Mental health is a touchy subject. It’s not simple for individuals to discuss how severe their depression was that they couldn’t get out of bed in the morning or how traumatic events from their childhood have impacted their adult life. However, social media has allowed people to discuss mental illness more freely.
As a mental health professional attempting to advertise your business on social media, your voice may significantly impact the lives of individuals who have mental illness. The influence of mental illness is tremendous: 1 in 5 adults in the United States have a mental illness at any one time, affecting 52.9 million people, their families, and their communities. Therefore, many people need your assistance, and using social media to promote your business is an excellent approach to reach them.
Understanding how to market your mental health practice on social media begins with determining who your target audience is, knowing where they spend their online time, and using the appropriate language and content to pique their attention.
Social Media Marketing Can Gain You New Mental Health Clients
Before we go deeper into how to create a unique marketing formula, let’s look at some real-world instances of mental health professionals who benefited from increased online advertising for mental health services.
Many of the boxes you’ll need to successfully reach your target audience and convert leads into paying clients are found on social media.
Examples:
- Brand recognition may be increased.
- You may offer genuinely helpful information.
- You may reach out to new prospects by connecting with them.
- You can keep in touch with current customers.
- You may talk with people one-on-one.
- You can combine visual and textual material.
- Goals and monitoring your development are both possible.
- You may connect content to your website, blogs, and other substance.
- You can use both organic and sponsored content to generate leads.
With the proper digital marketing strategy, promoting mental health services online can generate accurate and verifiable results.
What Are Social Media Platforms Best for Mental Health Marketing?
There are over a hundred social media sites to choose from, so which one is right for your company? Your ideal client may be anywhere, and the key to getting in touch with them is using the social media platforms they use the most.
You might not be an expert on every social media platform, but you may still have a rough idea of which ones are the most effective for your business. Here’s a helpful graphic that breaks down each social network’s advantages.
Everyone is affected by mental health, so you can expect to find some success on any (or all) of these platforms. There are, however, a few that are critical to your success. Then we’ll look at how Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn benefit mental health clinics and other mental health professionals.
An Overview of the #1 Social Media Platform: Facebook
“Social media users are leaving Facebook,” we’ve all heard. Although this may be true, even with the loss of approximately 15 million people in the previous two years, it doesn’t seem to have slowed down its growth. Even though Facebook has received negative attention, suffered a drop in the stock market, lost users, and faces ever-increasing competition, it still maintains a commanding 85 percent of internet users worldwide (excluding China). Despite this, Facebook is the most effective social networking platform in the United States.
Because Facebook is a popular platform for all, the best content flourishes when it’s based on shared humanity. Your mental health clinic’s Facebook voice should be personal yet professional — but not cold and stuffy — to appeal to its audience. Attempt to connect and bond with your fans and followers by seeking to create ties and relationships.
Always use visuals to enhance the information in your blogs, such as short videos, photos, or a graphic. That said, do not provide the personal names, faces, or specifics of your mental health patients. Instead (with their permission), do this with your staff or by sharing anonymous tales from which no one may conclude.
To an even more significant extent, you can help those who have mental illness by educating them in a manner that is not cold but communicates the importance of the information to their daily lives.
Look at how informative and conversational the content is in this article and how the image is appealing and relaxing? Regarding Facebook postings, you’re aiming for something like that. You want to make sure you’re not sharing information that seems like it could be helpful but isn’t – if you can offer something genuinely helpful or insightful to someone, they’ll likely share it on their page.
Why You Should Be Using Instagram for Your Mental Health Clinic
Instagram is Facebook’s most popular product, performing best with a younger audience. According to recent research, 65% of Instagram’s billion users are between 18 and 34. As a result, if you have a lot of millennial or generation z mental health patients, you should be using Instagram.
Instagram has 63 percent of the market share on the internet. This makes Instagram the #2 social media network in the United States, behind only YouTube (not including). Instagram is a visual media-oriented platform that prioritizes pictures before text content. It’s like Facebook, but with everything upside down.
Instagram does not support sharing and penalizes messy-looking memes and photographs that would perform equally well on Facebook. The material that works best on Instagram is made up of clean, artistically shot photos accompanied by creative, thought-provoking, poetic, or witty text.
Instagram is the one social networking platform where you have complete control over your voice. With one exception, your voice on Instagram should be similar to that on Facebook. Experimentation with the creative side of personal expression and social justice in mental health may be more prominent on Instagram.
Pro tip:
The best way to think of Instagram is as an art gallery. It’s not just about every individual post regarding social media posts; it’s also about the larger picture. Having a solid mental health brand is critical at this point.
LinkedIn’s Value in the Social Realm
B2B. For a particular niche audience, LinkedIn is essential: B2B. For example, if most of your tactics for psychiatrist marketing are directed toward other clinics and organizations for recommendations, you should be on LinkedIn.
Your voice on LinkedIn should be more professional than personal, though a clever mix of both is generally best. People use LinkedIn to discover business connections, but they also want to know that the individuals they work with are genuine people.
Why you should use SEO (search engine optimization) for better results
The more effectively your company’s search engine optimized pages perform, the more high-quality traffic you will receive. To acquire this high-quality traffic, your sites must be highly ranked for search phrases. The majority of clicks (92 percent) happen on page one (first 10 results) on Google and other search engines, according to a recent study. You can also give your site a boost by guest-posting on blogs that feature similar or related content to yours. This is a fantastic method to increase web traffic and improve your SEO strategy.
Post Ideas to Help Your Mental Health Clinic Thrive on Social Media
What’s the most effective approach to growing your mental health clinic’s social media presence? First, prepare your social media posts ahead of time and use an editorial calendar to keep track of everything.
Nailing down the voice and posting plan for a specific social media platform is one thing; regularly coming up with fresh material following those goals is quite another. Unfortunately, even the most brilliant writers on social media cannot produce excellent pictures and text when caught without thinking.
Here are a few post types you may want to consider:
Education About Mental Health
It has only been within the last decade that people have started openly discussing mental health. And there is still more work to be done to break down stigma and encourage individuals to learn more about how to maintain their mental wellness. In a nutshell, your field offers a plethora of educational possibilities.
Include posts in your editorial calendar that utilize robust statistics on mental health and explain what’s going on that individuals may not expect. Then, with instructive articles, avoid coming across as condescending.
However, this does not imply that you should overlook the negative aspects of mental health. Suicide, drug addiction, and trauma are weighty and complex subjects to address. However, discussing these issues allows others to know they are recognized and heard and demonstrates your trustworthiness and competence on the subject. Furthermore, it indicates that they aren’t alone and that mental health services are available.
Blog/Article Shares to Social Media
Another excellent approach to education is by linking to a blog on your website. If you’ve put effort into creating a blog about a topic, social media is an excellent method to get the information out there and reach as many people as possible.
People are more likely to press the contact button and make an appointment with you if they see that you’ve shared your story online, mainly because you’re a mental health advocate. You also get the bonus of encouraging individuals to visit your mental health website, where they’re considerably more likely to click on the contact link and book an appointment with you.
You can also share handpicked material on social media. This is an excellent method to fill in your editorial calendar while appearing to be a thought leader in the mental health field. Remember to add your thoughts about the subject in the comments section.
Testimonials
The essential post type today is the one we’re discussing. Because social media was created to be social, people respond favorably to faces and tales. And when individuals are ready to share their experiences, it provides social proof for others that your practice makes a genuine difference in people’s lives.
Share mental health stories that will make people’s hearts melt as much as possible without violating HIPAA and while protecting your patients. This post format is effective on all three platforms.
Behind the Scenes at the Mental Health Clinic
Although you are restricted in what you can demonstrate at a mental health clinic, there are still ways to creatively exhibit your team at work to make things happen daily.
The significance of behind-the-scenes postings is that they provide transparency. They allow your followers to understand better who they’ll be interacting with and in what setting before becoming a patient or enrolling one of their family members.
Lifestyle Social Media Marketing
Lifestyle social media marketing is a fantastic method to integrate your services into the lives of your potential patients (or their referrals) and help them achieve the same goals.
A lifestyle post depicts individuals in your target demographic enjoying their lives and the advantages of your mental health services. The most OK lifestyle posts aren’t in your clinic but somewhat out and about in everyday life — illustrating how when individuals take your services, their entire lives are affected for the better.
Video Posts
Video is the most readily consumed form of media and, as a result, the most engaging post type we can suggest.
Create a film of you or your team discussing mental health issues and the need for treatment. Alternatively, produce something more creative that explores someone’s life from beginning to end as they struggle with their mental health.
You may also utilize stock video rather than photographs to catch users’ attention as they scroll through your content.
Event Marketing
Is your mental health clinic involved in community activities or events for the general public? An event is a fantastic opportunity to produce excellent material for social media.
You may live-stream the event or create a video highlight reel of notable moments. Alternatively, you could set up a selfie booth where your event participants can produce the content for you. The sky’s the limit when it comes to event content.
Mental Health Infographics
Infographics on mental health are simple to find and share. They’re little hints and checklists that may be useful to potential and current customers. Infographics are fantastic for your entire content marketing strategy since they can be used on any social media platform and in your blogs.
Call-To-Action Posts
Although informative and beneficial pieces should make up most of your postings, you may occasionally need to be direct in encouraging folks to continue on their path toward mental health recovery. While your material may provide some helpful information, people must see you get the benefits of therapy.
A call-to-action article is a more sales-oriented piece that emphasizes the distinctiveness of your psychiatric practice, whom you serve, and how to get started. These articles are also practical as boosted posts (but more later).
Messaging Campaigns
The world of mental health is rife with misconceptions and a stigmatism that prevents individuals from receiving the help they require. We’ve all heard them before. “I don’t need therapy” or “I’m too shattered to get help.” People are also ashamed of their mental health difficulties.
We use messaging campaigns to combat negative perceptions about the mental health industry or company and create positive ones. To ensure that this message stays in people’s minds, you may establish a series of articles that reiterate it.
An Introduction to Facebook Boosted Posts
Have you ever been perplexed by the little, blue “Boost Post” button at the bottom of your mental health clinic’s Facebook page?
This is where you may pay to have your article seen by people who haven’t liked it yet (those who have liked your page). To expand your following and attract new patients for your psychiatry practice, you must “pay to play.” It’s just how Facebook works for companies.
Select “Boost Post” when you’re done. You can choose a budget and establish a timeline for your post to run as a sponsored ad by selecting the “Create an Audience,” “Pick A Budget,” and “Schedule A Timeline” buttons after clicking the “Boost Post” button.
Conclusion:
When marketing your mental health clinic on social media, there’s a lot to consider, but these suggestions will get you started. You now have some post ideas that you can use in the proper channel with the right tone.
And don’t forget to take advantage of live streaming and event marketing opportunities. With a bit of creativity, you can produce content that will help you attract prospective patients and build a successful psychiatry practice. So get out there and start marketing your mental health clinic on social media!
