Promoting Accessible Healthcare On Social Media

Quit posting blindly – Rule Numero Uno. The first step to creating your social media presence is to post content that your patients want to see (or didn’t realize that they wanted to see). Take advantage of what’s going on in your community and the world to influence your own postings.

Post Seasonally relevant content – There seems to be a week or month for just about everything, so take stock of what services you offer to your community and where you need to boost awareness. Then put a creative spin on it – host a Mustache Contest during Movember and promote Men’s Health, or take a page from the book of Arkansas Children’s Hospital – their campaign #100DeadliestDays increased awareness of the increase in child injuries between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Promote an Unsick Day – In 2017, the winner of the Shorty Awards for outstanding social media creators in the Health and Fitness category was a marketing agency promoting that companies grant their workers an Unsick Day – time off from work to take care of preventative health appointments. That year, 86% of employed Americans said they would cancel or delay preventative care appointments due to workplace pressures. While that specific campaign has ended, it speaks volumes about advocating and promoting preventive health. Reach out to your community, not just your patients, and educate them on the benefits of maintaining a healthy staff. Healthy, which includes taking time to check up on all the systems even when you aren’t feeling bad.

Questions and Answers – One way to engage is to respond, right? Go Live to answer most commonly asked questions about various healthcare topics – make it a recurring segment of your social media strategy that followers know they can tune into weekly or monthly. Take advantage of existing hashtags or create your own to brand your content and make it easier for followers to locate. A recent campaign, #YESMAMM, answered common breast cancer questions in a Twitterchat and has morphed into a widely used breast cancer awareness hashtag.

Personalize your posts –  Go beyond traditional stock images and reposts of valuable content and let your community know who YOU are. Giving patients and supporters a glimpse of the people behind the organization helps to take away any fear and apprehension that patients may experience with healthcare and doctors. Doctors without Borders does this on their Instagram feed by showcasing their employees and volunteers. They give a behind-the-scenes look at the organization’s efforts highlighting the experiences of their staff. Using high-quality (but not staged) images and a conversational tone, these posts allow viewers to feel like they are a part of the experience.

Participate in the community – One way to increase your engagement both online and in person is to participate in the community. Get out from the four walls of your Community Health Center and get out into the community. Take part in charity 5Ks, Cookoffs (with health-conscious recipes), and other gatherings in your area. When your potential patients see you represented at events where they are, not just online, you remind patients that you are just like them – people involved in the community.