With the average internet user spending two and a half hours daily on various platforms, the social media landscape has become prime real estate for communicators, marketers, and technologists alike. In a dynamic and ever-evolving environment, social media is attuned to consumer behaviours and rapid technological developments that are reflected in audiences’ desires to be entertained. Whether that be through authentic content, informative campaigns, or harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare communicators need to adapt or risk falling by the wayside.
Navigating the convergence of multiple platforms, new technologies, and trends on social media presents a unique set of challenges. Whether you’re a seasoned influencer or just starting to dapple into the social media realm, these recommendations can help you deliver informative and authentic campaigns.
Invest where your audience is
Before drafting text or visuals for social media channels, it is important to have a concrete understanding of who this material is being created for. Health communications should connect with the social identity of target audiences and convey actionable recommendations that align with existing cultural behaviours. By surveying existing platforms, communicators can create an audience persona for the people they wish to reach that outlines the base age range, location, profession, and seniority level of followers and their possible interests. This helps target content, guide messaging, and monitor whether the audience demographic shifts over time. Analytics also provide insight into audience growth and which platforms and types of content appeal to followers. For example, a drop in engagement or total follower count may indicate a negative return on investment on one platform . Keeping abreast of new platforms and content trends can help guide creative energy, digital marketing investments, A/B testing (comparing the performance of two variations of content), and future strategies. Increasing digital noise is just one of the many obstacles to connecting with audiences in the digital age of healthcare. By investing in platforms, content, and campaigns that attract and retain target audiences, medical communicators can set their social media processes on the trajectory to success.
Relevance is relevant
Target audiences want to feel that the organisation they’re engaging with is authentic and adheres to their stated causes and missions. They also want to feel the information or content they’re interacting with is relevant to them and the platform they’re using. Communicators should routinely inspect organisational brand identity across the social media realm to ensure consistency across platforms and adherence to institutional causes or missions. Likewise, the organisational graphic identity should be complementary and relatively modern in appearance. Updating banner and profile images and bios will help prevent social media profiles from becoming stale. Tailoring content to platform specifications and audience needs can help maximise potential engagement and reach.
Success is in the eye of the beholder
Extracting meaningful insight from social media metrics can help guide future campaigns and strategies. There is no shortage of data that can be harvested on social platforms, with most offering analytic reports for each post, follower trends, and ad campaigns. In a sea of likes, comments, reposts, and clicks, where is the best place to start?
Campaigns should be informed by overarching goals or objectives guiding the messaging of communications. Once defined, key performance indicators (KPIs) can be clarified and measured. The most common KPIs to track are:
- Impressions (the total number of times a post was seen in users’ feeds)
- Engagements (the total number of likes, comments, or shares per post)
- Clicks (the total number of times users clicked on any element in a post with their mouse or digital finger)
Content strategies should be informed by predefined goals and the KPIs that will be measured, and creative materials should be crafted with these in mind. Communicators should consider what type of content will prompt their audience to engage with a post, repost it to their networks, and take it home with them. Executing a content strategy can be made simpler using social media scheduling tools – such as Buffer, Hootsuite, or Later – or the native scheduling services found on most platforms, like Meta Business Suite or Twitter Ads. Monitoring and measuring the performance of social media posts should be second nature. Once analytics are performed, the results may be used to refine and adjust current strategies or creative materials.
Should the goals, objectives, and KPIs for a content strategy be met, iterate posts and scale up for broader impact. The process can further be informed by lessons learnt from analytics, competitor surveying, and new social marketing techniques. Tracking trending hashtags and adjacent topics can help campaigns reach more users and tailor content to existing audiences. Measuring a brand’s performance and reputation in online discussions is also recommended. Ultimately, it is the story behind the content that will determine success.
What’s on the horizon?
As technology advances and healthcare systems become more digitised, the number of people actively seeking health information online will continue to grow. Digital health communications will need to adapt to the changing winds of social media to ensure uptick of key messaging and successful campaigns. Adhering to branding guidelines, tailoring content, and following a structured social media strategy are just some pointers to set medical communicators on a path forward.
This article first appeared in the European Medical Writers Association publication “Medical Writing” and has been abbreviated and adapted for Uppsala Reports. To read the original article, visit: https://journal.emwa.org/soft-skills-for-medical-writers/digital-communication/.
Read more
Meltwater 2024 Global Digital Report: meltwater.com/en/global-digital-trends.
M Martin, S McLachlan, “How to Run the Easiest Social Media Audit”, Hootsuite, 2022.
Social media for healthcare: How to keep patients engaged in the digital age, Sprout Social: sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-in-healthcare/.