How to use Instagram to attract new patients

Instagram is one of the most talked-about social media platforms today with more than 700 million monthly active users, a more promising audience, and less competition compared to other social networking giants such as Facebook and Twitter.

This acts as a golden opportunity for businesses to advertise their products or services to a more involved and targeted audience without breaking the bank for paid promotion.

When it comes to user engagement, Instagram excels over every other social media platform. As per a recent poll, user engagement on Instagram is 15 times higher as compared to other networks, including Google+, Twitter or Facebook.

This is primarily because photo-sharing media has progressed beyond just a social network and is now a key medium for marketing. Whether your business strategy needs to be updated or you are just a social media beginner looking to attract new patients, you will find the following 6 tips to be extremely helpful in growing your practice and boosting patient engagement.

Search for ideas and inspiration

To successfully use Instagram to attract new patients, it is important to follow people whose profiles may be interesting for your niche.

You can start searching for nutrition and fitness influencers, healthy lifestyle advocates, or other profiles related to yours with relevant content and many followers.

It would also be very useful to see your competition post on Instagram to have a better idea of what strategy you could use.

Address target market with hashtags

Instagram revolves around hashtags and establishing an appropriate community around them. The strategy can be implemented throughout other social media platforms like Pinterest or Twitter but is mainly valuable on Instagram.

Instagram feeds quickly change, and content tends to get buried even quicker. However, hashtags can assist you in reaching out to a broader sector of audiences who search for brand new content using hashtags. Avoid going overboard with the hashtags, as it can be annoying.

What hashtags will do is dramatically improve your online visibility. Incorporating relevant hashtags in your photos will enable your content to be viewed by users who don’t even know your nutrition practice. For instance, as a nutrition professional, adding hashtags such as #nutrition #healthyeating or even #nutritionadvice will help make your content more engaging.

Post high-quality photos

Patients are almost always looking for work samples of potential healthcare professionals. This is especially true if you are a plastic surgeon, a dietitian or an orthodontist, or basically anyone who produces tangible results.

You can start by having your pictures taken while you work with your patient (after taking their permission, of course). In addition to that, you could also post behind-the-scenes of your office, workers, satisfied patients, and their families, before and after shots, and the list of treatments you offer.

This will show your patients that your nutrition practice has personality and will be a differential compared to other clinics. You can also get as creative as you like with your photography skills and display the usual stuff uniquely.

Integrate with other networks

It is quite easy to incorporate Instagram in your present nutrition practice stratagem to make multitasking simpler. You can share the same content on multiple networks such as Twitter and Facebook with a single click.

Making an Instagram will allow you to post content and pictures on your present social media handles. This helps save time since you will not have to make a different post for every site.

Sponsored posts and influencers

You can contact your patients that already have a large Instagram following and offer them complimentary or discounted treatments in exchange for advertising your nutrition practice.

This is ideally achieved via “sponsored posts” where the patient or influencer mentions your practice while posting a photo of their amazing results. They may also add a relevant hashtag to make your practice more visible. You can easily get in touch with influencers and inquire them about their sponsored posts rates.

Be consistent with your posts

The key to staying relevant on Instagram or any other social media platform is to keep reminding your patients about your presence (your product or service). Because if you don’t, you will soon be forgotten. People also tend to unfollow inactive accounts often, so if your last post dates back to six months, then it is time to start posting again.

Post content frequently, but not too often. Post one photo every day or even two to three times a day. Your aim should be a frequency that results in maximum engagement. This will help establish credibility among your patients and generate business.

Start incorporating these tips into your Instagram marketing strategy today to see results in the near future.