Here's Why You Need Social Media for Your Nursing Home

Nursing homes need to take their online presence seriously.

Now more than ever people are making decisions based on what they find online and trust more than anything else.

If you don’t exist online at all, or even worse, if there are bad reviews and other content about your nursing home online, family members won’t place their loved ones with you.

Even if you’re a five star, deficiency-free facility.

They don’t care.

The service is not there.

My online buddies said the food was bad. The call bell lights take forever to be answered. Someone was discharged home too early.

Or one of my favorites, ‘the nursing home stole my mom’s money’.

The facts don’t matter in marketing.

Let me explain.

You may not have done any of the things others say about you, but if that’s what’s out there, then that’s what happened.

Understanding Social Media

Social media is not a fake world of online accounts. It’s real people who are engaging with you and forming opinions about you.

The clearer this is to you, the sooner you’ll be able to real results with any online social activities.

The content that you share online should be an accurate representation of who you are and you would actually share that in person if you met the person.

In my earlier days of taking LinkedIn seriously as a platform and source of business leads, I met someone at a conference who only knew me from Linkedin and it was really awkward. I wasn’t comfortable with who he expected me to be based on the content I was sharing online.

This is the ultimate litmus test to know if you’re effectively communicating who you are online or not. What happens when you meet your online friends in person? Is it really awkward? Or is it a natural extension of the relationship you started building online?

Maximize Your Social Channels

I’m going to assume you have your social media accounts set up already.

Action Items

Share Content

• Share facility updates - show smiling faces of staff and residents
• News and updates that family members and the community actually care to know
• General nursing home related content
• Mix it up! Have some fun with this. Share funny content but be careful not to use anything offensive or inappropriate.
• Inspiration quotes.

Be Consistent

• Let people get used to you just always being there.
• Use a tool like Hootsuite to plan your content in advance so you’re not always stressing about sharing and creating new content.

Develop a Content Focused Culture

• Train your team and help them understand that content is gold. Document those precious moments of caring and love and share with the world.
• Bring it up by all marketing meetings and empower the team to share.
• Have a point person and everyone will know to share all content with him/her.

Engage With Local Community Entities

• Engage with local businesses in your community on their social pages.
• Follow their business and develop a real relationship with them.
• Help them get business by promoting them online.

Expected Outcomes and Goals

When you effectively implement all of the above as part of your marketing plan, you’ll notice that:

• Your reputation is growing positively in the community
• Staff will want to work for you and will stop window shopping the competition
• Your team will feel better about themselves and will notice how amazing they really are.

?????? Warning ??????

Take action today! Identify who your brand ambassador is in your facility and have them start implementing everything on this list today!

Need Some Help?

Reach out to us at SNF Marketing and we'll gladly help you get started!