26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

W is for WordSwag

WordSwag is a mobile application that turns your ideas, quotes, and content into attractive graphics that can be shared on social media.

Here’s how it works

1. Select your picture (Word Swag also includes 590,000+ free backgrounds!)
2. Edit your text (you can also choose from hundreds of captions and quotes)
3. Select one of 48 text styles.
5. Save or share your creative design on Instagram, Twitter & Facebook.

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

V is for Voice

The majority of patients searching for information on the web still trust search engines but the way people search for information online is changing. Increasingly, people are using voice search on their smartphones, tablets or voice assistants (like the Amazon Echo or Google Home devices) to search for information on the internet (yet another compelling reason to make sure that your site is optimized for mobile).

According to comScore’s forecasting, 50 percent of searches will be performed through voice functions in 2020 and the majority will be done without even looking at a screen.

In essence, voice searches are largely about answering questions, not about focusing on individual keywords. SEO is fast becoming AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation).

Here are some tips to consider while generating content for voice activation devices:

• Write in a conversational tone
• Use long-tail keywords
• Account for misspelled/misinterpreted words (sometimes Siri or Alexa can misinterpret what you’re saying).

How people are using voice search

In recent research carried out by BrightLocal, consumers were asked how they used voice assistants and voice search for local business. The top three most demanded voice search functions involve finding restaurants, grocery stores, and food delivery, with clothing, accommodation, and medicine following closely behind.

The Voice Search for Local Business Study also revealed that 46% of voice search users use voice search to find local businesses daily.

Just as marketers have optimized content for web 2.0 and mobile, they will have to start optimizing content for voice search as well. To quote NewsCred, “If you’re a marketer, “What’s the Alexa strategy?” will be a question you’ll be expected to answer.”

Related  Reading

Study: How ready are businesses for voice search?

How Do You Optimize for Voice Search?

 

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

U is for Unsplash

Unsplash is a royalty-free stock image resource which gives you access to a bank of 50,000+ free-to-use photos.

All photos are licensed under Creative Commons Zero, “which means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash.”

Here’s a selection of healthcare-related images from the site.

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

T is for Trend

To succeed on social media, it’s essential to stay ahead of the curve and understand the latest social media trends.

In my annual social media marketing predictions for 2019, I identified 14 major trends that should claim your focus this year. It’s a lengthy post so if you are short on time,  I’ve highlighted five of these trends which I think will have particular relevance to medical marketing.

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

S is for SlideShare

Owned by LinkedIn and with over 18 million uploads and 80 million users, SlideShare is the world’s largest professional content sharing community.

Surprisingly, given how the platform is optimized for social sharing, including the ability to embed presentations (as I’ve done below), it’s often overlooked and underused in healthcare marketing.

How To Use SlideShare

1. Use SlideShare for research

Get up to speed on any topic. Instead of scrolling through pages of text, you can flip through a SlideShare deck and absorb the same information in a fraction of the time.

2. Share your insights and get noticed

Show what you know through a presentation, infographic, document or videos. When you upload to SlideShare, you reach an audience that’s interested in your content – over 80% of SlideShare’s 80 million visitors come through targeted search. This can help you build your reputation with the right audience and cultivate more professional opportunities.

Take Action: Expand your content marketing and raise your online profile in 2019 by tapping into the power of SlideShare. The good news is that you don’t even have to create original content to do this. Simply find some content you have already written and get ready to breathe new life into it.

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

R is for Ripl

If a picture says a thousand words, a video tells a million.

Video marketing can help you tell your story in a more entertaining, educational and inspiring way so if it’s not already part of your strategy, it’s time to get on board.

If the thought of creating video feels overwhelming, you can always start small using a tool like Ripl –  a mobile app (iOS and Android) that lets you create short animated videos with professionally designed templates.

Ripl was created to empower every small business owner to build an amazing brand. We made the Ripl app simple, quick and intuitive because business tools should do the work for you, not make more work for you.

You can choose from 200+ animated designs to easily create posts that fit your unique brand. You can add your photo(s) and text, choose a design template, customize the post for your business, and share in one tap to your social media accounts.

Ripl is integrated with the major social media platforms, so sharing your final video is easy. Once you’ve connected your social profiles to Ripl, you can post directly to Facebook, Facebook groups, YouTube, LinkedIn, and more. You can export your videos if you want to use them outside of your social media platforms.

Ripl is free to download and includes an assortment of free designs. Additionally, we offer Ripl Pro—a paid subscription that offers more designs, more music options, logo and brand customizations, scheduling features and more.

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

Q is for Quuu

Content curation is the process of gathering information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest.  Not only is it a way of providing value and consistency to your followers, but it’s also a great way to raise your online visibility and establish you as a thought-leader in your niche (to read more about this, see How To Curate Content Like A Pro).

To do it right requires an investment of time and that’s where Quuu can help. Quuu is a hand-curated content suggestion platform that connects to your scheduling tool of choice (I use Buffer to schedule my updates).

Just sign up, connect your account and choose from over 300 interest categories to receive suggestions that matter to you and your audience. With the free account, you can choose up to 5 interest categories, get suggestions automatically sent to your connected accounts two times a day (six for a paid account).  Relevant suggestions will be queued to your scheduling too where you can choose to manually curate posts yourself or Quuu will post for you.

Check it out at http://www.quuu.co

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

P is for Proofreading

Charles Dickens described proofreaders as having “… much natural intelligence, much-superadded cultivation, considerable readiness of reference, quickness of resource, an excellent memory, and a clear understanding.”

Presenting your readers with clear and compelling copy enhances your online credibility. To enhance your proofreading skills, I’ve put together this list of 8 tips and techniques which I rely on when I write online copy.

1. Proofreading Requires Concentration And Focus

One of the biggest proofreading mistakes you can make is to leave the task to the last minute and then do it too quickly. Nothing is ever done to perfection when something is rushed Always proofread your work in a quiet place that is free of distractions. Turn off your phone, TV, and radio to fully concentrate on the task at hand. This is especially important for longer work.

2. Don’t Proofread When You’re Tired

Do you know those signs on the motorway that remind you of the dangers of driving while tired? It’s the same for proofreading. Trying to proofread late at night when you are tired and your concentration is poor increases the chance you will miss essential errors. Come back with fresh eyes the next morning if you can.

3. Read It Out Loud

This is a really useful tip. If you read aloud, your ear might catch errors that your eye may have missed. It’s especially helpful for identifying run-on sentences and spotting any that don’t flow well or make sense.

4. Print Out Your Work

You’ll always notice more errors on a printed copy of your work. Using a blank sheet of paper to cover up the lines below the one you’re reading keeps you from skipping ahead of possible mistakes.

5. Pay Attention To Punctuation

Poor punctuation really undermines your professionalism. Pay particular attention to misplaced (or missing) commas and apostrophes.

6. Keep Reference Sources On Hand

While a spell checker is useful, it can miss different meanings (for example, except vs accept). This is where a reference source such as Merriam-Webster, Roget’s Thesaurus, and The Elements of Style are so useful. Whether it’s the online or hard-copy version, keep one close to hand as an essential guide to using the right words in the right context.

7. Check Your Facts

If you are presenting facts in your content, be sure the sources are legitimate. Check and re-check the provenance of quotes and statistics.

8. Ask Someone Else to Proofread It

Final tip. Ask someone you trust to proofread the text for you. You will be amazed at the mistakes you’ve missed. A second person will also be in a better position to evaluate whether the sentences make sense or not.

I hope you found these tips helpful. It’s good to remind ourselves of the importance of mistake-free writing in presenting a positive and professional online impression.

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

O is for Optimize

Optimization in business is all about maximizing your assets – to make something, as the dictionary definition goes, as good as possible.

Today I want to talk to you about how you can optimize four critical aspects of your website so more patients can find your site, starting with optimizing for mobile search.

1. Mobile Search Optimization

Most people aren’t looking searching for information on a desktop or laptop anymore. They are looking at it on a phone or tablet. Recent studies show 52% of smartphone users gather health-related information on their phones. This means that your website needs to be easy to read no matter where your patient may access it.

Having a mobile-responsive site (ie one that automatically changes its layout and placements of certain menus and buttons automatically) is important because firstly, not only are over half of patients searching online for health information on their smartphone, but secondly, Google now gives ranking priority to those sites that are mobile friendly.  In fact, Google has stated that it will penalize websites that aren’t mobile-responsive, so if your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, you’ll likely lose out significantly in the organic search rankings.  To check if your site’s design is responsive, enter its URL into this Google tool.

2. Optimize Your Content For Google Search

If you want more people to find you online, you need to optimize your website through good search engine optimization practices. SEO (the ability to optimize your site for search engines),  is a detailed and sometimes confusing process, and you may want to hire an SEO expert to do it for you. If you don’t want to hire someone, there are search engine optimization tools available to help you do your own SEO — and many of them are free. I’ve put together this list of the best free SEO tools out there to help you instantly improve your online marketing.

3. Optimize Your Content For Voice Search

The majority of patients searching for information on the web still trust search engines but the way people search for information online is changing. Increasingly, people are using voice search on their smartphones, tablets or voice assistants (like the Amazon Echo or Google Home devices) to search for information on the internet (yet another compelling reason to make sure that your site is optimized for mobile).

According to comScore’s forecasting, 50 percent of searches will be performed through voice functions in 2020 and the majority will be done without even looking at a screen.

In essence, voice searches are largely about answering questions, not about focusing on individual keywords. SEO is fast becoming AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation).

 

To quote NewsCred, “If you’re a marketer, “What’s the Alexa strategy?” will be a question you’ll be expected to answer.”

Here are some tips to consider while generating content for voice activation devices:

• Write in a conversational tone
• Use long-tail keywords
• Account for misspelled/misinterpreted words (sometimes Siri or Alexa can misinterpret what you’re saying).

4. Optimize Your Website For Local Search

If you want more people to find you online, you need to optimize your website through good search engine optimization practices. And if you want to attract new patients, your website also needs to be optimized for your local area. When someone uses the internet to locate a Medical Practice nearby, it’s critical that your website appears in those results (searches on mobile devices containing the phrase “near me” has skyrocketed in recent years).

Recommended Reading:  Why and How You Should Optimise Your Medical Website For Local Search

 

26 posts. 26 days. 26 letters of the alphabet, one blog post beginning with each letter.

N is for Newsletter

Once you build an audience (of email subscribers), anything is possible.” — Joe Pulizzi

With the explosion of social media marketing in recent years, the traditional email format may appear outdated.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, email marketing is more powerful than ever before.

Even with the pervasiveness of new technology, email still remains a persuasive digital marketing channel for building awareness, boosting acquisition, and increasing conversion.

The most popular type of email, especially for businesses who create online content, is the e-newsletter. Newsletters can help keep your content top of mind with readers and drive more traffic to your website.

6 reasons to send an e-newsletter to subscribers

1. Email marketing helps you build relationships and credibility

People like to do business with those they know, like and trust. The advantage of sending a newsletter is the ability to create and nurture a sense of connection with your reader over time. Once you’ve built solid relationships with your subscribers through free content, you can start sending them relevant offers via email.

2. Email marketing keeps you top of mind

Did you know that at least 91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis? While you can go for a few days without checking social media, most people check their email several times a day.

3. Email marketing is inexpensive

Email is an inexpensive way to reach people who are interested in hearing from you and communicating with them regularly.

4. You own your list

Unlike social media which is subject to change, your list is yours. In the words of marketer Ann Handley (sender of one of the best newsletters around) “email is the only place where people (not algorithms) are in control. With social and other digital channels — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, paid search, organic search — someone or something else decides who sees your content and when and where they see it.”

5. Email marketing converts better than social media

A study by McKinsey & Company revealed that email is a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers.

6. Email drives visitors to your website

Email marketing can seamlessly drive more visitors to your website, and provide you with a valuable way to track which parts of your website and your marketing attracts the most interest.

What should you share in your newsletter?

Sending regular emails to your list is the best way to build relationships with your subscribers.

Commit to sending high-quality content on a regular basis to your subscribers.

Each email you send should convey something actionable and valuable, such as an offer or discount, or a solution to a problem they have.

Alongside a digest of your most recent articles or blog posts, you can also include links to quality curated content from other sites, coupons, or special offers. Y

our emails don’t have to be lengthy, but they do need to be useful to your subscriber.

Insider Tip

Don’t just compete on value, but also personality. The best email newsletters show the sender’s personality and have a relatable human voice.

To quote Content Marketing Institute, “newsletters feel inherently more personal — like a personal letter. Don’t waste that unique ambiance by sticking to impersonal corporate speak.”

Using your own voice and personality builds rapport and helps your audience get to know and trust you.

Take this to the next level by opening a two-way discussion with your subscribers.

Give your audience something they can connect back to that can also provoke a conversation.

Your family, pets, sports, or entertainment are good examples. Invite them to respond to your emails or join the discussion on your website or social channels.

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