“I’m not sure what social media content to put out there.” This is a sentiment we hear often from our healthcare clients—most often if they’re (a) overworked/understaffed or (b) only focusing on one or two social channels or content types, possibly because of misguided advice from other consulting agencies. (Or (c) all of the above.)

In this article, we’re not going to focus on where to engage on social, as in the platforms you should use. What we’re going to focus on here is what to post — what kinds of social media content your audience is most likely to want and engage with on your channels. This should help you focus your efforts so you’re creating content that is most likely to resonate with your users.

There are four key types of social media content you should focus on:

• Short-form videos
• Promotional posts
• Engagements with other users and groups
• Reactions

1. Short-form videos

Yes, we’ve heard and read it again and again: video content is king. It’s repeated ad nauseam because it’s true. For people who are wanting a quick hit of content, browsing their notifications on YouTube and TikTok is hard to beat.

At this level of the marketing funnel, users are most often looking for entertainment, rather than action items to help them convert. Foster good feelings and positive impressions of your healthcare organization with videos like:

• Patient stories/profiles
• Success stories
• Provider profiles
• New services your organization is offering
• New amenities in your locations
• New products, especially if in response to consumer demands/requests
• Quick educational info (e.g., “how to do XYZ”)
• Staff events and activities that highlight your organization’s culture

You can also look at purely entertainment content when it’s appropriate. For example, one of our clients showcases its providers dressing up as superheroes to deliver vaccinations to children at Halloween. That’s an incredible opportunity to highlight valuable services in a fun, appealing way.

2. Promotional posts

I mentioned in my article on appealing to Generation Z audiences that building your audience on social media without directing them to your conversion-focused content is only doing half the job. Promotional posts are how you finish the job. You provide a quick hit of intriguing content — just enough to whet the audience’s appetite — and then put the rest of it on your website for them to consume there.

You should be promoting a wide range of your website material on your social channels:

• Blog articles
• Patient stories
• Product and services information (especially anything new, expanded, newly recognized, etc.)
• Whitepapers

Make sure to frame your promotional social posts in terms of how the user will benefit. What do they want? What will they learn by continuing? Why should they move down the funnel and engage with you further? Having a good understanding of your consumers’ journeys with you will help you frame these pieces and posts in ways that serves their needs, not just your own.

Don’t be afraid to take a negative opinion on information that circulates throughout social media, especially when you can back it up with thoughtful, evidence-driven analysis from your subject-matter experts. Misinformation and fake news travel fast. When your providers can refute incorrect claims, you can position your organization as a trusted source of healthcare information and convert some of your newly informed audience members into patients or members.

3. Engagements with other users and groups

A good portion — probably half or so but at least a third — of your social media content should be in the area of engagement, or posts that aren’t directly self-promotional. Within this broader category, two of the main subcategories are engaging with individuals (especially your employees) and engaging with local nonprofits and social organizations within your service area.

Engaging with your employees and other individuals

Engaging with individuals helps humanize your organization in the eyes of your followers. You’re no longer just some big corporation trying to inundate them with content you want them to engage with. You’re taking time out of your day to recognize and appreciate them as people.

This is especially important when it comes to your organization’s employees. These are some of your most effective brand ambassadors. When you take a moment to post a message or reaction to recognize their achievements, accolades, good news or mentions of them in your community, you present a positive message that those employees are likely to carry forward. Plus, those messages are visible in your employees’ networks, so you’re expanding your reach to more potential patients and members.

Engaging with local nonprofits and other social organizations

It’s important to many people that your organization shows what it believes in and supports. This is especially true for consumers who are members of Generation Z. These consumers often tie their loyalty to an organization to its environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) values.

But highlighting the efforts of other groups in your area is also helpful as your organization works to build connections with those groups. If members of your team take part in a neighborhood cleanup organized by another organization, make sure to post a photo with a link back to that organization’s website or social posts. You can potentially improve their efforts by pointing your followers to them. And who knows? Maybe they’ll return the favor on a future effort your organization spearheads.

4. Reactions

It’s just a fact of the modern digital landscape: Your social media followers will watch how you react to developments in the public sphere. There are two main reaction types you need to prioritize: news and developments and negative posts within your channels.

Reactions to news and developments

Your organization doesn’t exist in a vacuum, nor should it. Your team is an important part of the communities you serve. Occasionally, things happen in those communities that either affect your organization directly or indirectly — whether they’re good news (graduations, fun events, etc.) or bad news (disasters, tragedies, etc.).

Posting your organization’s position on these events can help your users know where you stand. As mentioned before, that’s of growing importance to many socially active consumers, especially members of Generation Z.

Reactions to negative posts

It’s not ideal, but users turn to social media to air their grievances because they get noticed and get results. This is one area where you do not want to engage directly in the public space.

As soon as possible, engage the user directly through direct messages (DMs) or offline avenues, and address the complaint or concern. Also, if the user doesn’t remove or edit the negative post, make sure you post a reply as soon as you have established dialogue or addressed the situation, and let your followers know you’re handling it offline. This makes it clear that you take feedback seriously and will reach out to people who engage with you.

Master your social media content strategy

This sort of all-encompassing social media content work is far more involved and time-consuming than just focusing on one or two channels. But it’s got a much higher ceiling for your ROI. With a thoughtful, user-centered approach, you can grow and appeal to your audience and move them at appropriate times down the funnel to become your patients and members.

We help healthcare organizations take hold of their content strategies and position themselves for success. Contact us to learn more about our comprehensive healthcare content solutions.

Earlier this summer, Instagram started testing a new feature by adding in a shopping icon, replacing the legacy activity feed icon. I have yet to see this feature on my personal Instagram account until this morning. While Instagram has recently released its new “reels” feature, this new step to replace the activity feed with the shopping icon shouldn’t be overlooked and is a very important development. Here’s why:

Traditionally users weren’t able to purchase items through social media platforms. Social influencers could promote brands through their channels and direct users to “swipe up” or click a link in their bio to purchase. But this new shopping feature is allowing influencers to create content around products that can ultimately be purchased within the Instagram application. Why is this important? Social proof. It’s been proven that consumers want validation before and after making a purchase. By giving a channel for this social proof use case, Instagram allows customers to interact and purchase brands that their favorite influencers represent.

Not only that, Instagram will suggest other brands for you based upon the content you engage with and the people you follow. Here are some statistics to back up this social proof:

• 92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising—an increase of 18% since 2007
• 70% of people will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t know
• 40% of people say they have purchased a product online after seeing it used by an Influencer

The statistics don’t lie. In fact, they point to the clear fact that social commerce is one of, if not the top, areas B2C organizations should look to focus on in 2021. The social proof customers desire has traditionally been served through reviews on product experience pages or third-party sites like Amazon. These reviews will still remain a key factor… for now. But Instagram’s entrance into the commerce arena hits on a broader ecommerce trend that has been going on for years.

Ecommerce has always been about delivering the desired user experience and tailoring site features and workflows to the exact needs of the customer, and more specifically, in a place that they already are: the internet. But let me ask you this: If you needed a new pair of sunglasses today, where would you start looking? You might google “top sunglass trends for 2020” and be presented with a list of articles and blogs detailing the latest trends in shades. While that experience is commonplace today, it’s going to drastically change in years to come.

Google has trained us to search for these types of questions through their fantastic search engine results, and that trained behavior is still present and active today. With Instagram building a shopping section of their application, our consumer behaviors will slowly start to shift, especially as younger generations develop more purchasing power.

Instead of starting on Google, we will turn to Instagram (and other social platforms, I predict) to find products that we want to buy, backed by social proof. In addition, Instagram collects and stores all of the items that users have recently viewed within this shopping icon – essentially building a unified marketplace for customers to find any and all products they have recently interacted with. It’s features like these that will shift our behaviors from Google to Instagram as the starting point for product research and discovery, simply because Instagram is providing the avenue for product discovery in the place where users are active.

If you’re a B2C brand looking for new ways to increase sales and revenue, I’d explore and experiment with this new Instagram feature. Even if you don’t use influencers to promote your products today, it’s still worth testing as this trend will continue to grow with popularity, especially if your target audience falls within the 18-24 demographic.

Consumers can easily go to Amazon and search for “cool looking sunglasses” and be presented with thousands of options and reviews for each. But as shopping habits shift and consumers learn that they simply can go to Instagram, click on the shopping icon, and see the sunglasses their favorite football player is wearing, the game will be forever changed.

Use Gifs to Increase Your Marketing Efforts

This post is the second in the Visual Storytelling series. See the first post, How to Design Eye-Catching Graphics.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much more valuable could a gif be?

Gifs (aka Graphics Interchange Formats) are short, repeated video clips that have modernized the way viewers consume media content. The sweet spot between images and video, gifs are an easy way to connect directly with your audience. For our second installment of the Visual Storytelling series, let’s examine how creating and using gifs can enhance your message and impact your marketing strategy.

How to Pronounce Gif

Before we continue, let’s acknowledge the dispute that has divided gif users since the beginning. The pronunciation of gif – hard “g” versus soft “g” – has been an ongoing argument in the technology world for years. Though this somewhat frivolous debate may never be settled, we’re leaning toward the hard “g” sound, like the world gift. Technically speaking, the Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations as correct, so it’s really up to personal choice.

The Rise of Gifs in Social Marketing

Gifs are incredibly effective for emphasizing and illustrating your message without crowding the reader with too much copy. Gifs grab the viewer’s attention – if a person is scrolling through social media posts and sees movement or animation, they are more likely to stop and check it out. Though gifs have conventionally been traded between social media users, they have become a go-to marketing tool for modern companies appealing to modern audiences.

Taking Our Own Advice: We use gifs in many of our Perficient blogs to grab our audience’s attention, like this Hackathon blog post.

Adding Gifs to Your Brand Strategy

Ideal for mobile and desktop, gifs can be used to make professional content more informal, and more inviting. There are many reasons to leverage gifs within your marketing mix. Gifs are an impactful way showcase your brand’s personality while still maintaining a polished look. They allow you to display your company culture, show off a product, or illustrate a crucial process that makes your company unique. No matter your message, a gif can probably elevate it.

How to Make Your Own Gifs

But don’t rely on just any gif to do the trick – make your own! Creating company-specific gifs allows for viewers to share your branded content on all social media platforms, which increases your audience reach. When a consumer reposts your gif, they are aiding in the sales process without even realizing it.

Here’s an easy tutorial on how to create a gif:

Consumers are digitally savvy, well informed, and more demanding than ever. Not investing in resources that digitally transform customer care will become a competitive disadvantage.

This series explores six technology trends for delivering smarter and more strategic customer care.

Trend #6: Cloud Enables Customer Care Anywhere

Cloud solutions enable better customer care experiences. Customers can find the information they want about any issue, any time, and anywhere in a secure, safe manner. Connecting with customers is also easier than ever using cloud-based technology that supports digital customer care channels, such as:

• Mobile video support
• Live chat
• Customer portals
• Knowledge bases
• Text/SMS
• Messaging apps
• Social platforms

Streamlining Data and Customer Care

Cloud platforms allow you to store customer data coming from these channels while providing flexibility and speed at an affordable cost.

For example, we helped GoPro improve its customer service experience and the ability to measure customer satisfaction. Achieving these goals required not only modernizing its technology infrastructure, but also effectively managing customer data, streamlining business processes, and consolidating knowledge bases.

We created a single customer view by implementing Salesforce Service Cloud and cleansing and merging GoPro’s customer data. Salesforce Knowledge and a custom knowledge interface improved search functionality, response accuracy, and email response times.

GoPro can now deliver fast, smart, and personalized customer service. The Customer 360 solution provides the global support team with a clearer picture of its customers and eliminates multiple contact records created in the case management process.

Improving Product Returns with Cloud Integration

Cloud-based solutions also offer an increasing number of valuable add-ons and applications. Analytics and web-based user apps increase productivity and improve overall customer care. However, they can pose integration challenges such as interoperability between different devices and platforms. Integration platforms can connect cloud applications and services, allowing you to synchronize data between applications.

Referring back to GoPro, its return merchandise authorization (RMA) process was cumbersome and inefficient. We overcame integration issues by using Dell Boomi, a specialized cloud-based integration platform. Dell Boomi integrated the legacy system’s functionality to quickly process returns and give product teams valuable insights for improving the quality of its cameras.

Additionally, the new RMA process improved data accuracy and reduced the average processing time by 80 percent (1-2 minutes), leaving GoPro’s customers ecstatic about their service experience.

Learn more about how cloud enables customer care from anywhere in our guide, Top Technology Trends for Smarter, Strategic Customer Care and take a look back at previously posted trends.

Brands traditionally use social media to promote content and engage with their audience. But how can strategic partnerships fit into your social media strategy?
Check out our recent video from Eric Enge and Mark Traphagen, who joined Perficient Digital through our acquisition of digital consultancy Stone Temple, where they explain how building strategic social media partnerships can boost your brand and energize your content. Building social media partnerships can help spread your brand message. Here’s why:

To learn more about Stone Temple, read our blog post.

Social media is a great way to promote your brand, but does it have any effect on your SEO?
Check out our recent video from Eric Enge and Mark Traphagen, who joined Perficient Digital through our acquisition of digital consultancy Stone Temple, where they explore how Google might use social media mentions to discover more about your brand. Google recognizes that your brand is an entity worth paying attention to. Here’s why:

To learn more about Stone Temple, read our blog post.

Just because search engines don’t put a lot of weight behind social media sites for ranking doesn’t mean they aren’t an important part of your SEO strategy.
Check out our recent video from Eric Enge and Mark Traphagen, who joined Perficient Digital through our acquisition of digital consultancy Stone Temple, where they explore how social media can impact your link building SEO strategy. Social media can boost your SEO. Here’s why:

To learn more about Stone Temple, read our blog post.

How do you know if your marketing efforts are paying off? Traditionally, success in business can be measured by the return on investment (ROI). But social media is a different story. In addition to monetary return, there are several other ways to measure social media ROI.
Check out our recent video from Eric Enge and Mark Traphagen, who recently joined Perficient Digital through our acquisition of digital consultancy Stone Temple, where they share what ROI means when it comes to social media campaigns and what you should be measuring. Social media ROI can be measured in more ways than one. Here’s why:

To learn more about Stone Temple, read our recent blog post.

Social media can be a valuable asset to your SEO efforts, but not in the way most people think. Google doesn’t rank social media links the same way it does other site links. So while your link may be getting engagement on social, it doesn’t influence how Google ranks linked content.
Check out our recent video from Eric Enge and Mark Traphagen, who recently joined Perficient Digital through our acquisition of digital consultancy Stone Temple, to learn about three social media strategies to boost your SEO. Social media promotion can indirectly improve your SEO efforts and be a valuable marketing tool. Here’s why:

To learn more about Stone Temple, read our recent blog post.

I received a letter in the mail a few weeks ago. That’s right. A personal, handwritten letter. It was from a 5^th grader whom I’m sponsoring in a classroom reading program. It was so fun to get something personal in my mailbox—and feel connected to a young person and an important project—that I read it at least seven times! Over 60% of the class had never written a letter or addressed an envelope before the program started.

By the time tweens reach their teens, 95% of them have access to a smartphone, and 45% are online almost constantly. They’re well on target to meet or beat the current pace of the average American adult. We’re constantly checking our phones—every 12 minutes on average. That’s 80 times a day.
In our insanely fast-paced, online world intermingled with social media, people are craving connectedness and looking for depth. They want interesting, truthful information when they seek it. Long-form content marketing provides an opportunity for both you and your customer. It’s long-term win-win, not just a quick sale.

What is long-form content marketing?

Whether you want to promote products, services, or your business, you can create any type of long-form content—including blog posts, online articles, e-books, and video—to connect and build relationships with people.
There’s no definitive word count or time length. A 15-minute video is considered long. Deliverables in written form are usually 1,200 to 2,000 words, but those numbers are slowly increasing. The new standard is working its way toward 3,000 to 10,000 words so search engines can deliver results with the highest possible quality content.

What are the benefits of long-form marketing?

When you create engaging long-form content that satisfies an emotional or knowledge-based need, you connect with and build long-term relationships with potential, new and long-time clients. Here are five great benefits of long-form content marketing:

• Increases organic traffic. Search engines like Google are changing their algorithms to deliver results with more complete content to better satisfy users’ searches.
• Gets more shares on social media. It may be surprising, but on average, long-form content gets shared more on social media than short-form content. A case study by OkDork analyzed 100 million articles on the web and revealed that those with content lengths ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 words got the most shares:

Source: OkDork.com

• Gets higher ranking in search results. If you want to appear in the top 10 of search results when someone is looking for a solution to their problem or for a product to satisfy their need, long-form content can boost your rankings. A study by serpIQ discovered that the average content length of the top 10 search results was over 2,000 words.
• Increases the amount of time people spend on site. The longer people are engaged with the content on your site the better. It reflects they’re getting what they came for—high quality, helpful information.
• Positions you as an industry leader. With time and consistency, you’re the expert people turn to. The more knowledge you share that’s of value to consumers, the more trust you build.

Long-form content marketing can create connections, and build and maintain business relationships. It can fulfill people’s needs, yet leave them looking forward to more. Much like how I’m excited about receiving my next handwritten letter in the mail.
Sources:
https://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2017/33190/how-to-build-a-long-form-marketing-video-people-will-actually-watch-and-why-you-should
https://neilpatel.com/blog/create-long-form-content/
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/05/05/longform-content
https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/long-form-content-vs.-short-form-content

Although social media networks like Facebook and Instagram have been major players in the advertising game for many years now, some marketers still have doubts about whether their efforts in social media are really leading to product sales, and whether social is worth the time and money they’re investing in it. But did you know that about half of the word-of-mouth activity that leads to sales takes place via social media?
Check out our recent video to learn more about how social media marketing provides real ROI from Eric Enge and Mark Traphagen, who recently joined Perficient Digital through our acquisition of digital consultancy Stone Temple.

To learn more about Stone Temple, read our recent blog post.

Content marketing has been a hot topic over the past 8 years as marketers have looked for ways to connect with consumers. At Perficient, we use content marketing extensively, as evidenced by this blog.

We’ve also blogged about content marketing going all the way back to 2012 (Content Marketing Impact & #SocialBusiness). The trick for content marketing is to produce content that attracts potential customers and encourages them to engage with your brand.

In general, companies have used techniques like story-telling, inspirational content, education content, product announcements, etc. all with varying degrees of success.

In light of this, I came across a study on what consumers expect versus what marketers prioritize from a content perspective. This study was conducted by Sprout Social, but appeared in an eMarketer.com round up report on customer experience called “How Digital Factors Are Fueling More Personalized Content“.  

What Consumers Want

So what do consumers expect or want in terms of content?  Here are the top four content types that consumers want according to the survey results:

• 72% wanted content about discounts or sales
• 60% want content that showcase new products or services
• 59% want to see content that teaches them something
• 56% want content that entertains them

How do marketers prioritize these types of content when posting?

• 18% of marketers prioritize discounts or sales (vs 72% for consumers)
• 46% prioritize new products and services (vs 60% for consumers)
• 47% prioritize entertaining content (vs 56% for consumers)
• 61% prioritize content that teaches (vs 59% for consumers)

So marketers really miss the mark on presenting content about discounts or sales. They fall short of producing content about new products or services and entertaining content. Marketers are pretty close to meeting expectations for education content.

What Marketers Prioritize

Often times, marketers want to prioritize content that tells a story, tell what’s happening at the company, or showcases their company’s personality or employees. You could classify this content as “Let me tell you about us”. How do consumers prioritize receiving this kind of content?

As my headline suggests, consumers don’t really care about your stories that much, or your brand’s personality, or even your employees. Here is the breakdown of how marketers prioritize this kind of content versus what consumers actually want to see:

• 58% of marketers want to tell a story, while only 37% of consumer want this type of content
• 51% of marketers prioritize content that announce what’s happening at the company, while only 41% of consumers care about this
• 44% of marketers promote content that highlights the company’s personality, while only 23% of consumers want to see this
• 24% want to post about employees, but only 13% of consumers want this content

Take Away

The take away from this survey shouldn’t be that marketers only focus on one type of content, like discounts, because the majority of consumers want to see this content. To reach the broadest set of consumers, multiple types of content need to be developed and delivered.

However, marketers should be tracking the types of content they produce and measure consumer interest in each type. Then, content marketing has to adjust to produce content that your consumers actually want to read. Of course consumer expectations change all the time and content marketing has to continually produce, monitor and adjust.