How often healthcare organizations post on social media

See how your hospital’s social activity compares to others in the industry

Oftentimes, we see articles about best practices for how often companies should post on their social media accounts and at what time. But healthcare is much different from retail or business organizations, so to apply those standards to hospitals or non-profits is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. To address this issue, Hubspot recently conducted a study on the social media activity of nine different industries.

Here is what the study found about social media in healthcare:

• The healthcare industry posts much less on social media overall than other industries
• 65% of participants posted on their Facebook page less than one time per week
• Participants posted more on Twitter than Facebook each week
• 15% of participants posted on their Twitter account more than 10 times per week
• 20% of participants published 1-3 social posts per week that included an image

How does your organization’s social media activity compare to the findings of this study?

Many healthcare organizations don’t make social media a priority, but there are definitely patients out there searching for your page. If you’re nervous about violating HIPAA with your content, opt to post general health information, rather than talking about your specific patients or operations. Another simple way to generate social content is to post photos of your physicians, nurses and staff – and no, we don’t mean headshots. Candid shots will help patients emotionally connect to who will be caring for them and make the organization seem less scary.

One way to get on a regular posting schedule is to have a few different beats, or post types, that you publish on the same day each week. For example, on Mondays you could post a healthy recipe, on Wednesdays you could post a health tip, and on Fridays you could post an exercise plan to try. Having that content plan helps to keep you on track by solving the problem of ‘what should we post today?’

Has your organization hit its stride with how often to post on social media? What schedule have you found the most luck with?