As a home care organization, it’s likely that you are constantly looking for more clients and more qualified caregivers for your team. Your marketing strategy should reflect those goals. But you may have wondered, “How do I integrate social media into my marketing strategy?”
With the continual rise in social media usage, the best marketing strategies now use social media cohesively with other marketing channels. Here are a few tips for how to integrate social media into your marketing strategy.
1. Establish your goals.
First and foremost, establish your overall goals for social media marketing. Are these similar or different from your other marketing goals? If you’re looking to gain more clients through social media, then your goal might be to present your home care company as an expert on aging care, or to demonstrate the loving and personalized care you provide to clients. You might use social media to highlight individual caregivers at your company, adding a personal touch to your brand. Or you might post articles you have written about best practices in family caregiving.
One you know your specific goals you can define a target audience. Are you looking to appeal to referral sources in your geographic area, or are you looking to attract adult children that are caring for their aging parents? In this case, your target audience might be individuals looking for tips on caring for an elderly mother. After defining the target audience you want to reach, and the goals you have in interacting with them, developing a social media plan for your marketing strategy can become a series of simple steps.
2. Identify your media channels.
Next up, identify the social media channels you want to use in the plan. If your organization has no social media presence yet, it might be best to start off with one or two different platforms, before jumping all in. This will help you avoid becoming overwhelmed, and it will make it easier to understand your return on investment (your time). If you already have social media pages set up, it might be possible to branch out into new platforms. For example you might have a Facebook page and a Google + page, but have you considered adding a LinkedIn Company Page or LinkedIn personal account? Consider the target audience again. Are they more likely to be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.? Be where they are.
Once you have accounts created on the different platforms, there are a variety of tools that can help you in carrying out your social media strategy. We suggest using Hootsuite or Buffer because they offer a simpler and easier way to schedule posts, track the performance of your content, and manage all your accounts in one place. You should also have Google Analytics installed on your website to track traffic sources. This will show which channels are driving the most visitors to your site.
For some business owners, outsourcing their social media strategy entirely to a marketing firm or independent contractor is the right choice. Marketing firms have the advantage of already using the tools (some of which can be very expensive) and you benefit from their access and expertise. For other owners, they might choose to hire a full time or part time marketing person in house because they have a larger marketing plan to execute.
3. Create your content plan.
Finally, create a content plan for your social media platforms to integrate seamlessly with the rest of your marketing strategy. Develop a calendar showing which days you will post to which channels, and then what content is posted at those times. There are great social media templates available online for free to get your started. Of course, different types of content are going to create different results on various networks. For example, a Twitter post is going to be less in-depth because it is a shorter more rapid fire way of communicating, while a Facebook post might be more detailed and include photos. Posts with pictures often drive more engagement, but might be more challenging / expensive to develop consistently.
Establish a timeline for your content plan and a regular posting schedule for different platforms. Again, keep your goals and target audience the main focus of the content plan. Make sure each individual post focuses on driving traffic to your website, generating client leads and/or attracting potential caregivers.
When it comes to integrating social media into your larger marketing strategy, keep your home care organization’s goals and audience as the primary focus. Home Care Marketing Pros provides clients with valuable assistance on strategy, content writing, designing and posting content to various social media channels. If you are interested in discussing your goals or getting a few (free) pointers from our experts, give us a call!
