How to Use Social Media to Market a Life Science Organisation
Social media is an important marketing technique - especially if you are marketing to a life science organisation.
People have a misconception about social media and think the channel is predominantly for the younger generation but this isn’t true. A great deal of social media users are young, but there is also a large portion of people who use social media that are older. Ages generally vary between the different social media channels themselves.
According to Hubspot, 77.5% of Generation X use social media. These are often the demographics that life science organisations are targeting - 40-54 years old, which we have determined that 77.5% of them are actively engaging on social media. Out of the whole population, 42% of people use social media and 54% of social browsers will use social media to research products.
Subscribe for marketing insights via email
HOW CAN SOCIAL MEDIA HELP YOU?
Why would you want to use social media? What could it possibly do to help you with your objectives in marketing to life science organisations? Well, social media can help you in many ways. You may think you already have loads of ways to market your organisation and don’t need another. But consider the following benefits.
1. INCREASE WEB TRAFFIC
Social media is a great way to share content with your audience. Use your posts and content to link to your website to get people looking at your website and web pages. If people like what they see on your post they might want to know more and are likely to follow the link to find out more about what you have to offer.
2. BUILD CONVERSATIONS
Social media is a very relaxed way to market yourself and become closer to your audience. As a PR tool, it cannot be substituted. Because social media is one of the more relaxed forms of marketing people are more likely to involve themselves in conversations which will help you build a strong and stable relationship with your customer.
3. RAISE BRAND AWARENESS
As a company you want people to know who you are, you want people to be familiar with the brand and associate your company with your trade. Social media is a great way to get people familiar with your company and the way you work as a company.
4. CREATE A BRAND IDENTITY AND ASSOCIATION
You can use social media to get people familiar with your brand and identity. Social media will get people familiar with your company and help them relate certain topics to your audience. Because people are seeing your content all the time they will subconsciously become familiar with you.
5. IMPROVE INTERACTION WITH KEY AUDIENCES
Becoming active on social media groups will help you create a connection with your audience. These groups will give you the opportunity to connect with people that will be interested in your industry. Using social media will allow you to position yourself as a thought leader in the industry.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING TIPS
Convinced that social media is an appropriate channel in reaching your life science audience? Read on for some basic tips on how to use the channel better.
1. SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT PLANNING
Having a social media plan is essential to creating a successful marketing strategy. Make yourself familiar with the type of content you want to share with your audience. Post informative content that will be of interest of your audience so that they keep coming back.
2. GREAT SOCIAL CONTENT
The better your social content is the more likely you are to get good engagement. Make sure your social media is consistent with all the other marketing you do, making your marketing consistent will show you care about your image and will make people more likely to trust you. If you are going to spend time using social media you are required to make regular posts on your social accounts. The content you post can take many forms, be it imagery, videos, graphics or how-to-guides. Just be sure to make sure it’s valuable and informative content.
3. TRACK COMPETITORS
You need to know everything about what your competitors are doing. If they are doing something you generally want to be doing it bigger and better. Know everything that your competitor is getting up to through social media - you should be familiar with the procedures they follow the processes they take this way you can always be one step ahead of the competition.
WHAT TYPE OF CONTENT SHOULD YOU BE POSTING?
It is important to remember that there are many different types of content you can use to help you create a stable and balanced social media presence. I would suggest using the following proportions to help you keep a balanced social media.
Your top priority is engaging content you should aim to have at least 40% of your content to be engaging. This is the type of content that is going to catch the attention of your audience and pique their interest. With regards to engaging content, you would be looking at things such as quotes, motivational content and quizzes.
After this you want to look at promotional content about 30% of your social content should promoting the company. This doesn’t have to be really intense marketing just subtle you don’t want to overdo it. You can do this type of marketing through special offers, discounts and company news.
Try and make at least 20% of your content educational, life science organisations like to show themselves as thought leaders in the industry and posting promotional content will show your audience that you know what you are talking about. This type of content can be in the form of lists, tips, infographics statistics and charts.
For the final 10%, we are looking at curated content. This type of content is original content that’s not been seen before you only need a small percentage of this because it takes some time to create but will be worth it when your audience begins to engage with it. This type of content is original and should be brand specific.
HOW CAN YOU MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR SOCIAL ACCOUNT?
Use this as a checklist. Follow all of these tips to help you create a professional and effective social media presence.
1. CREATE PROFILES ON MULTIPLE PLATFORMS
There are so many social media platforms out there that you really don’t need to be on all of them, the challenge is to find out what accounts you need this will rely largely on where your audience is and you should be where they are. For life science organisations, this is platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Social platforms such as Pinterest and TikTok are not a necessity for the life sciences industry so to spend time trying to grow these accounts would be a waste of your marketing methods this is why it is important to know where your audience are.
2. POST CONTENT ON A DAILY BASIS
Persistence is key and in the social world things are very quickly forgotten about so in order to stay relevant you need to keep posting informative content. You should be looking to make at least one post a day. Making regular posts will show your audience that you care about them.
3. GIVE PEOPLE A REASON TO FOLLOW YOU
Make sure the content you are sharing with people is worthwhile. Use your content to show your audience that you know what you are talking about, your content can be used to help position yourself and company as thought leader show them you know what you are talking about this is going to make them more likely to trust your brand.
4. FORM RELATIONSHIPS WITH SOCIAL INFLUENCERS
Opinions matter, everyone cares about what other people think. Positioning yourself with influencers will help people feel like they can trust you. This is a very useful technique because you don’t have to do anything. Influencers will share their opinions on your products and tell people what they think this is going to make it easier for your customers to trust your product.
5. ENCOURAGE USER-GENERATED CONTENT
Not all the content you post has to be generated in-house. You can use your followers to help you grow your own platform. Sharing the content your followers post shows you are actively engaged in the platform and will make people more likely to actively engage with your original content. In the U.S it has been shown that 88% of customers trust a product recommendation that comes from someone they know and a staggering 90% rate online recommendations from other users highly influential
6. MAKE SURE YOUR PROFILE IS FULL
Most of the time I would say quality over content but when it comes to populating your profile this isn’t quite the case. You want to make sure your online profiles are as full as possible, if people want to contact you directly they should be able to find that information on your social account. Having an empty account makes you appear untrustworthy you may appear like you have something to hide. The fuller your profile is the more inclined people will be to trust you.
7. CROSS PROMOTE ON OTHER CHANNELS
Use every piece of marketing you can. There is no point you having three or more active social accounts if no one knows your there because then it is just a waste of time. Take a step back and look at your platforms on which do you have the highest following? Use this one to remind your visitors that you have other accounts they could support you on. Don’t be shy to ask them to follow you, you don’t have to be intense or demanding about it but asking them won’t hurt. Use your bio if people visit your profile have it in your bio that you have other social accounts.
Another great place to market your social media presence is through your newsletter, website and email signatures. All of these are places that people are all the time, every time you send an email your signature should be reminding them you have a social account your newsletter should be telling them if they want quick updates to go see your social media and your website should direct them to your social media if they want to be a little less formal.
8. CREATE TARGETED ADS
Social media allows us to create ads you may as well use this feature creating targeted ads allows you to boost your content that little bit further. Getting seen by those few extra people can make all the difference. Take advantage of these marketing features to target your interest groups.
9. STAGGER YOUR CONTENT
Remember you have people following all your social accounts so you might have the same person on both accounts this is why you want to try and be careful with the content you post. Don’t put the same thing on every account because that might end up making you lose followers. Post different content on different platforms. You could even share one post this month on Facebook and then on LinkedIn next month if it’s still relevant.
