You can often find doctors online who only consider Facebook as the only viable option for social media marketing (SMM). While Facebook does remain a successful marketing platform, it is not where you should draw the line when it comes to SMM. The online traffic of patients is divided into the social platforms they use. If you are only making use of a singular social platform, you are missing out on the patient traffic of others.Social Media Marketing PlatformInstagram is the rising SMM platform with over a billion active users, as of January 2020. While it may be behind in terms of traffic with Facebook (2.8 billion), it makes up for it with advanced online business prospects and the widespread traffic demographic. There are still a lot of online medical businesses that scoff at the idea of using a platform such as Instagram to market their medical services and acquire patients, however, they are simply unaware of the business insights of the platform. Online medical marketing remains a subject of innovation and adaptability. If a medical business fails to keep up with its new world marketing strategies, not only are they losing a reasonable amount of patient traffic but a chance to build credibility around their name and appeal to the patients that look for a medical business that is a “jack of all trades”.Why Should Doctors Consider Instagram For Your Medical Marketing?Since 2015, Instagram has become perhaps the most well-known social media platform for online businesses. 71% of online businesses in the United States claim that they use Instagram for their SMM. In terms of online medical business, Instagram has become an ideal social platform ever since it has integrated Instagram Business prospects on the platform. From creating businesses specific pages, to age-defined demographics, Instagram has developed business tools that make it a proven platform for online medical marketing.5 Profitable Ways To Use Instagram For Your Healthcare BusinessInstagram has evolved its reputation from being just a platform for photo sharing between friends to a proper marketplace for businesses to market their products and services. As an medical business, here are the 5 ways you can use it:1. Get On Instagram’s “Recommended Business List”Albeit this tactic is quite cumbersome to follow through and only works if you have a well-established medical business image on Instagram, it still is a profitable way for your medical business to acquire patients. By following @Instagram and taking part in their #projects, you make your medical business gain exposure to the users already active there and catch Instagram’s eye.Similar to getting a verified tick on Twitter or a Google Ad verification sticker, by making your way into Instagram’s Recommended Business List, your medical business’s profile becomes visible to an all-encompassing patient crowd.2. Use Instagram Business ToolsPerhaps the most beneficial of all, Instagram has introduced Instagram Business, with new integrated marketing tools that can aid in your medical marketing strategies.Use patient posts as testimonials: With this component, once a patient uses your medical services and posts it about on their page, you can share the post directly to your story to feature it as a patient testimonial to appeal to your other potential patients.Use surveys and highlights: Instagram offers numerous intuitive highlights that you can use to create online discussions. For example, you can use the inquiries sticker in your medical Instagram Stories. This element allows patients to submit inquiries for you to reply to. This is a direct approach to interact with your patients.Use IGTV. IGTV or Instagram Television is a tool that shows long-structured, vertical recordings. You can use IGTV to advertise your medical business by hosting live or recorded FAQ sessions or instructional medical videos. For instance, if it’s flu season, you can post a lengthy video about it and its precautions on IGTV.3. Sustain The Patient Connections On InstagramWhile your medical site remains a more structured and neutral node for patient-business interactions, Instagram however, is a great platform for you to form patient connections and earn their trust. To appeal to all of your patient traffic, you need to improve your engagement with them.Instagram engagement is on the rise for online businesses, especially medical businesses, increasing by 29% between October 2017 and May 2018. This means that you can generate over 4x more patients on Instagram compared to Facebook.4. Use The Best Hashtags For Your Medical PostsA study done in 2019 found that businesses on Instagram which use hashtags grew in business size by 133%. Hashtags on Instagram work as medical keywords on a site. Picking out the best of them and using them in a balanced way can certainly aid your business’s profile on the platform to gain more and more patient exposure.Picking the best medical hashtags significantly builds the number of potential patients who see your medical posts. This works exceptionally well in case you want to target a crowd of potential patients that do not follow your business’s profile. They will see your medical posts and profile if you use the hashtag they have been searching for, regardless of them not following your profile.5. Connect Your Business’s Instagram Account to Your Medical SiteThis right practice is one of the key essentials to owning any SMM platform. To boost traffic to your medical business’s Instagram profile and to generate leads, you can link your medical site to your Instagram profile’s page. You can also link your other social media platforms on your profile as well, to gain even more patient exposure:In the bio section of your Instagram business profile.Inside or at the bottom of your medical contentInfographics or QR codesPrivate medical practice siteLinks work well in terms of guiding patient traffic to the platform you want them to reach, after you have successfully impressed a crowd of potential patients, they’ll want to take a more official look at your medical services and your medical site does that for you.Doctors Are Now Marketing Their Medical Services On #InstagramInstagram helps 80% of its users (your potential patients) decide what medical business to pick. More than one billion of the internet’s population use Instagram consistently, and generally, 90 percent of them follow a business that is well-developed on the platform. This is why it is important for doctors to get on track and develop their medical business profiles on Instagram to proper online businesses.
