Use These Emerging Social Media Trends to Promote Your Practice in 2017

Social media can be one of the most effective marketing tools for medical practices. When used appropriately, social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram can help you engage your audience while relaying accurate women’s health care information.

One major key to using social media effectively for your OB/GYN practice is to keep current with the constantly evolving social media trends. As you consider your marketing budget for 2017, determine which social media strategies had good results in 2016 and which new practices you can implement in the next year to improve your practice’s online presence.

The Rising Importance of Social Media Analytics

In 2017, you should allocate part of your social media marketing budget to investing in social analytics. These are tools that can provide you with the data you need to determine how well your social media strategy is working. The analytic tools you will use will depend directly on your budget and your goals. You can begin by using the tools provided by each social media platform, such as Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics. Some of the most helpful information you can glean from your analytics data is how many new followers you have, which posts received the most engagement and even the demographics of your followers!

Cross-Device Marketing

The typical consumer or social media user has multiple devices through which he or she is connected to the social space. Although it can be a challenge and an investment, cross-device communication can pay off as it can reach users whether they are using tablets, smartphones, laptops or desktops. You should focus on cross-device communication that is able to recognize the user so that he or she can be appropriately targeted.

The Changing Faces of Mobile Devices

Although smartphones may currently be one of the more prevalent mobile devices, that is subject to change as innovation moves quickly in mobile technology industry. For example, wearable mobile devices may be the standard in 2017. (Apple Watch anyone?) You should be prepared to be able to create and distribute content to your audience in the format required for the type of device that he or she may have.

Increased Use of Video Content

Although video is heavily integrated into almost every popular social media platform, especially Facebook and Twitter, you should expect video to be an even bigger player in the future. Experts estimate that by 2019, video content will be the target of 85 percent of online search traffic in the United States. In the coming year, you can use the rising popularity of video to strengthen your practice’s social media strategy. Social media users tend to respond more to videos than images. Videos are not expensive to make and can be easily recorded with a variety of mobile devices and then directly uploaded to the platform of your choice.

Social media can enhance the reach of your OB/GYN practice, which is why it is necessary to have tailored strategies in place to strategically engage users. If you would like more information about how you can improve your practice, contact Perinatal Resources, Inc. And if you missed out on our live conferences, don’t worry! You can always get a refresher with our online audio courses!