Recently, we polled over 200 healthcare practices to find out how they’re managing their social media. We wanted to know who runs their accounts, how they’re feeling about their efforts as a whole, and what challenges and pain points they face. The results were overwhelming, yet encouraging: while most practices feel that they need help reducing spend and time spent on social media, they feel that social media is worth the investment.
So, what does the state of social media for healthcare practices look like? Here are four key takeaways.
1. Most practices believe that social media is worth the effort, they just aren’t confident in their approach.
When asked if they feel social media is a successful marketing strategy, 57% of our respondents answered yes. Of the other respondents, 25% felt social media wasn’t effective, and 18% weren’t sure enough to answer one way or another. This answer tells us that despite the challenges practices are facing with social media, they still feel it’s still largely a worthwhile use of their limited time and resources to pursue.
2. Lack of time, resources, knowledge, and budget are major barriers to success.
When asked about the most challenging aspect of managing social media, the most common answer was simply lack of time and resources. If you look back through the answers in this report, this becomes apparent. From the wide variety of answers in how often practices post to different social media platforms to the way they track (or don’t track) their social media performance, it’s clear that most of these accounts are simply given whatever spare time and attention is available.
With developing a strategy and lack of experience listed as other difficulties, as well as many practices saying they don’t audit or audit infrequently, it’s easy to see why most respondents don’t feel confident in their social media strategy. They know it works, they just lack the time and knowledge to understand how and why it works.
3. Only 6% of healthcare practices we polled are utilizing social media management platforms.
With so many practices citing limited time, resources, and knowledge as barriers to success in social media, the fact that this statistic is so low is, frankly, a little shocking. Since practices are citing lack of knowledge in their barriers to success, it’s likely they’re struggling to know if a social media platform is worth the investment.
If you’re looking at making the switch, here are a few helpful features to have in a social media management platform:
- One dashboard for everything – posting, reporting, and analysis
- A content library with templates for your brand colors, logos, and posts to save time and help you know what to post
- A content calendar so you can plan and coordinate with your team
- Built in knowledge and strategy to cut down on the guesswork
Of course, this is just a basic list to get you started – we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Social Power, our own social media management solution with even more bells and whistles.
4. When social media works, it opens the door to new audiences and younger generations. When it doesn’t work, it brings in the wrong patients or no patients at all.
When asked to explain why they felt their social media marketing was or was not effective, both top answers had to do with the audience each group was reaching. One respondent wrote “social media keeps me visible and top of mind for potential new clients” while another wrote “it’s not reaching the right market for our current patients.” These responses suggest that both respondents are reaching people – but one group might have a better strategy than the other. Generational differences were noted a few times by the group that thought social media was effective, with one practice answering “social media is becoming more popular, especially with younger generations.” If you’re looking to reach a younger audience, social media could be the way to go.
Practices who found social media ineffective had varying reasons as to why, but targeting the wrong audiences and low conversion rates were cited frequently. One respondent said “nobody is looking at our Facebook page” while another said “we aren’t getting any new patients.” It’s important to note that tracking new patients from social media can be difficult – especially when social media is used as more of a brand building tool than a conversion tool. The few respondents who said they were unsure why their social media wasn’t working either couldn’t identify the reason, or indicated that they had just started with social media and weren’t sure how it was going to go.
We Can Help
We created Social Power to make social media management easier and more effective. With a content library and calendar, your team can plan a month’s worth of high-quality social posts in a few hours. Schedule a consultation with one of our digital marketing experts to see how it works.
