Instagram Marketing for Healthcare Practices: Using Videos to Connect
Using Video to Tell a Story
Mobile video consumption is rising by over 100% every year, making video a strong marketing tool for healthcare providers to share fun and helpful information about not only their brand but healthcare as a whole. Through quality content and the right audience healthcare providers can drive engagement rates to increase followers and ultimately encourage patient appointments or walk-ins. By aligning your content strategy to your business goals, you could reach a higher ROI while giving your social media following what they’re looking for in a healthcare profile.
That’s why Instagram has caught the attention of healthcare providers and patients alike. With fun and interactive tools like posts, stories, and their latest feature Reels, healthcare providers can diversify their content and utilize different video tactics to give users a glimpse of your brand’s personality, services, and day-to-day healthcare tips or facts. There’s no lack of variety on this popular medium, making it no surprise that 75 percent of users take action in response to content they view on Instagram.
What to Expect in Today’s Read:
- Best Practices for Video Content on Instagram
- Share Behind-the-Scenes Footage
- Host a Q&A
- Share How-To’s and Life Hacks
- Tips on How to Optimize Your Instagram Presence
- Archive Your Stories
- Use Instagram Reels
- Provide Value
Share Behind-the-Scenes Content
A strong healthcare social media strategy considers the personability of the brand to connect with followers. A significant aspect of the healthcare industry is emotion, human connection, and sharing stories of triumph. Behind-the-scenes content can share real-time events by taking patients on a tour through your healthcare practice or sharing a day in the life of your staff. Similarly, be sure to grab your phone and have it ready when your practice attends an event like a conference or seminar. This is a great way to showcase how your brand stays involved.
Host a Q&A
A bottom-line goal for healthcare marketers is to increase engagement rates and ultimately gain new followers. That’s why the latest Instagram sticker feature is the holy grail for healthcare brands looking to do more than just entertain an audience. Get your community involved by letting them take the driver’s seat and ask questions they want to see answered. Get an experienced doctor or nurse on board to host the Q&A session and watch your engagement soar as followers ask away in hopes of getting featured on your healthcare Instagram page.
Share How-To’s and Life Hacks
What was once a common trend among younger generations like Millenials and Gen Z’ers now has taken the liking of all ages–life hacks, how-tos, and DIYs. So, before your followers resort to WikiHow or another healthcare website to learn how to cure a common cold or heal a cold sore, ask yourself, is your digital presence equipped with the information needed to be a useful resource during desperate times? Share an occasional video featuring a staff member demonstrating a home remedy or something similar, and save it to your Highlights so that your followers can refer to it when needed.
Archive Your Stories
Instagram Stories allow healthcare institutions to feature quick, 10-second videos that appear on their profiles for 24 hours before it expires. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean your Story content is gone forever. Through the Archive tool, healthcare marketers can access past Story content and choose to save it permanently on their profile using the Highlight feature. This allows healthcare brands to build a strong, well-rounded social media presence by giving followers the ability to view a topic or theme based on their interests.
How to Build Instagram Highlights Through Archives:
- Go to your profile
- In the top right corner, tap the three-line icon
- Select “Archive”
- Choose a picture or video
- Tap “Highlight”
- Add to an existing Highlight or create a new one
Your highlights can be organized into services you offer, healthcare tips, behind-the-scenes content, promotions and so much more. Consider your Highlights section a hub for new followers to get to know what your brand is about. Take a look at these for some ideas on how to organize your Highlight section.
Use Instagram Reels
Instagram Reels launched in 2020 shortly after Tik Tok dominated the social media realm early in the year. While this 15-second video-sharing tool is built to entertain, it can also be a useful marketing tool to inform an audience. Similar to Instagram Stories, your team can utilize this feature to share healthcare tips or even lighthearted events taking place around the office. It can be a great way to introduce your staff and get users familiar with the environment before they book an appointment.
What’s even better is that Reels can capture a larger audience than Instagram Stories because, once it’s published, these video posts reside on a separate tab on your Instagram profile and have a higher likelihood to show up on the explore page of non-followers. And be sure to optimize these posts with engaging captions and local hashtags to better target prospective patients in your community.
Provide Value
It can’t be said enough how important it is to provide more than just entertainment to your Instagram following–to keep your followers engaged and reach your marketing KPIs, you must also provide value. Here are a few ways you offer more to your followers and increase engagement and click-through rates on your Instagram page and website.
- Always host a link in your Instagram bio, whether it directs your followers to your home page or how to book an appointment.
- Use the “swipe up” feature on Instagram Stories if you have over 10,000 followers to give easy access to more information.
- Share sneak peeks of your latest blog posts and use infographics for easily digestible content.
Pair your efforts with a strong call to action. The small, automated “swipe up” button isn’t enough to capture your audience’s attention, so use text to sell your content.
Track and Monitor Progress
Putting in the work is only half of it. The other half is tracking your progress through Instagram Insights and aligning your results with your business goals. Find what type of content receives the most engagement and what receives the least. Take advantage of this built-in analytics tool to focus on your metrics and measure growth over time. This can ultimately help grow your following, track your profile visits and drive new patient acquisition through your Instagram video marketing efforts.