sentence or at least the first paragraph
• Headings and subheadings
• Image file names and alt texts
• Meta (title, description, keywords)
• Text links to related content inside the website

The final step is to take a pen and write down the article! When it is ready publish it and share it through the social media.

How To Protect Your Brand’s Identity

As a small business owner, you’re already swamped. You’re so busy and the last thing that you want to concern yourself with is protecting the brand image and identity of the company you fought so hard to build. But, your brand’s image is one of the most important factors in determining your success. Which is why it is absolutely necessary to make sure it’s protected at all cost. 

What is Brand Identity and Why is it Important?

A brand, as defined by the American Marketing Association, is a “Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” In short, it’s how the public views and feels about the values, products/services and personality of your brand.

How important is a brand’s identity? Well, would Nike be the same without its Swoosh and “Just Do It” tagline? Would Facebook be the same if it weren’t blue? We could bore you with more examples, but you think you get the gist.

Screenshot http://www.interbrand.com/ taken June 2014

If you’ve created a great brand identity, then here’s the positive results:

• Makes a great first impression.
• Distinguishes you from the competition.
• Increases brand awareness.
• Establishes brand loyalty and trust.
• Delivers the products/services you promised.
• Inspires employees.

How to Develop Your Brand Identity

Understanding the importance or brand identity is one thing. Actually developing and putting it into action is a completely different task.

HubSpot put together the incredible “Marketer’s Guide to Developing a Strong Brand Identity.” Here is a brief synopsis, but we recommend you bookmark it for future reference.

Before developing your identity, do some research and perform a SWOT Analysis. This will help you understand your exact place in the market.

Once you are aware of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats your company faces, you can begin to develop your brand identity, which includes five steps.

These steps are creating:

• A Vision Statement: where you want you company to be in the future.
• A Mission State: describes the purpose of your company.
• Essence: the emotions that people associate with your company.
• Personality: how does your brand speak, act, etc.?
• Position or Value Proposition: describes how your brand benefits your audience.

Once you’ve developed a strong brand identity, you can begin to create everything from logos, taglines, signs, packaging, and figure out how to market your brand so it will reach your intended market.

How to Protect Your Brand’s Identity

Now that you’ve developed an identity and created logos and slogans that clearly define your company, it’s time to make sure it’s protected.

Domains

If you want to spread brand awareness, keep customers up-to-date with the latest happenings or simply have potential customers learn more about your brand, then you need a website.

Obtaining a domain name for your website is one of the most effective and cost-effective ways in protecting the identity of your brand. GoDaddy, for example, offers domain names currently for $12.99, which is a small price to pay to make sure that your brand reaches its intended audience.

When choosing a domain name take the advice of Rand Fishkin from Moz. He suggests that your domain be unique, short, easy to remember, easy to type, and fulfill expectations. He also suggests that you purchase .com, .net and .org versions for branding. This will prevent anyone else from riding your coattails.

Because there are so many domain names being used, make sure that it’s available, which you can do when purchasing a domain in GoDaddy or any other domain registrar.  Even Google is getting in the domain game. Also keep in mind that there are now other options out there instead of just the traditional .com, .net and .org. Domains are getting very specific to include industry or location. Don’t be surprised to see everything from .club to .rentals to .vegas in the coming years.

Copyrights

If you’ve created a logo, piece or music or any “original works of authorship,” then you should have it copyrighted. This makes sure no one else can profit or display your work without consent. A copyright can also ensures another company doesn’t steal something like your logo. This will help set your brand apart from your competitors.

You can learn more about copyrights and how to register by visiting the United States Copyright Office.

Patents

If you’ve invented something really unique and revolutionary, then you’ll want to get a patent. A patent can be granted to an inventor “to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States.” Just keep in mind that patents have an expiration date. This means that your inventions is protected for a certain amount of years until made available to the public.

Visit the United States Patent & Trademark Office for more information and how to apply.

Trademarks

Speaking of trademarks, the United States Patent & Trademark Office defines this as “a word, phrase, symbol, and/or design that identifies and distinguishes the source of the goods of one party from those of others.”

While you don’t have to register for a trademark, you should take advantage of the benefits. Registering for a trademark basically puts the public on notice that this particular symbol or phrase belongs to your company. Just as with a copyright, this sets you apart from everyone else.

Before registering for a trademark, make sure that it’s free to use by searching the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS).

Legal Assistance

Everything from copyrights, patents, legal assistance to having employees sign contracts or non-disclosure agreements can get very confusing if you’re not familiar with the laws. If this is the case, then it may be worth hiring an attorney to ensure that your brand is legally protected.

Before hiring a lawyer, you should brush up on legal jargon and the general rules that protect your brand. You may not have to a lawyer, at least at the time. This could be a life saver if you’re on a tight budget. But, this will also make it easier to work with a lawyer if/when needed.

I suggest that you review the suggestions from a site like NOLO.com. The site provides helpful resources, such as a directory of lawyers who specialize in this field in your particular niche.

Monitor Your Brand’s Online Reputation

One of the best ways to make sure that your identity is intact is by paying attention to what people are saying about your brand online. There are numerous free tools available that allow you to analyze what people are saying about your brand, keeping up with trends and how effective your marketing campaigns are. Social Mention, TweetReach, Addictomatic,Google Alerts and this handy tool from Go Fish Digital that searches complainant sites can all be valuable assets in protecting your brand’s identity.

You can also use Image Raider to discover if anyone online is using your images.

Make Sure Everyone is on the Same Page

Making sure your employees set examples for your brand is priceless. The last thing that you want is for an employee to not believe in the brand’s values or go off on a social media rant that offends people. At the end of the day, this all reflects poorly on your brand.

If you don’t have the budget to hire an agency or social media manager, then at least make use of free resources like Hootsuite to manage all of your social media accounts from one location. There’s also a team management facility that can be used if several people are updating your social media accounts.

Finally, make sure everyone involved in the brand delivers a consistent brand image and puts the brand first.