Instagram - should pharmacists care?
Instagram may not be the first social media platform you think of if you're a pharmacist. Sure, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all spring to mind as useful tools to be part of the vibrant pharmacy community. But Instagram?
Before you turn off the idea, consider these numbers:
The most common social platforms Canadians are accessing in 2022:
- 76.9% Facebook
- 58.2% Instagram
- 36.8 Twitter
- 34.5 Pinterest
- 32.2 TikTok
- 31.4% LinkedIn
Note the prominence of Instagram. In March 2022, there were approximately 18.4 million Instagram users in Canada, accounting for just under half of the country's population. The social media platform found its largest user base with 25- to 34-year-olds, accounting for 33.1 percent of all users. Additionally, women made up over 55 percent of Instagram's user base in Canada.
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How can you make the most of this growing social medium?
- Develop a social media plan
Think monthly first. Take the time to plan out your key messages and posts for the upcoming month by developing a social media content calendar. Your goal should be to support and highlight important initiatives within your pharmacy's operation. These can be informational – flu vax clinics or new services being offered, for instance, – or focused on new products.
- Highlight top posts
Daily posts should be a balanced mix of products and services, new pharmacists and techs on staff, healthcare trends and developments.
How often should you post?
An effective and easy to follow rule of thumb for identifying the appropriate number of weekly or monthly posts is to follow your hours of operation schedule. For example, if you are mainly a Monday to Friday business, then focus your posts to launch on those days and avoid weekend posting. Following this rule of thumb also eliminates any customer confusion, which can be caused by posting content on days that your business is not operating.
When are the best times to post?
Social media reporting suggests that the social guest is most engaged in the early mornings, lunch and dinner hours, and later in the evening. These moments tend to be when people are taking a break and checking their social media feeds. Instagram for businesses also provides effective reporting on your customers' most engaged days and times per day. Utilize this info to identify the optimal days and times of when to post.
#Hashtag it!
Hashtags can make or break the effectiveness of your content strategy by how relevant they are to the content you are posting. Digital users can follow hashtags to collect content on their feed that is of interest to them. The goal is to use hashtags that will place your content on the feeds of your target customers. Popular hashtags are identified in the “TAGS” search bar on Instagram by the number of times they have been used in a post.
Follow these top tips to develop a list of hashtags relevant to your brand content:
#1. Research what competitors in the pharmacy community are using as popular hashtags.
#2. Identify 30 -50 hashtags that align with your services and location, then reference them selectively within your content calendar.
#3. Post the hashtags as a “comment” to your post, versus within the post.
#4. Post between 15 and 30 hashtags from your list per post.
As you monitor the effectiveness of your social campaign, be aware of spikes in your engagement when certain hashtags are used in your posted content, to identify your top-performing hashtags.
Utilize apps
Developers are launching innovative useful social media content editing, organizing and publishing apps on a monthly basis to support small businesses in managing digital campaigns. Download a few different apps to test them out and understand which will be most effective in supporting your social media goals.
Mix it up
Different social media platforms work well together. Instead of relying on just one (like Twitter), develop a comprehensive campaign utilizing the "biggies" together, posted at different times and with different messages tailored to your audiences.
Test the waters with Instagram. You may be surprised at how popular your posts are. Next stop: TikTok?
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