Attract More Patients with Instagram

Discover How to Attract More Patients with Instagram!

As discussed in some of the other blog posts, you’ll need to do a little preliminary work. Some of you may have already done these steps. If so, go ahead and jump to the next section by clicking here.

Know Your “Why”

Before starting any social media marketing, no matter what platform you’re using, it’s important to know why you’re doing this particular campaign. This should always relate to the bigger question of why your practice even exists! Have you internalized the overall purpose of your practice so that your staff even knows how to articulate it to patients and potential patients? You may think it’s simply “to provide the best eye care for my patients,” or some other genuinely noble statement. But, I challenge you to dig deeper.

Take a look at the now famous (with over 42 million views as of this writing) TEDx talk by Simon Sinek, called “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” discussing this all-important topic. He uses great examples of why Apple is so innovative year after year, why Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Civil Rights Movement, and why the Wright brothers figured out how to fly under controlled, powered man flight. All of these examples had stiff competition.

So why did they become such great leaders?

Because they all act, think, and communicate the same – from the inside out, starting with their why.

“People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do…” ~Simon Sinek

He goes on to say “If you talk about what you believe, you will attract those who believe what you believe.”

You’ll understand how to start with your why when you watch the TEDx talk by Simon Sinek. This will help you attract the patients you want to examine all day every day.

Know Your Target Market/Audience – Understand Your Ideal Patient

Now that you understand the true purpose of your practice, it’s time to define your ideal patients. Of course, you’ll examine any patients requiring your help, but to attract more patients to your practice that fit your why, it’s important to develop an understanding of a patient persona or avatar.

All platforms, including Google’s search algorithm, are designed to deliver the right content, to the right people, at the right time. Without understanding your ideal patient, how will you know if you’re delivering the most relevant, relatable, remarkable, and timely website, blog, and social media content for them?

Have you ever heard the phrase, “if you market to everyone, you market to no one?” It’s true.

If you hire me to design a comprehensive marketing plan to grow your practice, you’ll discover this is one of the first areas we’ll work on in great detail because I strongly believe in the importance of first knowing your why and then, secondly, knowing your ideal patient.

For now, you can check out my tool and learn more on how to define your ideal patients by clicking here.

You can also try some of these methods to better define your ideal patients that may already be highly active on Instagram:

Offline

Ask your current patients through casual in-office questions or mail-in surveys the following (of course, you can extend these questions online to emails and website surveys). To encourage receiving answers, consider running a contest for a free pair of sunglasses.

• What Instagram accounts they follow, what interests them, etc.
• If they have an Instagram account you can follow
• What they’d like to see on your practice’s Instagram account

Online

Things to research by looking at their habits:

• Where do they shop (look at the images, descriptions and geotags)?
• Where do they go on vacation (look at the images, descriptions and geotags)?
• What do they do on weekends?
• What are their interests?
• What influencers do they follow?

Use the Search feature on Instagram and start exploring:

• People who have a similar audience,
• Brands that align with your practice,
• Locations near you with a similar patient base (but NOT your competition!) – click on the places link at the top below the search field and plug in different words (eg. dentist, chiropractor, and other businesses or healthcare practices your ideal patients are visiting),
• Hashtags popular with your patients and related hashtags – consider following some of those hashtags,
• Your competitors and other industry influencers/leaders – watch what they are doing for content, images, stories, highlights, hashtags, etc. Then look who’s following them. Here’s one, for example, @drjenandjuice. At almost 73,000 followers, she understands the power of Instagram! Here’s another, more clinically focused account: @eyedrkoepfler (though I’d recommend he add a call to action and link in his BIO!).

Go through the ideal patient exercise and define your top 10 ideal patients (not just one). This will help you discover what marketing platforms are the most important to them.

You may even discover that you’ve been wasting your time on the wrong platforms and that’s why you may think things like “oh, social media is a waste of time – it doesn’t work for me” or, “I’ve tried using Instagram, but I just can’t seem to figure out how to attract more patients with it.”

It wasn’t necessarily that you were doing things wrong on a particular platform, it’s just that you were ON the wrong platform!

Don’t waste another moment, define your ideal patient NOW!

Know Your Unique Selling Proposition/Point (or, USP)

What makes you unique? Why would someone come to you vs. your competition?

It HAS to be more than “you were on my insurance,” otherwise you’re just a commodity and you’ll have to be the cheapest or on the most insurance plans in town.

One of the best ways to set yourself apart is to offer a specialty service. This is one of the easiest ways to promote your uniqueness.

When you define your ideal patients, part of the exercise is to define their pain points. It then becomes easy to promote how you can uniquely solve them.

Be Different, then Be Better!

Optimize Your Instagram BIO for Your CTA (call to action)

Now that you’ve done the prework, let’s dive into optimizing your Instagram account to attract ideal patients.

You only have a small number of characters (150 to be exact) to add to your Instagram account’s BIO. Make sure to define your USP clearly and have it pointed to your best call-to-action link:

• Instead of just a single link to a single appointment-booking page or another opt-in offer, why not point to a landing page that has several links? You can use an app like linktr.ee to increase the number of links your account points to, such as blog posts, schedulers, optical discounts, and more.
• Have your BEST OFFER be your CTA:
  • An “OK” offer – a generic link to your website
  • A “better” offer – a link to an appointment scheduler
  • The “best” offer – a link to a landing page with a sales offer:
    • Freebie or discount offer on a product or service + appointment scheduler + related blog post to a freebie or discount offer
• If you use a link shortener (such as bit.ly), make sure to use a vanity URL so that it’s easy to remember.
• To entice your Instagram viewer, use phrases like “click the link in my BIO,” “grab your discount on sunglasses in my BIO,” “view the latest technologies in eyewear in my BIO,” etc.

Plan Your Type of Post

There are several places you can post on Instagram. The following is a summary of the locations, types of posts that typically work best in these areas, and other details.

Feed

• Use more professional, high-quality photos that tend to look more branded and, therefore, recognizable to your practice (the right format, colors, shape, etc.) – think about using photo elements and props relating to your ideal patients.
• Use simple, stylized photos with you, your staff, and your patients (using HIPAA compliance, of course!).
• Uploaded videos can only be (as of this writing) 59 seconds.
• Use blog post style of writing in the text description when uploading your images/videos.
• Make sure to learn the best hashtags for your industry (more on this in a later post).
• Include your practice’s location.

Live

• This is a great place for your “how-to” video broadcasts, as they are streamed directly from Instagram.
• Maximum streaming is 1 hour as of this writing.
• Other ideas include educating current and potential patients about solutions to their pains and any events, discounts, or promotions you may be offering.

Stories

• This is where you can add content throughout the day – video (up to 15s as of this writing) and images (have fun with the various gifs, hashtags, geolocation tags, account tags, and more). The idea is to take the viewer through a cohesive story around one main idea. Mix and match images with video.
• Stories are a great way to promote your practice. They have gained tremendous popularity recently and tend to be the first place users of Instagram visit.
• They expire after 24 hours and, therefore, provide a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out!).
• “Why” stories work really well here.
  • They are done in real time,
  • There’s a strong feeling of authenticity (they don’t have to be perfect),
  • There’s only minimal production needed (viewers don’t expect the more professional look of the feed),
  • They encourage engagement,
  • They increase the chances of being remembered (especially with video),
  • There is more of a feeling of connection, especially when there’s some direct messaging involved,
• When you have >10k followers, you have the opportunity to add extra links for offers.
• Your goal should be to maintain viewer retention. Do this by making your story a complete thought and valuable – remember, now that you’ve learned all about your ideal patient, you will know what’s valuable to them and how to be relatable, remarkable, relevant, and timely.
• Stories are often the first touch point of your practice.
• Make sure to pay attention to the viewers – nurture the relationships you make by going to their Instagram accounts and interacting with them there.
• Types of content for stories: again, make sure you are creating a cohesive story around the main topic
  • Behind the Scenes (BTS)
    • Conversations of you talking with patients about important eye issues (HIPAA compliant, of course)
    • Fun stuff with the staff
    • Getting ready for the day
    • Showing your office and what it’s like to have an eye exam from start to finish
  • “How-to” videos
  • Surveys or questions
  • Events your hosting – during the event
  • Specialty practice offerings and benefits (eg. demonstrate a vision therapy session)
  • Exclusive deals
  • Testimonials
• Make sure to change it up and don’t use the same backdrops all the time throughout the story.

Highlights

• This is where you can pull down elements from your stories to be kept for good until you delete them.
• These elements are front and center, are your best Instagram real estate and are a great place to use keyword phrases to help with your search engine optimization.
• It’s a good idea to make the cover graphic match your branding.

IGTV

• Upload or record up to 10 minutes of video (as of this writing).
• Use this part of the Instagram platform to present “how-to” videos, announcements, events, new products and services, practice culture, BTS, and more.
• Treat it as though you are creating a TV series for your patients. Consider posting a 5-10 minute video per week using the ideas above.

Optimize Your Content for Engagement

It’s important to understand that the more engagement you get, the more Instagram will show your content (by the way, this is true for most social media platforms). You’ll get more engagement by optimizing your content and other tactics such as the following.

• Make sure to post at least 5 to 6 times per week.
• Spend about 15 minutes twice per day on posting to Instagram on any of the above locations. Make sure to be intentional with your posts, commit to posting routinely, and engage with followers.
• Make sure to include CTAs or questions (to get your followers to click on the link in the BIO) in the description of your feeds, live posts, stories, highlights, and IGTV episodes. Get creative with things like
  • “Vote for your favorite sunglasses” and have a mini fashion show (video/live)
  • “What are your thoughts about having_______” (eg. FREE retinal screenings, an open house wine and cheese event, wearing daily contacts while playing sports, etc.)
  • “Do you know all the alternatives to wearing bifocal glasses?”
  • “Did you know you can improve your batting average with something called sports vision therapy?”
  • “What’s your EyeQ”
• Look at your Instagram insights
  • If you have a business account (which you should for your practice), you can see the optimal times to post and find out certain analytics of the people following you.
  • Use those insights combined with the research tactics listed in the prework section above.
• Engage with your followers
  • Like + comment your followers’ comments or on their own accounts where appropriate
  • Reply to story comments
  • Send DMs where appropriate
  • Repost their content
  • Host a giveaway (free screening or other services, a free pair of sunglasses, a book, event tickets to a local event or concert, local restaurant gift certificate, etc.)
  • Email your list consistently (hopefully, you are getting email addresses from your website and social media campaigns, including Instagram)
  • Present dual live broadcasts (ask the guest to share with their followers, too) on topics that solve pain points for your ideal patients
• Engaging ideas for videos
  • Create “how to” videos, such as contact lens I & Rs
  • Demonstrate what’s involved in an eye exam to allay fears, types of contacts for difficult ocular issues, what patients see when they have certain eye conditions, even cool eye disease videos!
• Mistakes to avoid
  • bad, blurry images
  • irrelevant information
  • posting too often or inconsistently
  • repeating images back to back – mix it up
  • using stock photos or website product photos without showing how they are used for someone’s lifestyle
• Use the right hashtags
  • Use a maximum of 30 (less as you figure out which work best for your posts based on followers and if you show up in the “top 9” of a particular tag)
  • Use them on EVERY post!
  • Post the hashtags as soon as possible in the first comment or description.
  • According to 1 Instagram expert, it’s important to include at least one hashtag for each of the following: categories (eg. eye disease, eye care, leisure, eyewear products, etc.), locations (your practice location, your ideal patient locations, etc.), emotions (eg. show your passion for what you do, the excitement in your patients when they love their eye wear or can finally see well), events (eg. open house event at your office, community events your practice sponsors, free screenings, etc.), and products (or services)
  • Only use hashtags that make sense for your followers/ideal patients. You don’t want to get followers just for the sake of getting followers – you’ll end up with a bunch of spammers!
  • Create and promote a unique hashtag for your patients – this creates a community around your practice.
    • Tips: make it short and sweet, make sure no one else uses it, make it memorable, make sure to follow the hashtag (!)
    • Place it: in your BIO, website, on invoices to patients, on any presentations you may give in the community, in your email signature, and in all your posts across different social media accounts
• Other posting tips
  • Do polls or surveys – these are great to do in your stories
  • Tag your location
  • Tag influencers that have agreed to promote your products and services – this can be a huge way to attract more ideal patients to your practice!
  • Don’t use stock photos (or, only very limited) – use real images, and try to include people in them when you can
  • Consider adding an Instagram “wall of fame” for enthusiasts and influencers to show off their products and provide testimonials on their own account
  • In posts where relevant, make sure to use the phrase “annual eye exam” to encourage patients to remember how important it is to have their eye exams annually
  • Look for monthly correlations for themed postings – check this link out and get inspired: https://www.aao.org/newsroom/observances; make sure to add the CTA to your BIO “don’t forget to get your eyes checked” then include a link to your scheduling app or contact page

Convert Your Followers into Patients

When you position yourself as a leader in your local market, it’s not that difficult to attract and convert ideal patients into lifelong, raving fans of yours. The more you stay consistent with your timing and messaging, the more trustworthy you become. And, as you may have heard, people only do business with people they know, like, and trust. When they see you showing up regularly with value-packed (or even entertaining!) content, they will begin to look at you as the eye care specialist of choice, and not just someone “that takes their eye insurance.”

Another way you can speed up the process a bit, to encourage visitors to your platforms to take action and make an appointment, is to create a campaign with a specific, time-limited promotion. Begin before the campaign begins – build hype around it and push out reminders routinely. Make sure to give links to the campaign in your BIO, through DMs, through IG stories, and in your highlights.

Final Thoughts

Although it may seem overwhelming at first, you truly don’t need to spend a lot of time on marketing you and your practice with Instagram. Some time-saving tips include:

• Designating a staff member familiar with Instagram to maintain your account. He or she can be responsible for planning and implementing the content strategy plan for you.
• Plan a professional photo shoot for a full day and bring changes of clothes (that match your branding) for different situations and locations you may typically engage in. Have the staff and some willing patients be part of this. Use these more professional, branded photos for your Instagram feed.
• Plan your content out ahead of time. Brainstorm ideas for this with your staff. Get their input, especially if they are active on Instagram.

If you’re still not convinced about using Instagram to market your practice, even AFTER polling some of your ideal patients, click here to learn some startling statistics. You may be very surprised!

Update:

Here are a couple of other resources discussing the topic of marketing your eyecare practice using Instagram:

• Interview by Dr. Maria Sampalis of Corporate Optometry on the Defocus Media Podcast: “Corporate Optometry Nation: Let’s Talk Instagram for Eyecare with Dr. Sandi Eveleth”
• Interview by Dr. Maria Sampalis of Corporate Optometry: “Building Your Optometric Practice with Instagram”
• Interview by Dr. Leigh Plowman of Optomly: