Innovative health care marketing takes time, creativity, and dedication—and recognition of the potential missteps along the way.

If you aren’t evaluating your efforts and expanding or recalibrating your strategy, then time and money are being wasted. Nobody has time for that.

You don’t have to make these mistakes to learn from them:

1. Your page’s “likes” or followers are all purchased.

Buying followers is frowned upon in the social media world. It means you aren’t gaining attention organically. You might think that buying followers will improve your reach, but in reality they’ll have little impact.

2. Every post you share has two likes (or fewer) and rarely gets comments or responses.

Your goal shouldn’t be quantity but quality. If your Facebook page only has 100 followers but every post gets 15 “likes” and some comments, you’re in better shape than a page with 1,000 followers and zero engagement.

3. You’re not engaging with/responding to your online community.

Don’t post just to post. Rather, provide value to those in your community including other practices, hospitals, organizations, businesses, local media, and schools. Also, be sure to share their posts; they’ll recognize the gesture and return the favor.

4. There are not regular reviews coming in.

Is your Yelp page showing no reviews since 2012? You may have a link on your website and comment cards in your office, but happy patients haven’t taken the step to provide positive feedback. Encourage your staff to remind patients to take the cards with them when they leave so they have the links.

5. Analytics show significant traffic drops.

Decreases in your website traffic could indicate that one of your competitors is doing a better job at dominating the SEO scene. Consider looking into a revamped SEO plan and jump-starting the strategy with a PPC campaign.

6. Your content is all over the place without a clear strategy.

Post with a goal in mind. Consider your audience and make a plan for when and how you’ll try to engage with them. It will help you to better measure the success of your efforts and it also help you keep on track for posting.

7. Inconsistencies in branding/mission across other areas of marketing.

Marketing in health care is a broad term, encompassing physician relations, advertising, social media, email marketing, etc. Ensure that all your teams are on the same page with your efforts so your hard work can bring the best possible results.

8. Follower count is dropping or staying stagnant.

If your followers seem to be dropping like flies, you need to consider why they are no longer following your practice. Could you be posting too often with invaluable content? Ask yourself the hard questions, and come up with a plan for winning back your followers.

Source: www.healthcarecommunication.com