Articles

Posted in #HCSM

Master the Art of Instagram Stories in Healthcare Marketing

Posted on by Editor

Stories are a popular Instagram feature that lets users share temporary, short-lived content. Unlike regular Instagram posts that stay on your profile indefinitely, Stories disappear after 24 hours.

Stories let you share moments, updates, and engaging content with your followers in an ephemeral way. You can use photos, videos, boomerangs (looping videos), or text-based slides that include stickers, GIFs, filters, emojis, polls, quizzes, and more. You can post stories in real time or upload them from your camera roll, giving you flexibility and spontaneity.

One of the defining characteristics of Instagram Stories is their temporary nature. After 24 hours, the Stories disappear, so there’s a sense of urgency and exclusivity for viewers. However, if you want to keep your Stories, you can save them as Highlights. Highlights are collections of Stories that you can customize and keep for longer than 24 hours.

Stories provide an effective platform to promote your healthcare services, events, or special campaigns. You can highlight new treatments, procedures, or facilities. Using swipe-up links (if available) in your Stories, you can drive traffic to specific landing pages or appointment booking platforms.

Stories can also offer a glimpse behind the scenes of your healthcare organization. You can highlight training sessions, research projects, or even the day-to-day operations of your facility. This transparency builds credibility and instills confidence in your patients.

In my latest Medium article, I share some effective tips and techniques to help your Insta Stories stand out from the crowd.

Click here to read it

Posted in #HCSM

10 Key Questions to Ask When Choosing a Web Hosting Provider For Your Healthcare Website

Posted on by Editor

Finding the right web hosting provider is an essential step in establishing and maintaining a successful healthcare website. With countless hosting options available today, it’s crucial to arm yourself with the right information and ask the right questions to make an informed choice. By doing so, you can ensure that your website operates smoothly, experiences minimal downtime, and provides a positive user experience.

In my latest Medium article I’ve published ten key questions you should ask before signing up for web hosting.

Click to read

Posted in Cool Tool

Monday Morning Cool Tool: Fonts Ninja

Posted on by Editor

This week’s cool tool recommendation is Fonts Ninja – a browser extension and design tool that allows users to identify, preview, and download fonts from any website.

By using the browser extension, users can hover over text elements on a webpage to instantly identify the font being used. It provides details such as the font name, size, line spacing, and color.

How to use the tool

Fonts Ninja enables users to preview how various fonts would appear on their websites or design projects. Users can modify the font properties such as size, weight, and style, and immediately see the changes. Furthermore, the extension offers a library of fonts that can be downloaded and used for both personal and commercial projects.

For comparable tools, try Google Fonts and Visual Search for Fonts by Google, which allows you to conduct a reverse image search for fonts and typefaces.

Posted in Cool Tool

Monday Morning Cool Tool: The Noun Project

Posted on by Editor

This week’s cool tool recommendation is The Noun Project – an online platform that hosts an expansive library of icons and symbols.

One of the key strengths of The Noun Project lies in its accessibility. The platform allows users to effortlessly search, preview, and download icons. Its intuitive search function enables you to find icons based on keywords, categories, or specific tags.

The site doesn’t limit users to just downloading icons. You can also find a selection of themed photos too.

Free and Paid Subscriptions

The Noun Project offers both free and paid subscription plans. The free plan provides access to a substantial collection of icons; however, for those seeking unlimited access to the full library, a paid subscription is available.

Posted in Cool Tool, Infographics, Visual Marketing

Monday Morning Cool Tool: Visme

Posted on by Editor

This week’s cool tool recommendation is Visme – a browser-based design tool that allows you to create interactive presentations, infographics, banner ads, animations, and more.

Want to create a quick presentation? Visme makes it easy. Log in and click Presentations.  Choose the template that you like and start creating your presentation right away.

download (11).png

Insert text using Visme’s shapes and icons, images as well as widgets to visualize your data into graphs and tables. You can even add video or record audio.

unnamed (1).jpg

Similarly, you can use Visme to create infographics, reports, social graphics, and even e-books. You can search through hundreds of custom templates and fully customize each of them to fit your specific needs.

Useful Links

Presentations:
https://www.visme.co/presentation-software/

Infographics
https://www.visme.co/make-infographics/

Charts and Graphs
https://www.visme.co/graph-maker/

Flyers for Print
www.visme.co/flyer-maker

Pricing

Visme offers three types of accounts, one of which is free. You don’t get everything with a free account, but you get more than enough to start creating content. A Basic account is also a great way to test drive the solution before you buy.

Go to http://www.visme.co to get creating. 

Posted in Cool Tool

Monday Morning Cool Tool: Infogram

Posted on by Editor
index

This week I’m recommending Infogram, a free infographic and data visualization tool.

index

Infogram allows users to create interactive charts, maps, infographics, and other types of data visualizations using a simple drag-and-drop interface.

Those who are familiar with Excel can easily create charts with this feature. Infogram’s infographics are also mobile-friendly, making them easier to view and interact with on smaller screens.

Pricing

The Basic plan from Infogram is intended only for non-commercial use, and certain restrictions apply. Basic plan users have access to 37 chart templates and can create up to 10 three-page projects. The Basic plan does not allow users to remove Infogram’s branding.

Infogram’s Business plan is intended for commercial use and includes additional features, such as the ability to remove Infogram’s branding and add your own. Users of the Business plan also have access to a wider range of chart templates and can create unlimited projects.

Nonprofits and educational organizations are offered a discounted price, making Infogram a cost-effective solution for communicating data and messages through visuals.

Related

How To Create A Plain Language Summary To Match Patient Preferences
How To Create A Healthcare Infographic
Posted in #HCSM

10 Design Tips for Creating Visually Appealing Social Media Graphics

Posted on by Editor

When it comes to social media, creating visually appealing content is crucial to cut through the noise and grab the attention of your target audience.

A picture can capture people’s attention more readily than text, and in today’s crowded online environment, images can break through the clutter of online content to quickly communicate your marketing message.

In my latest Medium article, I share some essential design tips for creating social media graphics that will help you stand out from the crowd.

Click to read

Posted in Cool Tool

Monday Morning Cool Tool: SEO Scout Suggest

Posted on by Editor

The cool tool recommendation this week is Scout Suggest – a free keyword research tool within the SEO Scout platform.

Let’s see it in action.

Enter your chosen keyword or phrase. My “social media” keyword returned over 1K suggestions!

Here’s a sample of questions they keyword returned – you can see there are lots of super ideas for content here.

I’d definitely recommend you try out this free tool next time you are stuck for topics to write about.

Posted in #HCSM

Unlocking The Secrets to Writing a High-Performing Blog Post

Posted on by Editor

Healthcare blogs are an effective tool for medical professionals and healthcare organizations to convey their message, educate patients, and promote their services. However, creating a blog post that resonates with readers and garners substantial traffic and engagement can be challenging, especially in the crowded healthcare industry. In fact, most healthcare blog posts fall short of capturing their readers’ interest.

Thankfully, there are actionable steps that can be taken to craft a successful blog post. My latest Medium article delves into the components of a high-performing blog post, drawing on insights from an analysis of 700,000 posts from blogs with an average monthly unique page view count of 50,000 to 500,000. Although written with a business audience in mind, the insights contained in the article can equally apply to healthcare blogs.

The study suggests that long-form content, particularly those with 3000+ words, tends to perform better in terms of traffic, social shares, and backlinks. In addition, articles with longer headlines (14+ words), and list headlines, also perform better than their counterparts.

Click here to read.

You might also like to read:

Need a topic for your healthcare blog? Here are 12 ideas to get you started
Posted in Cool Tool

Monday Morning Cool Tool: Word Counter

Posted on by Editor

Are you struggling to meet a word count requirement for an essay or article? Or perhaps you’re trying to optimize your content for specific keywords and phrases?

Whatever your writing needs may be, this week’s cool tool recommendation Wordcounter.net can help.

This web-based tool helps you count the number of words, characters, sentences, paragraphs, and pages in a text. To check word count, simply place your cursor into the text box above and start typing. You’ll see the number of characters and words increase or decrease as you type, delete, and edit them. You can also copy and paste text from another program over into the online editor above. The Auto-Save feature will make sure you won’t lose any changes while editing, even if you leave the site and come back later. 

Wordcounter.net also provides additional features such as:

Keyword density analysis

If you’re creating content for SEO purposes, you can use the tool to analyze the keyword density of your writing. This can help you optimize your content for specific keywords and phrases.

Readability

Wordcounter.net also provides a readability score for your writing. This score is based on the average number of syllables per word and the average number of words per sentence. If your score is low, it may indicate that your writing is difficult to read. You can use this information to make your writing more accessible to your audience.

Accuracy

The tool includes a spell-check feature that can help you identify and correct spelling errors in your writing. This can be especially helpful if you’re writing in a language that is not your first language or if you’re prone to making spelling mistakes.

Try it out at: https://wordcounter.net