Strategy and Evaluation of Social Media

This blog will be about how to use social media for a company. The first thing is strategy, a company cannot just post a bunch of videos and pictures and aspect anyone to understand what they are trying to do and what the company is about. The second thing is evaluation of the use of social media, for instance there are certain timeframes throughout the day in which different sites have the most users on at once.

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Strategy

Everything you say on the social web should “sound” like your brand (MARQUARDT, 2011). Therefore, if your company is about helping teenagers become more comfortable with their bodies and making them realize the body that the media wants them to have is false, then you need to make sure your post are about that and not about how Nike uses children to make their shoes. You have to consent with your post and keep them inline with your mission. Also you want to make sure you keep your followers or readers involved and one way of doing that is through surveys and links to other websites that have more information (DeMers, 2014). Just remember that you have a message that you want to tell people, you just have to find the right tool to use to communicate with your audience.

Evaluation

Just because you have the best strategy does not mean that you will have the most success but instead you have to use it effectively. The clear path exists for social media marketers who use social media in a direct selling way. It’s pretty straightforward to set up your web analytics tools to segment the visitors arriving from social media sites and then analyze if their behavior or conversion rates are different from other visitors (Kallas, 2016). You do not want to be wasting your time on viewers and followers who do not really care about your cause, instead you want to divide your followers into real followers and ghost followers (people who follow but never comment or like any post). Conversation Rate. Amplification Rate. Applause Rate. Economic Value. Four simple measures that get you to focus on the right thing from a social media participation perspective, help you understand how well you are doing at it, and quantify the business impact (Kaushik). To learn more about this rates I suggest you click on the link and read up on them.

Examples of Key Points:

When posting, make sure you say it in a way that reflects your company the best, for example if Nike had a new pair of running shoes coming out they would use an athlete to showcase the shoes because they want the athlete to reflect to the shoes. Another thing is to consistent with your post and make sure they align with your goal. If your goal is about losing weight then I suggest you do not post anything about the upcoming Presidential Election because that has nothing to do with your goal.

Take Aways

Social media is a great equalizer for companies versus big companies because on how interactive you have to be on the site and bigger companies are more focused on money statements that social media. Also the biggest thing to remember is that it takes time for all the hard work you put into social media to show up, do not think over night you can go from a nobody business to a rockstar. Just keep your head up and keep working towards your goal because in the end you will see how many people you reached out to and helped.

Facebook for Health Companies

Facebook is more than just connecting with friends and family and sharing funny cat videos but it can also be used to help promote healthy topics. Now it does not have to be eat this or eat that nor does it need to be about working out and losing weight, it can actually be about how people should love their bodies for themselves and not look for others and their acceptance into society to be happy.

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Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected (Prosperos World, 2012). So therefore, by health companies getting involved is exactly what Facebook was created for, no one said it was only for the individual use and companies aren’t allowed to use it. Facebook allows a company to generate a virtual face for customers to talk to and receive information from.

Useful tips for Facebook user:

  1. Share only stories that you find interesting and funny but only share them once.
  2. Try to connect with as many people as possible.
  3. Never bad mouth a person or another company, because once it is on the web it never really goes away.
  4. Show support for the local community and the world community also.
  5. Stay active, try to post at least once a day but never more than 5.
  6. The post do not have to be words all the time, pictures can speak a thousand words.

More tips for using Facebook:

Example of a Health Company on Facebook

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Conway Healthcare Chiropractic

For my example I decided to use Conway Healthcare Chiropractic that is right up the street from Coastal Carolina University. As you can see from the photo they are proud to celebrate the Fourth of July and wished everyone a safe and fun day. Also they congratulated Coastal Carolina and their baseball team for winning the National Championship, which means they are active within the community and have pride in the community also. They also post funny videos and informal post and share post about current stories in the community and try to help everyone stay safe and out of the hospital because no one wants to spend the summer in a cast or in a bed.

Instagram for Health Companies

Why would a health company want to post pictures on Instagram, well the reason is because how popular it has grown and highly used it is by almost everyone. Instagram allows an users to post short videos and pictures and links to articles and it is just a fun and creative tool to use to interact with the rest of the world. This post is going to be about how to use an account on Instagram and an example of a company using it for their benefits.

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What is Instagram?

Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them either publicly or privately on the app, as well as through a variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr (Wikipedia). So in short terms, Instagram is like the video and picture version of Twitter, there is a character limit on the post and also a limit on the length of the video. Instagram is great to use when an user wants to grab someone’s attention with a video or picture instead of a fancy title.

The purpose of Instagram is sharing, but users are also able to comment on post and direct message (DM) other users, like Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, it has the potential to be a great way for a company to interact with people via post, comments or even direct messages.

How to Use Instagram Effectively

  1. Stay active and update with your post
  2. Stay active within the on-line community
    1. Comment on other peoples post
    2. Like another account’s post
  3. Do not do “Shout Outs”
    1. A shout out is one account posts a picture and tells everyone they should follow that page for any reasons.
    2. People do not like “Shout Out” posts and they will unfollow you.
  4. When posting make sure to use hashtags and geo tags (a geographic tag that lets people know where the picture or video is from).
  5. Do not post something every five minutes because you will make your followers annoyed and they will unfollow you.
  6. Try to post employees of the month and other awards or honors because people love seeing others being appreciated for hard work.

A list of websites that give more information on how to effectively use Instagram

An Example of a Health Company on Instagram

Todays Health Care

 

A great example of a company using Instagram is Today’s Health Care (THC). They stay active on their post and they also try to post besides the same ole health post. For example, they are already posted a picture for the Fourth of July and telling everyone they should enjoy their Fourth but also they will be doing a patient appreciation barbeque that day. Also this isn’t a traditional Health Care store, they are located in Colorado so I am sure you can guess what some their products may be. If you guessed, marijuana then you are correct but do not throw them out yet if you are against marijuana use they also sell health snacks and food products that do not contain marijuana. You can see from their Instagram account that pro marijuana but also pro a healthy America, either that being the use of marijuana or from the intake of all natural herbs and foods that can lead to a healthier body and healthier lifestyle.

LinkedIn for Health Companies

This post will be how health companies use LinkedIn to communicate with their customers and potential customers.

LinkedIn is a social networking site designed for the business community. The goal of the site is to allow members to establish and document networks of people they know and trust professionally. Also for the individual it offers them the chance to upload their resumes and work experience so future potential employers. To connect with people on LinkedIn, someone has to send a request and the other person has to accept it, just like Facebook.

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Using LinkedIn

When using LinkedIn, unlike Facebook, a person does not want to connect with as many people as they can because it looks like if you connect with them you trust their abilities to do a job. Also they can use you as a reference and you might only know the person from a class back in college and haven’t seen in years so how can you give a reference for someone you have not seen in years. So therefore, it is better to keep your inner circle on LinkedIn small and to people you know and interact with at least once a month.

Why Health Professionals Should Use LinkedIn

  1. Presents job opportunities for both employees and employers
  2. Offers a free look at someone before an interview
  3. Members on LinkedIn are able to stay on top of new findings in industries.

If you want to learn more about the positives of using LinkedIn then I suggest you take the time to read the following articles.

Example of a Health Provider on LinkedIn

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Kindred Healthcare LinkedIn Account

Kindred Healthcare is a great example of a health provider on LinkedIn because they are active within their physical location of Louisville, Kentucky but also on-line on LinkedIn. They share articles that are related to their business and to their mission statement and most important their commitment to a high level of service for their customers. They post at least once a day, therefore that means they are active but allows that proves that they do not just post anything to stay active. One thing that they do that I really like and really appreciate is the fact they post who their employee of the month is and that really shows they are committed to helping their customers but also showing they notice and appreciate the handwork their employees put in.

Health Companies sending out Tweets?

Twitter is no longer a form of communication just for friends and families, businesses have gotten involve and have really made some great progress along the way.

Twitter is all about expressing what you have to say in a limited number of characters and reposting what other people have said. Reposting is like agreeing to what other people say and just saying it again so your followers can see it also and have the chance to repost it as well.Screen Shot 2016-06-27 at 11.16.02 PM.png

The reasons why health organizations need to use twitter:

  1. Keep in contact with customers and the world
  2. Building brand name and awareness
  3. Building relationships with the world
  4. Staying update and sharing the information
  5. Becoming more transparent to customers

These are just simple reasons why health organizations need to use twitter but there are countless others. The basic idea of using twitter is to communicate with the world and build up brand name and awareness and relationships with customers and make them feel like the company cares about them and not the money in their wallets. Also by having a twitter, companies can share articles that might help someone dealing with a certain problem in their life. For example, if a local hospital tweets a link to an article about how having the prefect body isn’t being perfect and having muscles but instead it is about being happy with your body and a teenager girl who is worried about her weight reads the article it might help her be less stressed about her weight and enjoy the person who she is and accept who she is also.  Here is an article I found and it is about reason why social media helps promote good health, http://mashable.com/2010/07/13/social-media-health-trends/#VZJzshAD4Pq3. Also here is a link to 18 accounts you should follow if you are in the healthcare field, 18 Must Follow Twitter Accounts.

Example of a great company to follow is ReviveHealth. They are constantly updating and tweeting things out for their customers to see and not every tweet is about them. They love to share articles that will help their audience at all, even if it is a tiny improvement. They use hashtags very effectively and make sure that each hashtag can bring the most attention to their post.

ReviveHealth’s Twitter Account

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Blogging for Health Professionals

This blog is about how professionals in the health industry can use blogs to better the lives of the readers through healthy eating tips, diets, and workout pointers and what to stay away from if being healthy is the reader’s goal.

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Blogging is the today’s version of a diary, but instead of being in a notebook hidden under your mattress it is on-line and available for everyone to read. Basically, blogging is a healthy way of writing down your thoughts and feelings and sharing with the world an experience or expertise on a particular subject. Blogging for companies helps create a channel in which it can talk to their customers and potential ones also and it makes the company more transparent, which translates to trustworthy. Being trustworthy in the health industry could be the difference from actually helping the world become a better place or just being another company looking for ways to make more money.

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How Health Professionals Can Use Blogging

  • People actually do read blogs and study in 2012 showed that 1 in 10 Americans actually believed online health blogs saved their lives. So therefore, not only do people read blogs, but they take them serious and view them as source of information and advice.
  • You have to make the blog fun and enjoyable, if not them people will soon not want to read your blog and you will basically be writing to yourself. So have fun with it and do not be afraid of doing something out of the box.

Useful hints:

  • Add videos, pictures and colors.
  • Use language that is used in everyday conversation, so no formal speech.
  • Just like in person, be yourself. People want to read real life experiences and want to feel like they can relate to the writer. So just keep things simple and be yourself.
  • Answer your audience’s questions. People enjoy when their questions are being heard and answered and this will keep them coming back for more.

Website I recommend reading for more information on why and how companies should blog:

Example of a Health Company using Blogging

21 Examples of business blogs that rock

Instead of giving you just one example of a great blogging , how about I give you 21. I think that will give you , my readers, enough evidence and reference material so you can start blogging for yourself and building your own personal brand as well as blogging for your company. I would just make sure it is okay for you to blog for your company because they might already have someone doing it or it might be against their policies.

Each of the examples have some common factors: staying active, not posting random things but instead posting things that readers want to read and being themselves and not copying and pasting from other websites. No one wants to read word for word from another website so make sure you put everything into your own words. Also, each of the examples have different styles, so be creative and think out of the box on how you want your blog to look. Remember you want people to come back and read more of your posts.