Must-Have Instagram Tips for Growing Your Medical Practice

Instagram marketing: are surgeons the new rock stars?

Inc.com recently published an article that declared, “plastic surgeons are the new rock stars”.

Bold statement, I know.

The author highlights how plastic surgeons are amassing increasingly large Instagram followings (some with over 150k users in their audience) by regularly posting videos of themselves, both in the office performing procedures, and out of the office living everyday life.  The goal? To build their personal brand, position themselves as more relatable, show off patients, and, in doing so, shake off the taboo around plastic surgery and drive more business.

Questions, questions, questions

But how effective is this Instagram strategy from a business standpoint?

Will the success of plastic surgeons translate to other areas of surgery? Does it actually drive new patient inquiries? What’s the quality of those inquiries?  Do these patient leads actually convert to new consultations and procedures?

How about the content itself? How long does it take to create? Should you focus on videos or photographs? Do you need an editing team? How long does all this take? When does your audience really start to grow?

For the doctors who are uninitiated or casual users of Instagram, there sure are a lot of questions.

Our take on Instagram marketing

The plastic surgery craze on Instagram is hard to deny. Thousands of surgeons have committed themselves to publishing content and millions of people have begun following their accounts (even if many of those followers may have been paid for). But don’t let follower counts distract you – the real measure of success lies in the comment section. After all, what good are your 100k followers if they are not engaging with you and asking questions?

Once you begin to inspect the comment section of Instagram accounts with very large followings, you’ll begin to better understand just how effective doctors are being. Liking photographs or leaving emoji comments on Instagram is often a mindless act. Taking the time to leave a comment though, and especially one that points to interest (such as the example, below), shows real intent. That’s what you’re looking for. 

 

In other words, if your goal is to use Instagram as a source of patient acquisition, having 100k followers is nothing more than a vanity metric if your content is not driving questions, interest and intent in the comment section.

So, how do you use Instagram for patient acquisition?

Like any other marketing channel, success on Instagram isn’t guaranteed but there are ways to put yourself in the best position to succeed. Below we’ve highlighted a few areas to focus on, and included our best practices.

Content

• Media: To determine the best photographs or videos to create for your account, take some time to think about your audience. What do you know about them? What challenges do they face? What questions do they have? What are they interested in? The answers to these questions will point you in the direction of content that will add value to your audience’s lives and, ultimately, resonate with them.
• Quality: While your photos and videos don’t need to be taken by a professional (although we wouldn’t discourage doing so if your budget allows), they should be high quality and visually appealing. Keeping concepts like framing and cropping in mind can go a long way.
  
• Hashtags: Hashtags are key to getting discovered. Using Instagram’s search function as your guide, compile a list of relevant hashtags with substantial post volume and use them every time you publish (for example, Kospath’s standard hashtags include #doctors, #surgery, #patientacquisition and #digitalmarketing).  From there, add additional hashtags specific to your content each time you post.
• Tag: Tag doctors, team members or products (such as your scrubs company) when appropriate. This will increase your post’s visibility and introduce you to new audiences (such as friends of friends).
• Location: Geo-tag your city, state or office to help your profile be seen in your neck of the woods. Some studies suggest posts with a location get as much as 79% more engagement than posts without.

Cadence

Publishing at least once a day is recommended and twice a day is even better. When you are first starting out, track daily post impressions, reach and profile views (most important) within your business tools to best gauge how often and when to publish. 

Call-to-Action

Always include a call-to-action (CTA) in your post copy. Encourage followers to call today, visit the link in your bio, or leave comments on the post. The idea is every post should try to drive some sort of engagement.

Management

If you’re going to publish consistently and focus on driving patient inquiries, you must actively manage your account. This means assigning someone to monitor comments and direct messages to ensure all questions are answered, and they’re answered in a timely manner.

Attribution

You’re working hard on content so make sure you can track exactly how successful you are. Using a call tracking number and unique email address for Instagram are easy ways to address attribution.

Measurement

Use Instagram tools to understand your in-app reach, engagement, phone calls, emails, website visits, best performing content and trends. Use your web analytics to understand the behavior of visitors that came to your website from Instagram.

Optimization

Optimize your efforts based on the analytics you are able to gather. Content type, publishing cadence, publishing time, tags, hashtags, locations, and copy are all areas you can optimize based on the data available to you.

Final thoughts

Instagram marketing for patient acquisition can work if you set yourself up for success. The tips we’ve outlined above will put you in the best position to succeed. From there, its up to you and your team to create compelling content for your medical practice.

And if Instagram turns out to be a great patient acquisition channel for your business, just remember to avoid putting all of your eggs in one basket.

A theme we often bring up is how essential it is to own your audience. When Instagram inevitably begins to throttle your reach (just as Facebook did before it), marketing on the channel will become much more expensive. For that reason, never forget that your own website and email lists are always the best destinations and channels you have. No matter how effective Instagram is, make sure to continue to invest in your website and growing your own audience.

Interested in learning more?

Contact the Kospath Digital team or call 877.846.5768 to learn more about our medical marketing services and patient acquisition solutions.