Facebook Best Practices Dan Hinmon Hive Strategies

Three Types of Accounts  Personal Profile  Facebook Page  Facebook Group Today’s focus: Your hospital/clinic Facebook page

Where are You?  Beginner  Experienced  Expert What would you like to learn today?

First: Why a Facebook Page?  Align Facebook page goals with marketing objectives.  Where and how does Facebook fit?  Hospital page vs. service line page.  Commit the right resources.  Identify and leverage natural communities.

Next: Develop 3-5 Model Profiles  word profile  Age, gender, racial-ethnic group, education, income, lifestyle  Interests  Give your model profile a name For every post, ask: Would (model profile) like, comment on, or likely share this post?

Essential for any and all healthcare communication: Patient privacy!

Best Practices Ensure that content can and will be shared.  Personal tone  Short sentences  Easy to read  Informative  Useful  Relevant  Use photos

Best Practices Develop a strategy for posting.  Create a content calendar  Sort by category and model profile  Use page insights for timing Remember, you’re not the only time zone.

Best Practices Create categories to organize content.  Health and wellness tips  Treatment options (video, blog, website)  Research updates (clinical studies, published studies)  News (within your organization)  Patient Stories

Best Practices Maximize impact content by using visuals:  Use real images with your post  53% more likes  104% more comments  Real images best, stock ok  Pixabay.com  freedigitalphotos.net

Best Practices Pay attention to sizing specs: Facebook pages: Sizes & Dimensions

Best Practices Vary types of images:  Behind-the-scenes shots  Collages  Action shots  Spontaneous shots  Team/groups photos How much/many? 1-to-1 ratio (text to image)

Best Practices Maximize engagement by:  Pinning posts to top of timeline  Using Facebook as your page  Liking and commenting on other pages’ posts  Regularly updating cover photo  Featuring physicians, patients, staff or fans Do not:  Use ALL CAPITALS in your posts  Overuse “like and share”  Like your own posts

Important Reminders  Respond in a timely manner  Stay aware about how you’re using Facebook  as organization v. as you  Never use a national disaster to promote  Understand and obey patient privacy laws  Follow (or create!) policies/guidelines

Facebook Reach  Organic: your fans who actually see your post  Viral: fans share your post – and it takes off!  Paid Organic reach plummeting

Organic Reach If you have 5,000 “likes” on your page, only a small percentage see your post.  April 2012 – 16%  February 2014 – 6%  Future – 1-2% “On a given day, when someone visits their news feed, there are an average of 1,500 possible stories we could show.” – Facebook

Pay to Advertise  Promote page  Boost posts  Set a budget  Cancel at any time

Promote Page

Boost Post

Questions?