With over 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram has been growing in popularity. We see almost everyone around us scrolling Instagram reels nowadays, right? With this rising popularity, more businesses are shifting to Instagram to promote their online presence, and the healthcare sector is no exception. However, with so many healthcare professionals on this platform, it becomes particularly challenging for some doctors to establish a strong online presence and capture the attention of their target patients. This is where Instagram marketing for doctors comes into play.
By implementing robust Instagram marketing strategies, doctors can not only engage effectively with potential patients but also build a community of loyal customers online.
What is Instagram Marketing for Doctors
Instagram marketing for doctors involves the strategic use of the visually driven social media platform to share quick health tips, promote their practice, build a community, and effectively engage with both existing and potential patients.
For successful Instagram marketing, doctors can post insightful content such as health tips and infographics, share behind-the-scenes videos, and use other interactive features to engage with their followers. This will build trust and authority to improve their practice’s reputation and attract more patients.
Reasons Why Instagram is a Powerful Tool for Doctors
Instagram is a great platform that doctors can use to boost their online reputation and engage with their existing as well as target audience. However, that is not it. There are several other reasons why Instagram is a powerful platform for doctors. Here are some of them.
- Share Patient Success Stories
Patient success stories are one of the most effective ways that doctors can leverage to build trust among prospective patients. When a person is looking for a particular treatment online, reviews play a major role in their decision-making.
According to Wisernotify, about 95% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase. Patients are willing to see genuine reviews from real people, so doctors must make sure to collect testimonials and reviews from patients who have received successful treatments from their practice.
Whether you are collecting written reviews or video testimonials, patient success stories can be a great way to attract new patients.
- Reach a Wider Audience
Instagram is an excellent platform for doctors and other healthcare professionals to tap into a wider audience and gain more potential patients. Instagram marketing is an effective way to connect with existing, new patients, as well as other healthcare professionals.
By implementing relevant keywords and hashtags in your captions, you can target specific audiences and reach people who may have been unaware of your practice otherwise.
Furthermore, by posting informative, engaging, and up-to-date healthcare-related content, doctors can connect with new patients and retain the existing ones.
- Encourage Patient Engagement
Instagram offers an abundance of interactive features such as Q&As, polls, stickers, and comment sections that can allow medical professionals to engage with their patients in real time, answer their queries, resolve their health concerns, and build a loyal following.
Furthermore, this platform enables doctors to share updates, news, and information, and they build a sense of community around their practice.
By fostering a sense of community, patients can feel more confident and comfortable during their first visit. Not only that, it will also help enhance brand awareness online, which is very important for standing out in this competitive era.
- Stay Updated on Latest Trends
Instagram marketing for doctors can help them stay updated with the latest trends in the healthcare sector. By following other healthcare professionals and practices, you can learn new procedures, treatments, and technologies they are offering. This can help doctors stay ahead of the curve and offer the best care possible for your patients.
- Drive Website Traffic and Appointment Bookings
Doctors can leverage Instagram bios, stories, and posts to direct followers to their patient portal, website, or online booking system, making the consultation process more seamless for patients.
You can also improve your website by directly embedding Instagram posts. This allows doctors to reuse their content on their website as well as present social proof in the same place where potential clients will book an appointment.
Setting Up Your Instagram Profile
Creating an Instagram profile is not some kind of art. But it is an opportunity to make a positive first impression and make people scroll down and engage with your content. So, here are certain elements you need to set up an engaging Instagram profile.
- Choosing the Right Username and Profile Picture
- Username:
In the highly competitive market, choosing a username that you want on the first try is almost impossible. If the username you want is taken, you can add underscores to make it original. Usernames play a very crucial role in how your audience finds you through search, so doctors must make sure to keep it relevant to their personal or business name.
Choosing a username goes beyond picking a catchy nickname. It is about summarizing your brand identity or brand value in a name that is not only unique but also easy to remember.
- Profile Picture:
A profile picture is basically the visual representation of what your business is about. It is the first element that your audience interacts with when they visit your Instagram profile. For doctors, a creatively designed and high-resolution logo that sums up their brand identity is crucial.
The main objective of a profile picture is transparency and recognizability, guaranteeing that the image maintains its value even as a small icon.
- Writing a Compelling Bio
Just below your username and profile picture is your bio. It is a 150-word description that more or less encapsulates what your business is about and what you serve. Doctors must use their bios to cover the basics of their practice, like the treatments or services they offer.
As healthcare is a sensitive topic, doctors must keep their bios professional and avoid the use of emojis and meme references.
For effective Instagram marketing for doctors, they can also include compelling CTAs in their bios, such as “Book a Consultation Today!” or “Call us now,” to engage more patients and encourage them to take action.
- Adding a Professional Link in Bio
Doctors will have a space to add links to their Instagram bio. By adding a link to their Instagram bio, doctors can send audience members to other platforms.
A Linktree link-in-bio enables doctors to build a personalized page that carries all important links in a single place to drive traffic to their website or other social media platforms.
Furthermore, medical practices can also link their website and booking page with their bios to drive traffic to those pages and encourage more bookings.
- Setting Up a Business Account for Insights
To set up a business account on Instagram, doctors must follow the steps mentioned below.
- In the first step, doctors need to create a personal account in case they don’t already have one. For this, they need to go to the Play Store or Apple Store, download the Instagram app, and sign in for a new account.
- Now, doctors need to open the Instagram app, go to their profile page, and click on the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner of their profile.
- When you are there, select “Settings” and then “Privacy” from the menu that appears.
- Now, scroll down and click on the “Account type” and “Tools,” and then select the “Switch to professional account” option.
- Doctors must make sure to follow the on-screen prompts to select a category that is most relevant to your business and then hit “Done.”
- You need to choose “Business” as your account type and click on “Next.”
- Now you are required to add your business’s contact information (If needed) and click on “Done” to complete the process.
- Now that you have a business account, you can view your insights by navigating to your profile and looking for the “Professional” dashboard or clicking on the “Insights” icon, which may directly appear on your profile.
- Doctors will also be able to access insights within the settings menu, under “Account type and Tools.”
In case you are starting out and find all of this a little too overwhelming, you can perhaps seek professional social media marketing services.
Content Strategy for Doctors
Setting up a robust content strategy is a crucial aspect of social media marketing for doctors. By creating engaging content, doctors can not only enhance their brand reputation online but also educate patients on various diseases and treatments.
- Content Pillars
- Educational Content
Healthcare providers can reach their target audiences and keep the current ones hooked by developing and sharing educational posts on health tips, condition explanations, and preventive care.
Doctors should focus on creating content concerning their services that they are best known for and what they can do to contribute to the well-being of current and potential patients.
Creating educational content for patient education can open doors to position your practice as a leader in the healthcare field. Writing blogs and articles on relevant healthcare topics that resolve the concerns of your potential patients can help you gain the trust of your patients and the search engines, leading to higher rankings.
- Behind the Scenes and Clinical Tours
In the highly competitive healthcare sector, patients are left with numerous options. In order to prevent them from choosing other healthcare professionals over you, you need to keep them engaged. Gaining new patients is not everything; you need to retain them.
By sharing behind-the-scenes, before/after videos, day-in-life, treatment procedures, and clinical tours on Instagram, doctors can not only gain turn leads into loyal customers but also position their practice as a credible source.
- Success Stories
Do you have any success stories that can encourage patients to take your services? If yes, then try adding them to your content marketing campaign. The experience your patients have with your practice can encourage other patients to visit your clinic and take your services.
With prior consent from patients, doctors can create stories that highlight what your business is about. These serve as social proof and build trust among potential patients.
- Q&A and Myth-Busting
Doctors can interact with their patients effectively through live Q&A sessions on Instagram to discuss trending health topics and answer common health concerns in real-time.
Furthermore, doctors can also use Instagram to address common health myths by offering relevant evidence backed by data and studies to gain the trust of their target patients.
- Instagram Polls
This Instagram feature can help doctors create interactive quizzes and surveys directly within their Instagram stories, feed posts, and even on reels.
Steps to Create Polls on Instagram Stories
- In the first step to create an Instagram poll, doctors need to navigate to Instagram and swipe right to create a story.
- Now, you need to capture a video or photo for your story.
- When you are done capturing the perfect photo or video for your healthcare practice, you need to click on the “Sticker” icon and select the “Poll” sticker.
- Now type your question and customize the default response options (e.g., “Yes” or “No”).
- After you are done customizing, place the poll sticker on your story and then share your story.
Steps to Create Polls on Instagram Feed or Reels
- When creating polls for feeds or reels, doctors need to start by creating a new post or reel as they normally would.
- When you are done with everything, move on to creating a caption.
- When creating a caption, you will find a “Poll” option below the caption text box.
- You need to tap on the Poll option, add your question, and up to four poll options.
- Finish and share the reel or post when you are done.
- Live Sessions / Ask Me Anything
The Ask Me Anything feature of Insiagram lets doctors encourage potential patients to ask them questions, which will lead to higher patient engagement.
Moreover, doctors can also host live sessions where they can talk about symptoms of deadly diseases, healthcare treatments, and preventive measures to keep their potential patients hooked.
- Content Formats
From short videos to long-form content and still pictures, Instagram offers many different types of content on its platform. In this section of the blog, we will discuss the content formats that Instagram offers, which can be very beneficial for medical services.
- Posts Carousels
This is one of the best options for photo posts in your feed. Caraousals are posts that consist of up to 10-20 images in a single post for viewers to slide through. This is a great way to share multiple images from a single topic or photoshoot in a fun way.
Doctors can implement this Instagram feature to create and share educational content on various healthcare topics. Carousel posts have the ability to reach a broader audience with proper hashtags. A unique thing about this Instagram feature is that it allows you to post more than once with different images from the carousel.
- Reels
Do you know, the average reel on Instagram generated more than 15,000 views? This Instagram feature has gained immense popularity over the years. Reels are more focused on reaching new patients as well as engaging with your current patients.
Doctors can leverage reels to explain concepts or show treatment procedures to their patients. This will make the audience feel more confident in choosing your practice over others.
- Stories
Another great Instagram feature that can be implemented for effective Instagram marketing for doctors is stories. By leveraging Instagram stories, doctors can share polls, quick health tips, and clinic updates with their audience.
Instagram stories are easier and less time-consuming to create and share posts/videos because the expectations of content quality are relatively low, but that is the best thing about it. By using popular healthcare hashtags, doctors can reach a wider audience and gain more followers.
Tips for Ethical and Compliant Posting
Advertising a healthcare business on social media is quite a tough job, as you are held to a higher standard of what is acceptable to post. Breaches of privacy can lead to serious consequences and a huge lump sum of fine.
To avoid this, here are some of the best tips on how doctors can post ethically and in a compliant manner on Instagram.
- Protecting patient privacy
Doctors must have in-depth knowledge about their legal and ethical responsibilities regarding their patients’ data privacy and confidentiality. This means they need to be aware of the code of ethics for professionals and understanding of laws such as HIPAA and GDPR.
Not sure what HIPAA-compliant marketing is? It is the process of obtaining clear and prior consent from patients before using Protected Patient Data (PHI) for marketing purposes.
In order to ensure compliance, doctors must stay updated on any revisions to these healthcare regulations.
- Avoiding medical misinformation
One of the biggest drawbacks of social media is that it is a platform where misinformation spreads quickly than a forest fire. These wrong informations lead to confusion, and give rise to concerns about accuracy and credibility.
This is why doctors or healthcare professionals must avoid spreading any medical misinformation, as it can lead to serious consequences and make patients lose trust in their healthcare practice.
- Clear disclaimers
When posting any information that is not related to healthcare, doctors must use clear disclaimers such as “This is not medical advice” to set boundaries and manage expectations.
- Gaining written consent before sharing patient stories or images
When using photos or videos of patients for promotional purposes on Instagram, healthcare services must make sure to seek prior consent from the patient. This includes having them sign a release or getting written authorization.
Doctors must make sure the patients have a clear idea of how and where their pictures or videos are being used.
- Avoiding before-and-after shots where regulations restrict them
To avoid getting penalized, doctors must make sure to share before or after pictures or videos of patients where regulations limit their use.
Use Hashtags and Captions for Maximum Reach
Hashtags and captions are two of the most crucial elements that heavily contribute to higher reach, elevate your healthcare practice, and help your content reach people who are willing to see it.
Hashtags help to drastically enhance engagement, which is why businesses are focusing on choosing the right hashtags and creating their own trending hashtags. Here are some of the crucial steps to choose the right hashtags.
- How to Choose Relevant Hashtags
Choosing the right keywords for your Instagram profile is very important for reaching the right audience. To find out the right hashtag for their healthcare business, doctors need to,
- Choose Hashtags Specific to your Healthcare Services
If you wish to use a hashtag to each a specific group of audience on social media, you will need to be tactical when choosing one. For instance, if you are a doctor who specializes in women’s healthcare, you must use hashtags such as #womenshealth, #healthcaretipsforwomen, or #maternalhealthcaretips.
On the other hand, if you are a doctor who specializes in the field of dermatology, using hashtags such as #dermatologist, #dermahealth, #skincaretips, or #skinhealth might be a great way to reach a wider audience.
- Implement Keywords Likely to be Used by Target Audiences
For doctors, it is necessary to implement keywords in hashtags that their target audiences are using to search for related healthcare services and treatments. This means using specific terms to stay relevant, but not so specific that only a small group of people uses them.
Some examples of relevant keywords that doctors can implement include #medicalhealth, #healthcare, #nutrition, #fitnessandwellness, #health, #healthcaretips.
- Keep them Simple and Crisp
Hashtags are meant to be short and simple so that people can easily remember them and reuse them in the future. Doctors must make sure to keep their hashtags to no more than one to two words, and they are easy to spell and pronounce.
Here are some helpful hashtag ideas for the healthcare sector.
- #healthcare
- #hospitals
- #medical
- #healthcareservices
- #medicaltreatments
- Experiment with Different Combinations
By evaluating the number of likes, comments, and shares a post gets, doctors can track engagement. For successful Instagram marketing for doctors, they must experiment with different combinations of hashtags to see which one generates the most engagement.
- Mix of Popular and Niche Hashtags
By implementing a mix of the most popular and niche hashtags on Instagram, doctors can guarantee that they are not lost in an ocean of generic posts.
Examples of popular hashtags:
- #Healthcare
- #Healthtips
- #Medical Treatments
- #Healthcareservices
- #healthcaresupport
- #doctorsappointment
Suppose you are a doctor who specializes in orthopedic treatment, you can incorporate niche hashtags such as #orthopedics, ##orthopedicsurgeon, #shouldersurgery, #hipsurgery. On the other hand, if you are a general surgeon, you can focus on hashtags such as #healthcare, #generalhospital, #surgeon, or #general_surgery.
- Writing Clear and Authoritative Captions
Understanding how to write effective captions is very important for enhancing engagement and establishing a robust brand presence.
A picture might be worth more than a thousand words, but a well-written and catchy caption can be the secret to building a successful brand, boosting engagement, and effectively connecting with your audiences.
Here are a few steps you must follow for writing clear and authoritative captions for your Instagram posts.
- Tell a Story
Doctors must be very creative when writing captions. They must make sure their caption tells a story and is completely relevant to the image or video you are sharing. By doing this, doctors can create a stronger connection with their audiences and make their content more memorable.
By sharing Behind-the-scenes of doctors’ daily routine (e.g., “A Day in Life”) or patient success stories, doctors can engage more effectively with their followers.
- Begin with a Strong Opening
The few initial words of your caption are very important, as that is what your audience notices before clicking “Read more.”
Doctors must make sure to start their caption with a catchy statement, question, or fact that instantly strikes the attention of patients and makes them read the rest of your caption. For example, “Ever wondered why your back always hurts after a long day?”
- Include a Call-to-Action
When developing captions for their Instagram posts, doctors must not forget to include a Call-to-Action in their captions to encourage audiences to take an action. (e.g., clicking on a link, booking a consultation).
Doctors must be very clear about the action they want their followers to take and strive to make the process easier for them.
For example, “Looking for an orthopedist for your joint pain? Contact us now- link in bio!”
- Add Value
By delivering value in your captions, doctors can establish credibility in their niche and build trust among their audiences. Doctors can share helpful healthcare tips, industry news, or educational content to make their campaigns more informative and engaging.
For example, “Did you know, drinking plenty of water throughout the day can improve digestion, brain performance, and your overall energy level? So, you must stay hydrated!”
- Include Quotes
Doctors must incorporate relevant quotes related to healthcare from famous personalities or books to make their captions more intriguing and motivating.
Make sure to give proper credit to the original author and only incorporate quotes that perfectly align with their brand and treatments.
For example, “The first wealth is health”- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
- Incorporate Questions
When developing captions for effective Instagram marketing for doctors, adding questions is a must. Asking questions in your captions can not only encourage conversation but also motivate audiences to share their thoughts and experiences.
Doctors must incorporate open-minded questions that foster genuine engagement and generate meaningful replies.
For example, “What are you doing to stay healthy this week? Let us know in the comments.”
Engage with your Audience Effectively
Behind every successful business is their audiences who trust and supports it. If a doctor wants to promote their healthcare practice, they need to effectively engage with their patients. In Instagram, comments are direct messages (DMs) that are the key touchpoints for customer service and engagement.
Promptly responding to these interactions is not just about maintaining a positive online presence, but it is also about fostering strong connections, building trust, and turning leads into loyal patients.
Here are some ways doctors can successfully engage with their current as well as prospective patients.
- Responding to Comments and DMs Professionally
Speed is one of the most important factors in the fast-paced world. If you cannot keep up with the speed in today’s highly competitive world, you will lag behind. Do you know, 56% of businesses to patient reviews have changed their perspective on the business. So, doctors must make sure to respond to their Instagram comments to show that they care about their patients.
For example, if a happy customer leaves a positive review about your treatments or services, simply replying with a “Thank you for your valuable feedback” will do the job.
Even in the case of negative comments, doctors must have the ability to deal with them calmly and professionally rather than becoming defensive and rude.
Remember, not everyone will like your services; this is why doctors need to deal with negative comments strategically. If a patient is not happy with your services or treatments, doctors can reply with a,
“Hi [Patient Name], thank you for your feedback. We are truly sorry to hear about your negative experience. We would like to make things right. Please feel free to contact us directly at [Contact number] so that we can discuss your experience further.”
- Hosting Giveaways
To engage with your patients effectively in social media channels like Instagram, doctors can announce their giveaways on their brand’s social media accounts. Suppose you are a dentist who is looking to engage more patients, you can give away stuff like dental kits of your brand or a specialized toothpaste.
If you are a dermatologist, you can give away special discounts or free consultations to enhance patient engagement. To promote their giveaways, doctors can create visually appealing videos, posts, or images to showcase the prize and attract attention.
You can also collaborate with other businesses or health influencers from your niche to expand your reach and capture the attention of new participants from their audiences.
- Encouraging Feedback, Questions, and Appointment Bookings
Another great way for successful Instagram marketing for doctors is encouraging your audience to leave their valuable feedback, ask questions, and book appointments. To do this, here are some of the best practices doctors must follow.
- Doctors must encourage satisfied patients to leave their reviews through social media surveys or one-on-one interviews.
- Make sure the questions you ask are clear and straightforward to make feedback forms easy to complete.
- For detailed feedback, doctors can provide discount coupons or incentives to encourage patients to leave a detailed review of their experience with your healthcare practice.
- Doctors can also include quizzies, polls, or question boxes when posting on Instagram stories to easier for their audience to leave feedback as well as ask questions easily.
- You can actively engage in conversations with your patients by responding to comments and direct messages, showcasing that you value their feedback.
- Doctors can encourage their followers to share their experiences with their healthcare practice through reviews.
- You can also go live to interact with your patients in real-time, answer patient queries, and share behind-the-scenes content to keep your audiences hooked.
- If available, doctors can set up an appointment booking option in their Instagram profile settings to allow patients to book directly within Instagram.
- Make sure to include a clear and clickable link in your Instagram bio that directs audiences directly to your booking page or a dedicated landing page.
- You can also include engaging CTA such as “Book a free consultation today” or “Link in Bio to Schedule” in your captions and stories.
- Collaborating with Other Professionals
By collaborating with other professionals such as physiotherapists and nutritionists, doctors can reach a wider range of audience. To effectively collaborate with other healthcare professionals, they must follow these steps.
- Doctors must have a clear understanding of what they want to achieve with the collaboration and then choose the healthcare professionals whose business and target audience perfectly align with yours.
- When you are done selecting the right healthcare professionals, you need to develop content that educates and engages patients, as well as solves their concerns.
- For effective Instagram marketing for doctors, doctors must implement the Collab feature to share a single post that will appear on both profiles, enhancing online visibility and reaching various communities.
Instagram Ads for Doctors
Instagram ads are posts that healthcare businesses can pay to show their practices to specific target groups on Instagram. These ads appear in the audience’s feeds, explore pages, and stories in the same format as natural content from other Instagram accounts.
These ads can comprise images, videos, collections, or carousels and look very similar to normal Instagram posts. However, one can differentiate these through the sponsored label that comes with them.
Overview of Instagram Ad Types
Instagram offers a variety of advertising formats. These formats allow you to select the best type of Instagram ad that aligns with your business goals.
- Image Ads
Instagram image ads can help doctors use single images to promote their products, services, and treatments. These ads are suitable for social media campaigns using engaging visual content and can be conveyed in just a single image.
These images can be created from high-resolution design, photography, or illustration. These ads can also allow doctors to add text to images. However, Instagram recommends limiting the use of text overlays as much as possible.
- Video Ads
Instagram video ads are an exceptional way to showcase your product or services in an enticing manner. Doctors can use Instagram video ads to inform their audiences about the process of their treatments, highlight unique features, or simply tell their brand story.
In-feed video ads can last up to 60 minutes, but shorter videos are comparatively more effective. Basically, there are two types of video ads on Instagram: regular videos and reel videos. Every type of video becomes a reel on Instagram nowadays, but video ads are different.
If a patient clicks on a video ad, it instantly directs them to the landing page. These types of ads only show up in the feeds.
- Story Ads
These are full-screen video and image ads that appear in between users’ Stories. Instagram stories are the most-used element of the app, as the rate of engagement is higher with Stories ads. This is because of its mobile-friendly format and feels more engaging than in-feed advertisements.
The best Instagram Stories ads do not stand out as ads but look and feel like normal ads. When developing Stories ads, doctors must use all organic Instagram Stories features such as texts, GIFs, and filters.
In these ads, healthcare businesses can use still images, videos as well as carousels. The Call-to-Action in these ads appears as a “Swipe up” link at the bottom of the ad or a “Link” sticker that is placed tactically within the ad.
- Carousel Ads
Instagram carousel ads are one of the most interesting features of Instagram. These types of ads feature a series of videos or images that patients can swipe through. They usually appear in-feed and within Instagram Stories, with a clear CTA button or “Swipe Up” link that directs patients to your website.
Doctors can use carousel ads to highlight their collection of related products, say a multi-part story, and share up to 10 images or videos.
- Collection Ads
These types of Instagram ads are a combination of carousel ads and shopping ads. Collection ads show products and services directly from your service list. When a patient clicks on these ads, they are guided to an Instagram Instant Experience Storefront where they can learn more about the product or services and proceed to seek it.
- Explore Page Ads
As the name itself suggests, these ads appear on the “Explore” tab, a place where Instagram users discover fresh content that is personalized based on their Instagram usage patterns.
You can differentiate these ads from the “Sponsored” label attached to them. However, these ads do not just show up in th Explore grid. They are also shown to patients after they click on a video or photo from Explore and then goes on scrolling to watch new content. These ads can help doctors be shown alongside culturally trending and relevant content.
- Shopping Ads
With Instagram’s shopping ads, patients can view and seek healthcare services without leaving the app. These ads tag services from their service list, and upon clicking, patients are redirected to a service description page within Instagram. Patients can then take up services from your website.
- Reels Ads
Reel ads are shown in between reels, have a format similar to Stories ads, and last up to 60 seconds. These ads include sounds and music to blend perfectly with Instagram reels.
Furthermore, all Instagram Reels ads will show a “Sponsored” level under the account name and a clear CTA button. These ads will keep looping unless stopped and can be shared, liked, commented on, and saved.
Finding all of this a little too overwhelming? To make the process easier, you can perhaps hire a healthcare marketing agency.
Promoting a Post vs a Full Ad Campaign: A Brief Comparison
For effective Instagram marketing for doctors, it is crucial to understand the difference between promoting a post and a full Ad campaign. By promoting a post, doctors can achieve quick and focused visibility. On the other hand, a full ad campaign offers a deeper and broader reach and control over demographics, targeting, and user interests.
- Promoting a Post:
Goal: The goal of promoting a post is to temporarily boost an existing social media post in visibility among an existing group of audience or a slightly broader audience.
Reach: The reach of this is limited, as it mainly extends the reach of a piece of content that is already published.
Best Suited for: This approach is best suited for doctors who are willing to drive engagement to a single piece of content and generate instant attention to a particular offer.
- Full Ad Campaign:
Goal: The main goal of this campaign is to create new and targeted advertisements, especially designed to achieve specific marketing objectives such as boosting sales and higher lead generation.
Reach: The reach of this ad campaign is much broader than promoting a post, allowing doctors to extensively personalize their target audience.
Best Suited For: A Full ad campaign is suitable for doctors who wish to reach new prospective patients, achieve long-term growth, and scale marketing efforts.
Targeting by location, age, and interests
- Location Targeting:
This type of targeting allows doctors to show their Instagram ads to people who reside in specific countries, regions, cities, or even in the close proximity of their healthcare practice.
Location targeting helps doctors to focus their advertising efforts on prospective patients in relevant geographical locations.
For example, if you are a healthcare specialist who is just starting out, you would want to first target local patients within the proximity of your practice.
- Age Targeting:
This kind of targeting allows doctors to choose specific demographics for their Instagram ads. This guarantees that their ads reach the right audience.
For example, if you are a pediatrician, you would want to target children (birth to 1 month), infants (1month-1 year), and toddlers (around 12 years).
- Interest Targeting:
Interest targeting implements user data to show your ads to individuals based on their online behaviours, browsing history, and stated preferences.
This method allows doctors to connect with potential patients who are most interested in their products and services, leading to a higher conversion rate.
For example, if you are a surgeon who specializes in cardiology, you would prefer targeting patients who are solely looking for cardiology or any heart disease treatments.
Advertising Services Ethically
Doctors must make sure all their advertising procedures are transparent and honest, with no misleading claims or fake promises. They must be able to provide proper proof for any claims they make before publishing them.
Furthermore, for successful Instagram marketing for doctors, they need to be very careful when designing their ads for children who lack the developed understanding of advertising intent and are more prone to exploitation.
- Tracking Your Success with Insights
In order to track key metrics like engagement, reach, saves, and profile visits to refine your content strategy and determine the top-performing content through platform analytics.
By assessing the metrics, doctors can get quantifiable data to measure the effectiveness of their strategy and figure out how the audience engages with their content. This allows doctors to enhance their future content and drive desired outcomes.
- Using Analytics to Refine Strategy
If a doctor wishes to use analytics to refine their strategy, they need to set up clear, metrics-based goals to measure the effectiveness and determine the performance of their Instagram.
Identify Best-Performing Content: Doctors must look for patterns in posts that are receiving the maximum amount of reach, engagement, likes, saves, and shares. This can help them determine what type of content resonates the best with their target audiences.
Understanding Audience Behaviour: They can also implement built-in analytics tools to determine their audience’s demographics and behaviour, helping them personalize their content.
- How to Refine your Strategy
Content Strategy: Doctors must modify the topics, formats, and writing patterns of their content based on what performs the best.
Posting Schedule: They need to identify valuable insights to determine the best times to post, guaranteeing their content is seen when their target patients are most active. Doctors can post content on Instagram during mid-week (Tuesday through Thursday) during lunch hours, which is the peak time for engagement.
Targeting: By implementing demographics and behavioural insights, doctors can refine who they are trying to reach and ensure their content reaches the most relevant patients.
Maintaining a Content Calendar: Doctors must plan their posts in advance in order to maintain consistency and a diverse content mix. This will help them make posts on time without any errors.
Tools and Apps to Make It Easier
Now that we have a clear understanding of Instagram marketing, here are some tools and apps that can make it easier for doctors to promote their practice online.
- Canva
This app is great for doctors who are looking to design and schedule their content from a single dashboard.
Its pricing starts from $15 per month and offers a 30-day free trial, which makes it ideal for startup healthcare practices.
Canva has a built-in Content Planner tool that can help doctors design, write, and schedule their posts on Instagram as well as various other platforms.
If your healthcare practice heavily relies on visuals and graphics in your Instagram posts, then Canva is the best choice for you.
- Buffer
This is another exceptional tool suitable if you are a startup healthcare business with a small team. Buffer can help doctors generate content ideas as well as stay consistent with their posting.
The pricing of this tool starts from $6 per channel, with a limited free forever plan available for up to 3 channels and 10 scheduled posts per channel per month.
Buffer is a social media management tool that is especially designed to help doctors create, plan, and schedule content across Instagram and other platforms.
This tool features a seamless layout, a Kanban-style board, and AI tools that can help doctors write posts quickly, and additional features that allow teams to work together effortlessly.
What makes this tool unique is that it offers a simple and visual way to effectively manage their entire content workflow and does not feel the need to use a separate project management tool.
- Grammarly
This is a must-have tool for doctors to generate error-free captions for their Instagram posts. This tool assesses your writing using 5 major criteria.
- Engagement: To improve the voice and tone of your writing.
- Style Guide: In order to make stylish modifications in formatting.
- Correctness: To identify grammatical errors.
- Delivery: To enhance your choice of words.
- Clarity: To make the language of your writing clearer.
The pricing of Grammarly starts from $30 per month. This tool lets doctors set writing goals to explain how they want your writing to sound.
Furthermore, Grammarly also offers an AI assistant to enhance your writing. It can create questions, improve ideas, write introductions, and more.
- Meta Business Suite
It is another great social media scheduling tool that allows doctors to schedule content for Instagram and Facebook marketing. By using Meta Business Suite, doctors can schedule posts, stories, as well as Facebook and Instagram ads.
Although this is a native tool, you will not be able to access all the content creation features of Instagram and Facebook when scheduling Stories through Meta Business Suite. However, doctors can access image cropping, text, as well as some stickers.
This is a free tool that only allows you to schedule content on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Conclusion
As more businesses turn to Instagram for promoting their products and services, the importance of Instagram marketing for doctors is becoming increasingly crucial. By implementing advanced Instagram marketing strategies and smart tools, doctors can not only enhance their brand visibility on Instagram but also tap into a wider audience.
Instagram marketing can be very effective when done right. But to do it right, you need to keep track of the performance of your Instagram posts, stories, and reels regularly. However, running a healthcare business and regularly monitoring your Instagram profile simultaneously is not an easy job. In this case, you can perhaps partner with a marketing agency for doctors to achieve both online and offline business success.
