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Are you using Instagram for your healthcare communication?

Instagram (IG) enables healthcare providers the opportunity to connect in an immediate way with their patients. It is particularly good for community outreach activities and patient education.  Healthcare providers can also use IG to show users a behind-the-scenes view of their practice.

Dermatologists, cosmetic dentists, and plastic surgeons can benefit from Instagram by using photos or video to illustrate their services. Practices can showcase before and after photos of patients, as well as videos or illustrations that educate patients on procedures and treatments.

A recent report by SproutSocial shows some of the latest facts and figures about Instagram, which it believes will reinforce your decision to use Instagram as a marketing channel.

Instagram users/usage at a glance

• Over 2 billion monthly active users
• Most downloaded app in Q4 2021
• More than half of global IG users are aged 34 years or younger
• 17.9% of global IG users are men between the ages of 18–24
• 59% of users log in daily — 38% will do so several times a day

Instagram content statistics

The average engagement rate per post is 0.98%. RivalIQ’s benchmark report in 2021 notes that Instagram engagement rates dropped by 25%. The median across all industries is now 0.98%. For influencers, though, the engagement rate per post is much higher at 1.42%.

To put this into context, this rate far surpasses the ones on Facebook (0.19%) and Twitter (0.04%).

If you’re looking to increase your engagement rate, consider carousel posts which have the highest engagement rate per impression.

Take action: Check out these free templates to create carousel images 

Stories also increase the engagement rate. You should post up to five stories a day, according to the report. Doing so ensures that you have a retention rate of over 70%. 

Which type of Story works best?

In Stories, you have the option of posting images or video content. For accounts with fewer than 100k followers, SproutSocial recommends image content, which beats out video content for story reach. 

However, those are just Story stats. If you’re looking at videos in general, 91% of active users watch videos on IG weekly so having a video marketing strategy is crucial.

What’s the best day to post on Instagram?

According to Sprout’s analysis, the best times to post on Instagram are Tuesday 11 a.m.–2 p.m. and Monday through Friday 11 a.m. The worst day to post is Sunday.

Take Action: Schedule your content for maximum engagement at optimal times.

Is this the best place for you to engage your audience?

The largest age group is 18–34 years old, consisting of 62.2% of all users, so if your target audience falls into this bracket, then Instagram is definitely the place for you to communicate.

Want to learn more?

Check out the full report here.

In the northern hemisphere spring has sprung at last.

Traditionally spring is a time for cleaning our homes, but we can also think about extending this to our social media lives too.

Our digital houses can get just as cluttered as our real-life homes.

So let’s take some time this spring to clear away the junk and dust those cobwebs from our social media channels.

Click to continue reading

Health information should be easy to access, use, and understand for everyone, including both patients and their caregivers. However, despite the increasing availability of medical content from different forms of media, studies have shown that few non-experts can understand, or act on, the health information available

Often, the text is written so that it is beyond the general reading level, limiting understanding and hindering decision-making.

Enter the plain-language summary.

Plain language summaries (PLSs) have been introduced to give readers a clear, nontechnical, and easily understandable overview of medical, scientific, and policy literature.

Text is written using short, clear sentences, using everyday English words, and avoiding complex grammatical structures. Consequently, a PLS can explain complicated medical research to nonexperts, thereby extending scientific information’s reach and empowering non-experts to act on the information they receive.

Further, scientists directly disseminate their findings to a wider audience outside of the scientific community, ensuring greater clarity and reducing the possibility of misinterpretation by the media or social media.

Even though the rationale for providing patients with plain language summaries is well understood, little is known about specific patient preferences for PLSs.

Until now.

According to a survey published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, infographic-based plain language summaries (PLSs) are most preferred by patients and caregivers, followed by a text-only summary of medium complexity.

Want to learn more about this study?

Head on over to my Medium article to read the details.

Related

How To Create A Healthcare Infographic

Healthcare blogs range in content and style, from commentary on a current issue to  patients sharing their lived experience with a disease and healthcare professionals educating patients on the management of an illness.

When it comes to marketing your practice, a blog is a powerful addition to your business website.

A blog can help you drive traffic to your website, convert that traffic into leads, establish authority in your industry, and grow your business.

Yet, how many people are actually finding your blog and reading it?

SEO company, Ahrefs set out to answer the question of how much content gets any search traffic from Google, and they got a stunning answer.

If you don’t want your readership to fall into the blue zone above, then check out my latest LinkedIn article, which outlines the ten most common blogging mistakes businesses make and how to fix them!

You might also like to read 9 Tips to Help You Build a Better Healthcare Blog

A new edition of Rival IQ’s Social Media Industry Benchmark Report has been released for 2022. This report, which surveyed millions of posts and billions of interactions from top brands in every major industry on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, brings you the freshest social media benchmark data.

Key Findings — At A Glance

Want to learn more?

Click here for more insights into engagement rates across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter