Social media has become an integral part of every company’s marketing- and communications strategy. This is no different for the Life Sciences & Health sector. It can be used for a wide variety of objectives, like creating disease awareness or sharing information about medical conditions. In this blog, we discuss 7 ways social media can be used in the Life Sciences & Health sector.
Increase (brand) awareness
Given the amount of active social media users in the Netherlands, it is the ideal channel to generate awareness for a medical condition or a brand. You can share relevant content with your target audience or build a patient community. Likes, shares and comments from your followers will make sure that your content will be spread amongst other people as well. If you do not have a large number of followers yet, social advertising can help you get more followers or a larger reach. With an advertisement of 100 euros on social media, you can easily reach thousands of healthcare professionals, patients or other stakeholders. In addition to a large reach, advertising ensures faster growth of your business page.
Reputation management
Reputation management means constantly monitoring all messages that could influence a person’s perception of your company, product or sector. This also includes taking appropriate actions if certain things are said. In addition to monitoring and responding to messages, you can also use social media to inform your target audience about your positive impact on the world.
Thought leadership
Thousands of healthcare professionals use LinkedIn and Twitter daily to stay informed or read interesting articles in their field. In addition to this, they discuss relevant topics with their colleagues online. Because LinkedIn and Twitter are being used for professional development this much, these are important channels for distributing content, like webinars or whitepapers. This is a great way to show that your company is an authority in its field and you understand the information needs of the target audience.
Interact with the target audience
Social media is not only intended to send information. On the contrary, the short communication lines make room for interaction. By monitoring other people’s content, responding to comments daily and participating in discussions, an organisation can show its interest in the target audience. If done properly, you will build a relationship with your followers! This will improve the number of likes, comments and shares on the business page.
Generate website traffic
A website is often the centre of the online marketing machine. The target audience ends up on the website through various platforms. For many companies, social media is one of the most important channels. You can generate website traffic from social media is by creating a post with a preview on the social channel of choice, and then linking to your website. Key here is to trigger your target audience’s curiosity.
Lead generation
As we described above, social media is ideal for generating website traffic. But you can also use it for lead generation. For this, you will need a lead magnet: a piece of content that represents a certain value for the target group. This can be anything, from whitepapers, e-learnings or webinars, to infographics or tutorials. Some social platforms, like LinkedIn, also offer in-platform lead generation options. This way, your target audience does not have to leave the platform, and you don’t have to create a landing page.
Employer branding
Employer branding roughly consists of two parts: making/keeping current employees enthusiastic and attracting new talent. For example, by posting messages on social media about satisfied employees (interviews, testimonials, quotes, etc.), current staff feels heard, and employees feel that they belong to a larger whole. In addition, social media (especially LinkedIn) offers various options for attracting new talent.
