Instagram Marketing – Tips & Strategies to Engage with Patients

Marketing your urgent care clinic on Instagram is a great way to organically engage with potential patients. Instagram has skyrocketed to prominence over the past few years and now it is the place to be when it comes to social media engagement.

The opportunity for urgent care practices to reach out to a whole new set of potential patients is huge, with over a billion monthly active users on the social media platform.

Especially in the healthcare industry, it has become a platform for sharing not only personal moments, but also professional experiences. Read on for more information on how urgent care clinics and medical practices can benefit from Instagram marketing.

Why use Instagram?

There are many compelling reasons to use Instagram for urgent care marketing, from attracting new patients to building your brand reputation. Here are some top ways to build your audience and boost your brand reputation.

 

You should be using Instagram to:

Showcase services and facilities

Instagram can be used to showcase the services and facilities offered by an urgent care clinic. This can be especially useful if your clinic offers multiple services, such as onsite labs and x-rays, pediatric care, and occupational medicine. By sharing genuine pictures and videos of the facility and staff, potential patients can get an idea of what to expect when they visit and feel more comfortable during their initial visit. Try getting your entire practice involved in creating video content of the day-to-day life of the practice! That type of content performs better than any other kind.

 

Types of facilities photos to include:

• • Location Exterior: Capture a photo from each direction so that it will be easier for customers to recognize your establishment.

    • • From street/parking lot with signage clearly visible
    • • Front door

• • Location Interior: Capture photos that show what it’s like to stand inside your business as a patient the atmosphere of your business.

    • • Waiting room/reception (to capture atmosphere)
    • • Exam/appointment room(s)
    • • Specialty rooms (kids, OccMed, X-ray)

• • Staff: Capture photos of your front desk staff, support staff, and physicians/nurses. When patients are nervous, it may help them to see who they will be interacting with ahead of time.

Important note: Due to HIPAA requirements, it is important not to use patient photos without express, written permission from the patient. We recommend consulting with an attorney or HIPAA expert to compose a release form if you wish to use patient photos.

 

Engage with followers

As mentioned above, due to its huge user base, Instagram is a really great platform to reach a wider audience and attract new patients. Connecting with new – and current – patients and other healthcare professionals through social media is an easy way to network. With the right keywords and relevant hashtags, you can reach people who may not have known about your practice otherwise.

There are hashtag research tools online (both free and paid options) to help you find out what your target demographic is using to maximize your reach for each post. Here are a few of the most popular:

• • All Hashtag

• • Ritetag

• • Instagram Hashtag Generator

• • Hashtagify

Additionally, here are some popular hashtags to consider when they are relevant:

• • #Allergies

• • #Doctor

• • #UrgentCare

• • #FluSeason

• • #Healthcare

• • #HealthTips

• • #Medical

• • #Nutrition

• • #Wellness

• • #WomensHealth

 

Educate patients

Instagram is a great platform for educating patients. You can create educational content about health-related issues, services being provided at the practice, how procedures are done, and more. You can also promote your blog via instagram posts to drive traffic back to your website.

In conclusion, Instagram is a valuable marketing tool for urgent care practices. Even if you don’t have the time or resources to devote to regular posting, a great starting point is adding practice and staff photos to your profile so that anyone searching for your practice can get a feel for who you are and what you do. From there, you can begin to post additional content (whether it be more practice photos/videos, blog posts, or general tips) as you have the time. For more tips, check out our Instagram Best Practices for Urgent Care Bands.