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Just My Social Media Plan. made for Just My Doc.

Index of contents Introduction

My goals

My budget

My schedule

My content

My network

My hashtags

References & more information

Introduction The aim of this Social Media Plan is to help you define your Social Media strategy: your goals, your budget, your time availability, and your content. That’s why it has been conceived as an interactive document – a canvas where you can shape a Social Media strategy that fits your reality. For that reason, in the following pages, you’ll be asked to answer some questions. What are your goals? What's your budget? How much daily/weekly time can you spend on Social Media? What kind of content are you comfortable with? Once you’ve established that foundation, you’ll be able to plan, design, and build a strategy that you can effectively attach to. Besides answering these questions, you will also find examples and good practices that have helped other private practice physicians boost their Social Media presence. At the end of the document, you’ll find all the references in case you want to read further about any topics in particular. Of course, these pieces of information should be taken as general guidelines, not dogmas. More important than the optimal length for a caption, or the recommended post frequency, is how much you like writing or how often you can post without dying. Besides, Social Media is a very dynamic industry, and what yesterday was blue, today might as well be red. That's it! I hope you find this document helpful. And of course, I’ll be 1000% available for you in case you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for improvement.

David

My goals Setting your goals is probably the most important thing when starting a Social Media strategy. No matter how hard you work on it, if you don’t align your content with your goals, you will likely struggle to achieve what you’re looking for. You can expect a variety of things out of a Social Media strategy. Maybe you want to attract more traffic to your website. Maybe you want to establish yourself as an authority in the medical field. Maybe you want to promote your services as a private practice physician. Or maybe you just want to showcase your pictures and get likes. Each one of these goals, as well as any other, are perfectly valid as long as the content you post is focused on achieving them. It is also possible to have more than one goal in mind. Whatever the case, of course, you want to be seen as an expert in the medical field. And of course, you want to attract as many visits as possible to your website. Having secondary goals is perfectly fine. However, it is important to never lose sight of what you’re expecting to get out of all the time and effort you are putting into your Social Media.

My goals for the Social Media Strategy are… So now it’s time for you to write. What’s the main goal you would like to achieve out of your presence on Social Media? Are there any other secondary goals you’d want to achieve along the way? Be as descriptive and specific as possible! The clearer you express them, the easier you will find to act upon them.

My budget Establishing a budget is a key factor to develop a Social Media strategy. Even if the budget is $0, it is important to determine how much money you are willing to spend, and why. In this regard, why you are spending money is as important as how much, if not more. Depending on your goals and your current situation, it could make perfect sense not to spend a single penny on your Social Media profile. Hence, before establishing a budget you’ll need to decide why and when to spend it. Here’s where coming up with your goals is super important. Do you just want to share a picture of your beautiful plants with your community? Or do you want to promote a special deal you’re offering on your Premium In Depth Consultation services?

The AIDA Model To help you answer these questions, you can take a look at the AIDA Model. AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Each one of these terms describes the different stages that the members of your community will experience. Firstly, you gather the attention of a number of people. Some of these will be interested in what you’re telling them. Even a smaller amount will desire to obtain what you’re marketing. Finally, out of the many people whose attention you initially managed to attract, a select number of them will take action and purchase what you’re selling. This funnel-shaped model helps you determine who in your audience you want to target with your paid Social Media posts. If you promote a post directed to the many people who are in the Attention stage, it will probably get lost in the sauce. However, if you target it to those people in the latest stages of the funnel, who are on the brink of taking action, you will make the most out of your money.

How to spend your money on social media Facebook Ads offers you different options to increase your Social Media presence through paid social. When it comes to Instagram, you can either run a campaign or boost one of your posts. Running a campaign allows you to target your paid posts so you can pinpoint the exact audience you want to talk to. On the other hand, boosting a post from your feed will increase its visibility among your followers.

The first option is probably more suited to target the latest stages of your conversion funnel. Otherwise, boosting one of your posts can be handy –and cheaper!– if you just want to spend a small amount. Even though it’s not as exhaustive as the previous option, this practice is recommended to increase the visibility of one of your posts that’s doing particularly hot. If you’re not in the situation or the mood of spending big money, it can also work as a substitute for a campaign. If that’s the case, remember the funnel! Make sure to boost a post that you think will help you achieve your goals: a discount, a giveaway, a new service/product…

But what if I just want to go organic? Even though paid Social Media is a very good option to achieve your goals, it’s not the only one. There are plenty of opportunities for you to grow your Social Media accounts without spending a cent. You should probably put these practices into work whether or not you decide to run ads: 1. Be consistent. It’s not about posting very often, but very consistently! Decide the cadency and frequency of posts that work for you and stick to it. More about this in My schedule. 2. Post useful and meaningful content. It’s recommended that 80% of your content provides value for your followers, while 20 percent focuses on self-promotion. More about this in My content. 3. Diversify. There’s life beyond the feed –Instagram gives a lot of ways to reach out to your audience!–. Reels and Stories are good options to offer your community more casual, interactive, and dynamic content. 4. Team up. Do you know any fellow private practice physicians that are also trying to grow on Social Media? Reach out to them and work together! Not only will you provide better content to your audience, but you will also get visibility among their followers. More about this in My network. 5. Engage. I know, posting on your Social Media account is already so much work. But it is highly recommended to engage with your community. It will increase your visibility, boost your authority and showcase how amazing and caring of a physician you are! 6. Use hashtags. Hashtags are a good tool to become visible for those who don’t follow you yet.

My budget for the Social Media plan is… Once again, it is your time to shine now! Write down how much money you’d be willing to spend on Social Media right now, and what would you expect to get out of that money.

My schedule Finding time is probably one of the bigger obstacles –if not the biggest– when promoting your services on social media. Taking a good picture, or even googling one, can already take a good 15 minutes of your time. And then you have to edit it, write an awesome caption, think about the hashtags, and only then you can post it. But guess what! Now it’s time to engage with your followers. Of course, all that effort and time will ultimately pay off. But it’s still tiresome just to think about it. For that reason, coming up with a Social Media schedule is one of the first things you have to do when promoting yourself. Think about your daily and weekly routines, and try to find the best time frames in which you can work on them. You can either distribute the work throughout the week or try to focus all of it on one or two days. Remember that you can use some Social Media programs and applications to plan your Instagram posts. I recommend Hootsuite, available both as a desktop or mobile app. It’s one of the most popular ones, and easy to use. Once you’ve managed to do that, decide how many weekly posts you’d like to add to your feed. Recommendations on how many times a week you should post vary from 3 to 14. Such a significant gap proves that there’s no real evidence behind these calculations, but at least they work as a good reference. At this point, it is important to be realistic and aim low. Unless you’re a full-time community manager or an Instagram goddess, the more you post, the worst your content will be. And given the nature of your account –a private practice physician, and not some random meme Instagram page–, your community will probably prioritize quality over quantity. Also remember that, as a rule of thumb, consistency is preferable to volume. Posting 3 times a week is preferable to posting 10 times one week and then disappearing for several days. You should also know that, for optimal results, there’s a lot more than just posting on your feed and never opening the Instagram app again. You should check your notifications at least once a day in case somebody comments on your posts. In addition to that, it’s highly advised to follow other accounts similar to yours and interact with them. If you like and comment on their posts, they’ll become aware of you, which opens the possibility to future interactions. Besides that, their followers will also be able to see your comments. That will allow you to also become visible to them, who at the bottom line are potential clients. Think about it. If they already follow a private practice physician on Instagram, why wouldn’t they follow you too?

What are the best days and hours to post on Instagram? Different sources agree that you should expect the most engagement from your Instagram followers in the middle of the week, during the middle of the day. That means Tuesday and Wednesday, after 11 pm.

Of course, these estimations don’t guarantee awesome engagement levels if you post on those days. But again, they give you some level of reference on when it’s best to post. Also, knowing this information can help you plan your Social Media posts, especially if you want to use apps like Hootsuite.

My weekly schedule to work on my Social Media plan is… With all that in mind, now it’s time to do some work. Write down how much daily/weekly time you can work on Social Media without it altering your routine, establishing as well the days in which you can do it. Here you should also find small windows of time you can use to check your notifications, follow other pages, and like their content. Lunch breaks, commuting on public transportation… are perfect examples of that.

My content Establishing a schedule is a really big step to start promoting your business on Social Media. Now that you know how much time you can invest in promoting yourself, it’s time to decide what kind of content you want to share with your followers. This decision will depend on two big factors: the type of content you feel most comfortable with, and how much time you have to make it happen.

What kind of content am I comfortable with? There is no good answer to this question. Are you more of a visual person? Then you should probably focus on illustrations or picture-heavy content. On the other hand, if writing is your thing, you can focus on graphics, or post simple pictures and put all the effort into the captions. Here’s a list of some of the most common approaches. Of course, you don’t necessarily need to stick with one. At the end of this section, you’ll find an example of each one of them, so they’re easier to understand: ❖ Illustration-heavy content. Illustrations are a creative way of expressing your ideas. Of course, making illustrations takes talent and time. If you feel comfortable with this kind of content but you lack the time or skills to do it, you can always count on a graphic designer to help you out. ❖ Promoting your persona. This strategy is probably most recommended for influencers with a huge amount of followers. However, showing your hobbies, your routine, and your personality on Social Media can be a good way to generate trust in your audience. ❖ Graphics. Graphics (a combination of pictures with text) is an effective and simple way of sharing informative and appealing content with your audience. ❖ Reels. This kind of content is very trendy and engaging, thanks to other platforms like TikTok. Similar to graphics, it’s an easy way to share condensed information visually. Plus, you can also show yourself, generating an extra layer of trust and relatability. ❖ Reposting from other channels. If you generate content on other sources (YouTube, podcasts, etc.), it’s a great idea to create short clips out of them and share them on your Instagram feed. ❖ Lifestyle. As a doctor, you can probably share a lot of high-quality content and knowledge about how to live your life in a healthier way: recipes, workout routines, healthy daily habits…. For this strategy, though, it is advised to have good photography skills. Just like in the Illustration style, you can always hire somebody else to help you out.

Combine your Social Media work with a blog No matter what kind of content you’d like to share on Social Media, it is highly advised to combine it with a curated content strategy. For this purpose, the most common choice is to start publishing on a blog, especially since you already have your website set up. Not only will this highly boost your SEO, but it will also give you a lot of ideas and content for your Instagram feed. 9

Let’s say you write an article about the medical applications for cannabis. You can sum it up on a few bullet points, turn them into an Instagram post, and hit two birds with one stone. Last but not least, sharing original content with your audience will increase your reputation amongst your followers. If starting your blog seems like too much work, you can always post your articles on a LinkedIn account. Nevertheless, when it comes to SEO this will be nowhere as effective as posting them on your website.

The risks of promotions Promotions (discounts, giveaways, bonus packs…) are a very good option to earn a lot of followers, very fast. However, running promotions all the time will probably leave you with a lot of shallow followers who don’t care about your content. For that reason, you need to find the balance between promotions and good original content.

The content plan for my social media profile is… Now it’s time for you to think about your desired content strategy. Write down what kind of content you feel the most comfortable with. Also, think of a list of ideas to write about in a blog format. From that idea, try to come up with 3-4 bullet points that you could turn into an Instagram Post.

Examples of different styles of content other physicians use

Source: mike.natter Style: Illustration-heavy content.

Source: doctor.mike Style: Promoting your persona.

Source: askdrjen Style: Graphics.

Source: drspaulderm Style: Reels.

Source: drniidarko Style: Reposting from other channels.

Source: theplatefuldoc Style: Lifestyle/recipes.

My network Establishing partnerships and collaborations with other fellow private practice physicians is a very good way for getting new followers and posting high-quality content. Besides, it will allow you to get to know other colleagues and expand your network. Firstly, you need to think about people you already know. Are any of your friends, colleagues, or former classmates doing the same as you on social media? That’s a good starting point. If that’s not the case, Instagram is packed with many other physicians trying to grow their accounts. Instead of seeing them as competitors, think of them as opportunities to offer new, diverse and high-quality content that will help you both thrive together.

What kind of content can we do together? Before actually reaching out to them, it is important that you come up with a plan. If you just contact them with a half-baked proposition, likely, they’ll just pass or even ignore your message. Instead, offer them a detailed and well-thought strategy. It should include a detailed description of the collaboration. It can be an Instagram Direct together, a video posted on both feeds, or even just recommending the profiles to each one’s followers. Another thing to keep in mind is to make sure that your content is relevant not only for your followers but also for the other person’s.

How to approach other physicians? Once you’ve figured out your strategy, it’s time to send those DM’s. But how do you do it? It can certainly be intimidating. Just put your nerves aside and keep it short and clear. Tell them that you’d like to collaborate with them. Briefly explain your idea and wait for a response. Of course, you will also need to be flexible and open to modifications on their part. You should also be ready for the possibility that they ask for a fee, especially if the other account has significantly more followers than you. If that's the case, evaluate the situation. If spending money is a no-no for you, try to negotiate, or even just respectfully say goodbye and walk away. On the other hand, if you’d consider spending those extra dollars, look at their followers and the amount of interaction they usually get on their posts. If you think it’s worth the shot, go for it! To make things easier, it is a good idea to follow your target before actually reaching out to them. It’d be even better if you follow them a few weeks before the DM happens. You can use that time to like and comment on their posts, or even give them a shoutout on one of your posts.

My ideal collaboration with another account looks like… Here we are again! Once more, it’s your time to shine. Write down some Instagram profiles you’d like to collaborate with, how many followers they have, and a rough average of how many likes and comments they get on each post. Then describe the collaboration in detail: what kind of content you’d like to create together, for how long it should last, and how much money you’d be open to spending. Use that information to craft the perfect DM!

My hashtags Hashtags are a great way of increasing your audience. When you use a hashtag, your posts will appear on the page for that hashtag. That way, even users who don’t follow you will be able to see your content. You can add up to 30 hashtags on any feed post, and a maximum of 10 for stories. However, the data suggests that you should use around 11 of them. The golden rule here is to only use hashtags that are truly relevant to your content. For example, the tag #doctorsofinstagram will be relevant for pretty much all of your posts. On the other hand, tags like #SleeveUp should only be used when you post vaccination-related content.

How can I find new hashtags? Finding the perfect hashtags can be more complicated than it looks. Which ones are the best? There are just so many of them! A way to find out new hashtags is to just explore Instagram’s search engine. Just enter any hashtag and you’ll be provided with the number of posts it’s been used in. Not only that, but the app will also give you some related hashtags you might be interested in. Another good method to find new hashtags is to see which ones your competitors are using. You don’t have to use every single hashtag they’re using, but it can work as a source of inspiration to find the most relevant ones for your audience. Last but not least, you should also use your own branded hashtag. By doing so, you’ll be able to build a stronger brand identity. In addition to that, using your own branded hashtag can be super useful in case you decide to run some kind of contest, giveaway, or promotion. Even though hashtags are pretty useful, one of their biggest cons is that they are so damn ugly. There are a few things you can do here and there to limit the aesthetic impact they have on your content. You should keep in mind, though, that hiding your hashtags isn’t always the best idea. For example, if you’re trying to use a hashtag to raise awareness on some topic, in particular, you should make it as visible as possible! 1. Add all of your hashtags at the bottom of your caption. To make this trick work, you must leave at least three rows of separation between your caption and the hashtags. To do that, tap enter, write a period, and repeat two or three times.

2. Add all of your hashtags in a comment. Yes, you don’t have to incorporate your hashtags in the caption. You can go ahead and post your content without the hashtags, and then reply to your post with all the hashtags in your comment.

3. Incorporate your hashtags inside the caption. If you decide to go this way, though, limit as much as you can the number of hashtags you use –try to use only one hashtag, and no more than three–.

4. Hide them in your stories. Yes, you can also incorporate hashtags into your stories. If you don’t want your followers to see them, you can just change their size so they’re super small and subtle. Another way to get rid of them is to place a sticker or emoji

above them. Your tags will still be there, but they’ll be completely invisible to your audience.

The go-to hashtags for most of my posts will be… We’re almost done! One last time, I’ll ask you to do some work. In this case, I’d like you to identify 5 hashtags that will be relevant for most of the content you post. In addition to that, try to come up with one or two branded hashtags.

References & more information My budget More information about the AIDA funnel model: https://blog.hubspot.com/hs-fs/hubfs/AIDA-Model-Funnel.png?width=1200&name=AIDA-Mo del-Funnel.png More information about paid vs. organic Social Media: https://animoto.com/blog/video-marketing/paid-vs-organic-social

My schedule Some articles about what’s usually the best time of the day and week to post on Instagram: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/#health-times https://blog.hootsuite.com/best-time-to-post-on-instagram/ How often to post on social media: https://louisem.com/144557/often-post-social-media https://later.com/blog/how-often-post-to-instagram/ https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-often-to-post-on-social-media/ https://get.facelift-bbt.com/en/blog/10-tips-and-tricks-for-greater-interaction-on-instagram

My content Some general media tips for doctors: https://healthcaresuccess.com/blog/doctor-marketing/social-media-tips-for-doctors.html Benefits and risks of running promotions: https://www.thedesigntwins.com/instagram-giveaways-helping-hurting-growth/#:~:text=Not %20only%20will%20the%20giveaway,strong%20relationship%20with%20a%20company.

My network A list of popular doctors on Instagram. Might be worth the time to take a look and notice what they’re doing right! https://www.boardvitals.com/blog/doctors-on-instagram/ A pretty good guide on how to build a network with fellow: https://blog.capterra.com/9-doctor-social-networking-sites-every-physician-should-know-abo ut/

My hashtags How to discover and use hashtags on Instagram: https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-hashtags/