ASK ALEX

“Where can I get new content ideas? I feel like I am always just taking inspiration from other clinics’ posts.”

If you’ve ever seen me speak at an event, such as Aesthetic Medicine Live, you’ll always see my slide that says, ‘think like a patient’.

If you see a post from another clinic that you think will resonate with your audience, taking inspiration is fine, if you put your own angle and format on it and add in your expertise. Posting straight plagiarism is not the way forward, and you may get found out. Similarly, posting the same generic content provided by your product reps is not going to generate engagement.

However, to research original ideas, whether that’s to post on social media, your website, or to share with your email list, I would always suggest offline and online sources.

For offline research – you’ve started in the right place. Industry magazines are always on the cutting edge of science, news, and studies. If you think it’s relevant to your target patient, you can refocus this information from practitioner to patient and share. Conferences are also a hive of creativity. Jotting down content ideas while you sit in lectures is a great way to come away from a show with dozens of posts to create.

I use a range of online tools which don’t require any technical know-how to come up with content ideas for Web Marketing Clinic clients:

• Google Trends shares what is peaking on search currently, and you can filter results by location

• Answerthepublic.com gives you a huge insight into what people type into search engines about your chosen topic – type in ‘dermal fillers’ and see what you find

• Reddit is a searchable forum made up of ‘subreddits’ on thousands of topics – search for skin concerns, treatments, and products, and you can see what the world is asking and saying about them

• Quora, like Reddit, allows you to see what questions people are asking. In your niche, you can answer those questions!

Finally, to best think like a patient, I would suggest speaking to your patients about the content they consume. Where do they consume information, what media (written, video, audio) do they prefer, what topics do they research, and what is their favourite content that you have shared?

Speaking to your best patients, or sending out a survey via email or text will give you the most targeted content ideas available. Google forms are free to use and straightforward to put together.

By using these approaches, whether you’re stuck on what to post on Instagram or you’re looking for FAQs for a new treatment page on your website, you’ll never run out of ideas again!

ALEX BUGG

Alex Bugg works for Web Marketing Clinic, a familyrun digital agency, which specialises in medical aesthetics. The business builds websites and delivers marketing campaigns for doctors, nurses, dentists, distributors and brands. Contact her: alex@webmarketingclinic.co.uk or follow her on Instagram: @webmarketingclinic