The senior healthcare industry has been hit extremely hard by Covid. The once trusted place to retire and live out your days with great care, activities, and expert medical attention has been smeared. Politicians and the news played the ‘blame game’ daily while these facilities were trying to do their best to keep residents safe.
The goal of social media is to, ‘pull back the curtain’ and show the world examples of the medical expertise, care, in-room activities, and safety precautions taken to offer these seniors the life they deserve. To repair this industry’s image and rebuild a more favorable impression, each of the facilities must actively share what they are doing to keep their valued residents safe, happy, stable, and healthy.
Being nervous about making the situation worse is a normal reaction when the popular opinion has been manipulated into a negative tailspin. Restoring trust is all about transparency, consistency, and honestly communicating how the situation is being handled. Each facility has its own examples, and the industry should be working hard to stem the tide of negativity.
A great social media strategy could be:
Go on the Offense
Show your community, the residents, their families, your partners all the new policies and procedures put in place to keep residents safe. Write articles for the local media about your facility and invite reporters to a virtual tour. Create programs with your partners and reach out to the community together. Get testimonials from the families of your residents.
Communicate all the Safety Procedures
Since Covid began facilities have completely changed the way they do business. Anyone coming from outside the facility, if allowed to enter, must go through rigorous testing. There are meticulous cleaning procedures that prevent infection to maintain a safe environment. The staff is well versed on wearing the PPE to service the residents.
Show Data
A platform that survey’s a facility’s staff, patients, administrators, and medical staff and it gets rated. The best PR in the world can come from the staff, especially if they’ve been employed by the facility on an average of 10 years. This is an example of a rating to put on your social media.
Commitment to Your Residents and Their Families
Be transparent and communicate with them every day on social media. Celebrate birthdays, holidays, in house events, demonstrate the in-room activities and have a weekly FAQ. Post any community activities and special guests offering information i.e., a lawyer talking about estate planning. Tell stories of daily life in your facility. Offer tips on healthy living both physically and mentally. Be their trusted resource on senior healthy living.
A Platform for Your Brand
Since the world is pretty much locked down, everything has been moved online. This is now the main form of delivering information. Social media can share your brand and message in any format you choose: a post, video, gif, quote, graphic, webinar, or LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram ‘live.’ Why not take advantage of these platforms to their fullest and control the narrative instead letting others control it?
An Example to Follow
Our client runs two rehabilitation and nursing centers. They are so committed to transparency and building relationships with their residents, families, staff, and partners that they are consistently snapping pictures and making videos of everyone. They are innovative in their approach to social media, always thinking of ways to produce new content that is educational, motivational and informative for their audience. This commitment to valuable content plus their services has really made them stand out.
Results of a Powerful Brand Presence Online
- By using social media effectively, the residents and their families understand what goes on in the facilities daily and that establishes trust.
- The facilities are growing and need to keep adding staff.
- Their partners in the community appreciate the acknowledgement of their relationship and they respond in kind by tagging and sharing.
- Families in the area specifically choose these facilities to place their loved ones because of all the community interaction and events that are recorded with videos, pictures and zoom classes.
The biggest compliment is from their competitors. As Oscar Wilde said, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”