Ask Alex

This is a great question – social media plays a part in almost every aesthetic clinic. However, as the political climate shines light on social media companies, keeping all of your eggs in one basket is a risk. TikTok was recently banned in the US – albeit temporarily – but at the time, thousands of creators lost their income, and uncounted American businesses lost their visibility with potential customers.

If your clinic is only on Instagram, you’re not alone. You can start small but need to think long-term about your social media visibility across the internet. Diversity should bring more brand reach, engagement and enquiries. This article will hopefully give you the reasons why you should diversify – and steps on how to.

THE RISKS OF A ONE-PLATFORM STRATEGY

The risk isn’t just governments switching off platform access, trends just die, and people move elsewhere. MySpace, Bebo, Vine and Google+ are just some of the massive platforms which fell out of favour with social media users. There has been an exodus in users of X (formerly Twitter) in response to Elon Musk’s ownership.

If you’re using paid ads on your platform of choice, cost and performance can vary, too. Any paid ad strategy should be multiplatform. Sticking to one platform might seem simple, comfortable and be working for you currently, but there are plenty of upsides to branching out.

THE BENEFITS OF MULTI-PLATFORM PRESENCE

Being visible on more than one platform increases your brand awareness, as the saying goes “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. If one platform slumps, for whatever reason, you can rely on others to still drive enquiries.

Google also displays your social media pages, so showing up in multiple places increases your stamp on search rankings. Different generations or demographics tend to cluster on different platforms, so if you want to diversify your patient base, ask yourself if your content would be reaching them in the first place.

ONE CONTENT FORMAT IS JUST AS RISKY

• Reels have the highest current reach potential, but some Meta users still aren’t hooked on them, so if you’re just posting them, you might miss out some of your audience

Are you comfortable making Reels? Are you all-in on before and afters? Algorithm-based formats –just like social platforms –fall out of favour. You need to mix your post types up too.

• Carousels are great (and Instagram shows them twice in someone’s feed) for storytelling and education. TikTok carousels are gaining traction too – these swipe-able images aren’t just for Instagram

• Single-image posts are probably what built your account, and are great for simple messaging – though I’d use two over one every time for the reason above

• Stories and live content keep real-time engagement high.

HOW TO DIVERSIFY SOCIAL MEDIA WITHOUT LETTING IT OVERTAKE YOUR LIFE

Switching things up is overwhelming. You can start by repurposing content, placing Instagram videos on TikTok or YouTube. Take reviews and make them into graphics (Canva templates are your friend here) for Explore Pinterest, Threads, LinkedIn. Find something you love browsing, and you’ve found a new platform you’ll enjoy posting on.

Social scheduling tools like Planable, Meta Business Suite, Sprout Social and Later can help take the weight off posting across multiple social platforms. Of course, as you start posting new formats or on new platforms, make sure you keep a look at the analytics to see what is working, what isn’t, and adjust accordingly. See where social leads are coming from and use what is working to generate them.

A multi-platform, multi-format approach is optimal for any clinic social media, to futureproof against trends, platform disappearance and burnout. Also having an email database is a key step in communicating with patients and followers where they

My last piece of advice? Use your intuition. You know your ideal patients better than anyone else, so trust what you’re doing, even if it doesn’t look exactly like what everyone else is doing.

If you’ve got a burning aesthetics marketing question for Ask Alex, please get in touch @webmarketingclinic via Instagram, or email alex@webmarketingclinic.co.uk

ALEX BUGG

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