Why Should You Be on Social Media?
Healthcare marketing on social media platforms can educate patients and families. You can share useful information, while also promoting brand awareness. Your followers can learn about your facility and staff. Social media is a great way to keep your community updated and advocate for your profession. This toolkit is made to provide you with the benefits of using social media and tips for each outlet.
“We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.” – Erik Qualman
Not sure about where or how to start? Check out #Winning at Social Media.
TrainingWhen it comes to social media, VHCA-VCAL encourages skilled nursing and assisted living facilities to have a social media policy to ensure protection for residents, employees, and the facility itself. This policy should define what employees can and cannot do on social media and what the facility expects from employees when it comes to online behavior. Employees have rights when it comes to using social media under the National Labor Relations Act, but they must adhere to HIPAA. These policies need to be effective, legal, and should be reviewed and updated frequently.
When it comes to a facility’s policy on social media, it is critical to train new employees during orientation and retrain employees occasionally about its privacy policies.
- Make sure the social media policies are clearly established and distributed to employees.
- Ensure privacy of residents and employees by obtaining approval to use their images via authorization forms before posting on social media.
- Allow designated staff to have authorization of social media accounts and to post on behalf of the facility.
- Time for a Check-up on Social Media Practices (providermagazine.com, February 2019)
- 2016 Social Media Guidance (AHCA/NCAL login required)
- Share acts of kindness and positive stories: small and large.
- Share quality improvements.
- Share pictures and videos: visuals are more likely to be noticed and shared.
- Be personable and accessible.
- Following back and liking posts is a good relationship builder.
- Cross-promote in your various channels, online and offline.
- Hashtags: Create one hashtag specifically for your facility or company that can be used across all social media outlets. If you see other existing hashtags that pertain to your post, use those as well. But do not overuse them!
- Follow AHCA for updates and content to share. Sign up to receive the biweekly AHCA/NCAL Social Media Update which includes sample posts and other resources.
- Send an email at socialmedia@ahca.org to get on the list.
- Share success stories and testimonials.
- Offer a virtual tour of the facility.
- Feature staff on the page.
- Try Takeovers with staff. Have a staff member in charge of the account for the day who can share pictures and videos on stories highlighting what they do and fun parts of the day.
- Create conversation through posts. Use polls and perform questionnaires through the stories feature.
- Share infographics. This is a fun way to present data and research with a higher chance of it being shared.
- Share activities that are going on during the day.
- Share achievements and awards.
- Recycle past successful content.
- Try using a calendar to schedule content efficiently.
Dealing with negative comments on social media or posts from a news source that have gone viral might feel like one of the most difficult tasks when it comes to the engaging online. When you see something online that may affect your company or brand, it is important to be aware and prepared to handle it. Here are some ideas when it comes to responding:
- Remain calm. When people post comments on social media, they want to be heard and want attention. Do not react emotionally, but professionally.
- Be quick to respond. If you respond to comments in a timely manner, people are more likely to forgive.
- Respond in a polite, professional way by correcting a mistake, apologizing, and offering to do better in the future. When you respond in this way, you give the impression that you respect and care what the poster has to say.
- If the conversation requires more discussion, offer to speak with the commenter one-on-one off social media.
- If a news article is getting shared and reaching many people, it is important to have a plan to respond to such an issue. Have a message prepared to send to employees and post on social media to express your concern and sympathy and how you plan to resolve the issue.
- Deleting comments or posts could be a mistake that causes customers to become even more angry and post more saying your company is ignoring customers, hiding the problem, not being reliable, etc. It is best to only delete comments if they are offensive, irrelevant, profane, or threatening.
- Social Media: Ensuring the Privacy of Patients and Residents
- 10 Tips to Deal with Negative Comments on Social Media
Facebook
A Facebook business page is free to set up and manage. You can advertise the page, invite people to like your page, and connect with people to build a community. Facebook has made marketing a little easier by creating an insights tool where you can review and manage your page, posts, and followers.
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Twitter is becoming more popular with businesses to promote their brands and build relationships. Twitter, like Facebook, has numerous benefits when it comes to a business page. It is also a great platform to connect with legislators.
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Instagram is another tool that businesses use just like Facebook and Twitter, except the content on Instagram is all pictures and videos. You can include multiple pictures and/or videos in one post with a caption, location, and tag people/ other businesses. Instagram has become popular as people and businesses build their brand by their original content and aesthetic. Because Facebook owns Instagram, you must have a Facebook business page to create an Instagram business account and create advertisements.
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Google & Yelp Reviews
Customers leave reviews on both Google and Yelp. These forums are often a starting point for families looking to find care for a loved one. You can see what your facility or company looks like to customers by simply typing the name in Google and seeing what pops up.
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