#016- Digital Health Social Media: LinkedIn and Google+ Best Practices

For many digital health marketers, especially enterprise B2B firms,  LinkedIn and Google+ are “go to” Social Media networks. Today, we’ll look at these two platforms and explore why you should use them, and share best practices on how to get the most out of your LinkedIn and Google+ efforts.

About This Show:

Each Wednesday, Sam Stern, founder and Chief Marketing Technologist at Modallic, an mHealth marketing and brand development firm reveals his winning Mobile, Digital and healthcare IT marketing strategies, shares real life Mobile Health marketing success stories, and offers breakthrough marketing tips and tactics so you can lead the field with your Mobile Health and healthcare IT solutions.

Discover how to craft compelling stories to open doors with key health care system decision makers. Understand how an agile marketing mindset and approach positions you to create a profitable, sustainable business.

Gain insights into Mobile Health and healthcare IT marketing strategy, how to tell your unique mHealth and healthcare IT marketing story, creating your mHealth buyer personas, how to integrate an agile marketing process, mobile health and digital health brand development and market positioning, and learn what really works in attracting and landing mobile health and healthcare IT clients.

Show Notes: 

First, before we dive into Linkedin and Google+ specifically, let’s talk a bit about…

Selecting Social Media Platforms

What determines where to focus your time and resources on Social Media? It’s really pretty simple. It’s your Buyer Personas. Where do they hang out and spend time online? Who do they trust, who influences them? Where do they go to connect with other industry peers and get information about challenges and problems they face?

Consider these two examples:

Where would a healthcare system Chief Information Officer go to get information about IT solutions to integrate into his or her hospitals? Google search, possibly Twitter, and LinkedIn more than likely. He or she would unlikely turn to family and friends on Facebook for this technical, professional information.

Conversely, a 45 year old manager of the local Applebee’s recently diagnosed with diabetes, probably will explore what his or her friends and family know about smartphone blood sugar monitoring apps on Facebook.

Don’t assume you know what social media networks your buyer personas use. Do some research. Ask customers and prospects where they go to get answers to the problems you solve. 

Keep in mind, social media is a great way to amplify your marketing message and expand your growth strategy. You must have value added content to offer. Social Media, on all the platforms, does not respond well to traditional broadcast push messages.

Even on the platforms that fit your buyer personas, it’s a Listen, Give, Engage… and then Ask approach. It requires a patient, well-conceived strategy.

So, now let’s look at what LinkedIn has to offer your digital health business…

The Case for LinkedIn: The Perfect Platform for B2B Digital Health Marketing?

With over 225 million users, LinkedIn is the premier network for B2B. LinkedIn is nearly 3 times more effective in generating B2B leads than either Twitter or Facebook.. It’s a serious network for real business. The tone is professional, so put on your best suit and behavior. It’s best to avoid the witty Twitter one-liners and funny Facebook photos on LinkedIn.

Without question, if you provide enterprise health IT products and services, you must have a strong LinkedIn presence. 

LinkedIn Best Practices

To grow your reach, increase engagement with your business, generate website traffic, and generate leads and ultimately clients, here’s the LinkedIn game plan.

1. Create a Company Page- The LinkedIn graphic specs for the Company Page Profile are 646 X 220 pixels. As recommended with your Twitter and Facebook Profile and Page, you want to present a consistent and professional brand appearance and message. Be consistent with colors, logos, images, fonts, and taglines. Avoid stock photos. Use original photos of your staff and clients. (with permission, of course) Write a brief, concise description of what you do, markets you serve, and problems you solve. Use keywords, but avoid buzzwords.

2. Get 100 Company Page Followers- After you create your Company Page, have your entire staff send an in-mail to their network and invite Followers to your Company Page.

3. Create a Perfect LinkedIn Status Updates- Here a a few quick tips to LinkedIn Company Page Status Updates:

Post Breaking News, industry trends, or sneak peeks

Ask questions to prompt engagement

Limit title to 50 characters

Include a URL in the Status Block to drive traffic to your relevant blog post or landing page for more information. Add an action verb Call to Action- Discover, Read now, Click here

Comment on the Status Update using your Personal profile. Have your staff also comment to seed and prompt discussion..

Edit the default test link with a link shortener. Keep it clean and simple.

4. Promote Status Updates through Personal Profiles-  Use your Personal Profile to share your Company Page Status update on your News Feed. Also have your staff do the same. This will spread your Company Page and Brand on LinkedIn.

5. Post a Company Page Status Update Daily- Monday-Friday. Best time to post: 7AM- 9AM and 5-6 PM

These are the basics for gaining Business level exposure with a consistent approach on LinkedIn. Of course, you can also engage and share relevant information via your Personal Profile and participation in relevant LinkedIn Groups. Please visit the Linkedin articles in Resources for more information.

Now, let’s move on to Google +…

Why Google+ for Digital Health Marketing

Even with all the changes to search ranking criteria and keyword  data access, Google is the master of the online domain. Google+ is the social media network that connects directly into all things Google. 

With over 400 million users, Google+ is the fastest growing Social Media network. Activity on Google+- pluses, shares, comments- do impact your Google search rankings. With this in mind, let’s look at how to best use Google+.

Google+ Best Practices

1. Establish a Personal Profile and Business Page- Use a separate Gmail account to set up each profile. Google+ cover images are a gigantic 2120 X 1192 pixels. Use images that professionally reflect your personality on your Personal Profile. Maintain your Business brand imagine with your Business Page.

2. Complete both Your Personal Profile and Business Page-  With Google +, you have a larger canvas to share your personal and business story on the profiles when compared to the other Social Media networks. While you want to keep both your Personal and Business Page Stories focused and concise, make sure to add your “Elevator Pitch” of what you do, what makes you unique, markets you serve, and problems you solve. Make sure to use keywords  with keywords links back to relevant posts and landing pages on your website.

3. Build Circles and Followers on Your Personal Profile- Use Google+ search to find potential digital health prospects and industry influencers. Put them in your Circles. Comment, Plus, and Share their posts to engage with them. Your proactive appraoch will build your Circles of Followers.

4. Post Daily Updates to Your Business Page- Share breaking news, industry trends and discussions, and sneaks of upcoming events. Crafting your Google+ post following these guidelines will position you for more engagement.

Title-  Offer a benefit in your Title. Bold your title with asterisk at the beginning and end. Consider an italicized sub-title (use underscore symbol at the beginning and end of the sentence) for more emphasis and explanation of the value your post provides.

Summary- Provide a brief, 2-3 sentences of what the post is about. Explain why it’s worth the reader’s time to click through to the post.

Link- Provide a clear link to the article, post, or resource. Use a link shortener to make the link look better and track click throughs.

Commentary- Share your thoughts and perspective. Take a position and add a few sentences to back up your thinking.

Engagement- Prompt readers to respond. Ask them a question to encourage them to share their own perspective.

#Hashtags- Add relevant, specific hashtags. Do not add more than 3 hashtags to a post.

Image- Upload and share a relevant, interesting photo that will catch attention as someone browses the Google+ stream. 

5. Promote Your Business Page Posts on Your Personal Profile- This is the same tactic as used to promote and share LinkedIn Company Page posts. Create a post about your Business Page post on your Personal Profile. Follow the post guidelines above. Encourage your staff to Plus, Comment, and Share the Personal profile post. Ultimately, this will direct readers to your Google+ Business Page and build a Following on your Business Page.

5. Post a Company Page Status Update Daily- Monday-Friday. Best time to post: 9AM- 11AM. 

Follow this approach to build your Google+ engagement and Followers. Over time, you’ll also reap the benefits of improved search engine rankings.

Finally, for more information on using Social Media to market your digital health business, make sure your download the complete guide to Social Media Marketing for Digital Health. You’ll find the link to download the guide in the resource section of this podcast.

 

Resources:

The Perfect Digital Health Linkedin Company Page

The Perfect Linkedin Update for mHealth Marketing

The Perfect Google+ Business Page for Digital Health Marketers

mHealth Social Media Marketing: How to Write the Perfect Google+ Post

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