Answer this question honestly: when you use social media, do you log in primarily to hear from local businesses? Or are you more interested to see what your friends and family are up to?

The hard truth is that people don’t just use social media to be sold to. That doesn’t mean you can’t promote your business successfully using social media, but that’s not why people use it. They log in to be social, to learn more about the things that interest them, to be entertained, and ultimately- to connect with others.

We’re not saying that you should stop posting about your business. You absolutely need information on your social pages about your practice, services, and promotions. But you also need content that connects with your followers on a personal level.

Make the Algorithm Work for You

To truly master the algorithm, you need to provide diverse, helpful content to show the platform and your followers that your posts are worth engaging with. Remember, all social media platforms are businesses themselves. They want users to log in and interact with content, so they only push the content that they feel will get users to read, click and share.

Let’s say your practice regularly rotates between posting about service updates and promotions. Adding personal pictures and videos of your team is an easy way to tell platforms like Facebook or Instagram that you have a lot of diverse things to say. In turn, the algorithm favors your content and shows it to more users. On the flipside of that scenario, posting too much similar content, or content for the sake of it is a great way to have the algorithm hide or bury your posts.

Think about the posts or videos that you interact with that are maybe outside of the content you would typically click on. Have you ever, out-of-the-blue, watched a video about fishing, and noticed that Facebook, Instagram or Twitter now shows you a lot more content about fishing? Now imagine your patients watching you talk about how you can help them in a video post, and your next post being at the top of their feed. That’s making the algorithm work for you.

Solve Your Patients’ Problems

Take this example of a great video post from Ohio- & Kentucky-based Optometrist, Dr. Josiah Young. The video works for several reasons (great work Opticare Vision Center!), most of all because it’s authentic. Everybody loves a slick video advertisement but, in this case, sincerity is more important to a video with a local audience than making a Hollywood-level production. Dr. Young’s personality shines, the video still looks great, and it holds your attention because it’s fun.

While this example is indeed a sales-oriented video, Dr. Young keeps it fresh and engaging by not only focusing on the products that he has, but on his patients, their problems, and how his practice can solve those problems. Dr. Young understands that the messaging shouldn’t be just about him or the practice but should instead be centered around his patients and how his services can help them.

This is called gap selling. You need to find the gap, or need in your patients, and offer a solution to bridge the gap and solve their problem. In this example, the gap is children not being able to learn effectively due to vision problems, and the solution is an eye exam.

Don’t Overthink It

Personal content doesn’t have to focus on driving your sales. It can be as simple as an IGTV video or Facebook reel of your staff having fun, or a picture of one of your favorite patients. Don’t overthink it- the idea is to be relatable to your followers. Show them you’re human and pleasant to be around, and they’ll want to spend more time engaging with your social content, and ultimately more time in your practice where you’ll be helping them with their vision.

Increase Your Reach

For a comprehensive plan to increase your practice’s reach, provide diverse eye-care specific social media content to help keep your patients educated and engaged. Whenever you’re about to post, ask yourself this question: would I want to read more about this?

Follow Dr. Young’s lead and supplement your content marketing with personal content that you make your own. It doesn’t have to be perfect, in fact it’s often better not to be. Let your patients know that you are real people and that you care about them. They’ll have more interest in what you have to say, and the algorithm will too.

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Contact EyeCarePro today to increase your practice’s reach with rich digital content.