Social Media Campaigns: How to Promote Your Edmonton Business on Social Media

Social media is a digital technology that facilitates the creating and sharing of information, ideas, and other forms of content via digital communities and networks.

We are social beings that have a fundamental human need to connect with each other. The more we feel a deep sense of connection with others, the more we feel a sense of belonging to a community, creating happiness and meaning in our lives.

In addition to connecting people to people, social media also connects people to businesses in Edmonton. Social media campaigns are one of the most effective strategies for growing your health and wellness practice with new patients.

But, if your social media posts are overly promotional, your audience will unfollow you.

According to Sprout Social, 46% of people will unfollow a company if their social media posts are overly promotional.

So, how do you promote your products and services without actually promoting them?

One of the most effective ways to promote your practice is not to promote it, but rather, to let your patients promote it for you.

When your clients make a positive comment on social media about you, your practice, and practitioners, this will be seen by their entire network of followers. This positive feedback, or social proof, is more credible than your promotional posts.

Every time a person interacts or engages with your post (like, comment, or share), this will be seen by their network of followers. We wrote this article to help you learn:

What are social media campaigns?

By encouraging your audience to interact or engage with your social media posts, you’re increasing the visibility and social proof of your practice.

What are the benefits of social media campaigns?

1. Increased social proof
2. Improved audience quality
3. Greater visibility
4. More new patients

How to increase user engagement using social media campaigns?

• Call-to-action: ending a post with a call to action may prompt your audience to take action, such as booking an appointment, or calling your clinic.
• Gamification: turn your posts into fun and engaging games that motivate your audience to participate.
• Incentives: offer fun prizes, discounts, and incentives to your campaigns to encourage your audience to participate.
• Engage back: always engage back every time a person in your audience interacts with your posts through likes, comments and shares.
• Cross-platform: promote your campaigns across multiple platforms to increase followers in multiple networks.

Let’s get started!

What are social media campaigns?

People use social media to socialize with others, learn new information, and to be entertained. Creating social media posts that only promote your products and services is not effective, as people will start to tune out your message.

One of the most effective ways to grow your practice is through word-of-mouth referrals. These referrals are a form of social proof, or third-party validation. Social proof can be created through social media.

If your clients make a positive comment on social media about your practice, this will be seen by their entire network of followers. This positive feedback, or social proof, is more credible than buying an advertisement.

If your clients interact or engage with your social media post (like, comment, or share), this will be seen by their network of followers. This increases the reach and visibility of your practice to a larger audience of potential new patients.

45% of consumers said information found via social media would affect their decisions to seek a second health opinion.

PWC, Health Research Institute, 2012

What are the benefits of social media campaigns?

The primary benefit of conducting a social media campaign is to encourage your audience to interact or engage with your posts in order for their engagement to be seen by their network of followers. One of the primary performance metrics that many businesses aim to improve is called “user engagement”.

There are many benefits of increasing the engagement of your audience, including:

1. Increased social proof: when one of your patients makes a positive comment or recommendation of your practice on social media, their entire network of followers see it. This public recommendation validates your health products and services.
2. Improve audience quality: having a large audience of people that never interact with your practice or book an appointment doesn’t support your business goals. By interacting and engaging with your audience, you will nurture those relationships and motivate them to book an appointment.
3. Greater visibility: social media networks, like Facebook, decide which posts to display to people based on mathematical algorithms. One of the main factors that these algorithms consider are the amount of engagement of each post. The more people engage with your post, the more they’re indicating interest, which results in seeing more posts from your practice in the future.
4. More new patients: when one of your patients provides a positive recommendation about your practice on their social media network, they are publically becoming an advocate of your clinic. According to market research company, Forrester, increasing user engagement as advocates results in a 50% increase in sales for new customers.

71% of customers who have a positive service experience via social media are likely to recommend that company.

Ambassador Software, 2013

How to increase user engagement using social media campaigns?

One of the most common goals in social media marketing is to increase user engagement. This helps increase the visibility of your business to your audience and their entire network of followers.

Here are some ways that you can increase user engagement in your social media posts:

1. Call-to-action: this is a statement or question that calls a person to take action. Ending a social media post with a call to action may prompt your audience to take action. The most commonly used calls to action include:
   • book an appointment
   • call us
   • email us
   • visit our website
   • subscribe to our newsletter
   • follow us on social media
2. Gamification: people use social media to socialize and be entertained. You can turn your posts into fun and engaging games that motivate your audience to participate. Social Media Today suggests increasing user engagement with fun word games, such as Mad Libs, Hangman, Boggle, Jumble, and Anagrams.
3. Incentives: in addition to creating games, you can also offer prizes for those games. By offering fun prizes, discounts on products and services, or other incentives, you can encourage your audience to participate in your campaigns.
4. Engage back: when a person on social media does interact with your post or profile, through a comment, a like, or a share, it’s important to respond back as soon as possible. Doing so reinforces that behaviour and encourages them to continue to participate and engage with your brand on social media.
5. Cross-platform: if you’re using more than one social media network, you can run campaigns on multiple networks and encourage your followers on some platforms to follow you on other platforms to learn more. This increases your audience on each platform.

Conclusion

Social media campaigns are an effective strategy for growing your health and wellness practice in Edmonton with new clients.

By creating posts that are fun and engaging, it motivates your audience to interact with your posts, which increases the visibility of your practice. This improves your audience quality, and motivates new patients to book an appointment at your clinic.

According to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), 2 out of every 3 Canadians use various social media networks daily. These could be your next clients.

Leverage the power of social media as an effective strategy for growing your health and wellness practice with new patients.

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