Who Said Social Media Doesn’t Work for Home Care Agencies??

Recently a client asked me to respond to some information that was published about social media marketing and home care….so here are my responses to a report or post that was published. I took each section of what was sent to me and responded.

My comments are in BLUE.

" I continually ask the "experts" for facts, data, or anecdotal examples of home care companies who have successfully used social media to bring in a significant number of referrals that turn into admission. Not of these "experts" has been able to provide any data." 

No one bothered to ask any one at LTC Expert Publications LLC, who are these experts?

The reason social media does not work is that physicians, hospital discharge planners, SNF administrators, bank trust officers, and elder law attorneys are not sitting around looking at face book or linked in to find a company to refer their clients to for home care. They are busy working with clients and patients, and if they are really good they are already on the prospect list of some highly effective home care sales professionals.

That's true about professional referrals typically, but private duty home care agencies don't get many of those referrals. Inquiries come from adult children of aging parents age 40-70. Where are those people finding their information? Online of course. If a private duty home care agency does not have a robust and active online presence, they simply do not exist in today's fast pace online world. This goes beyond a website. It includes video, linkedin, facebook, a blog and more.

Our recent home care & hospice marketing survey showed that your web site is one of your most important marketing tools. Blogs, links back to your site, loads of content, and key words help increase your site's position in the searches. If your posts on Linked In and Facebook are successfully driving people to your website, and increasing your search position, that's terrific. The real key is being able to track and measure the results. 

What % of your inquiries come from your web site. Of those, how many started with your social media site?

Perhaps this group should have talked to someone who works this part of the marketing scene as opposed to asking questions and making assumptions that it doesn't work. This typical question and response is the same set of questions that exist for all online marketing and for all business types. 

What is my return on investment for my website, facebook, linkedin etc?

Each and every home care agency who is actively involved and participating in their own online presence MUST be accurately recording data from each new prospect. The person who answers the phone must be asking without fail: "How did you hear about us?"

Without that data, there is no measure for ROI for any marketing program much less internet activity.

The next question becomes, how far do you really dig? Do you think that the tired, overwhelmed adult child caregiver (who may not be super web savvy) is really going to know whether they found your information from facebook, a website, a linkedin listing, or a google search? 

And for that matter, do we really care at this point?

Aren't we grateful that we had an online presence large enough in our local area that they DID find us, and DID make that call?

After all, if we didn't have any viable presence online- would they have called the competition down the street who DOES have a good online presence? Probably. Who wants to test that scenario? Not our clients.

In our 2010 Home Care Sales & Marketing Survey, 75% of respondents said they had used their website on a regular basis to promote inquiries and referrals, and 62.5% said it was a highly effective technique. 

In the same survey, 37.5% said they have used professional social media (Linked In) and /or general social media (Facebook). 15.6% said they found professional social media highly effective, and 9.4% said they that general social media is highly effective. 

For home health & hospice, 10.8% used professional social media, and 15,4% of those found it highly effective. 

Home Health Care and Hospice typically get their referrals from different places than private duty, although there is some overlap of course,  I would suggest that each agency owner should engage in different social media strategies based on their make-up. Medicare providers should take a different approach than private duty. This is like comparing apples to oranges and doesn't make complete sense.

In the survey that was conducted, it would be interesting to note of the respondents who participated,how many of them set up a Facebook page and never revisited it, or set up a Linkedin profile and never used it other than to update their work experience. Neither of those activities will generate results. How many of those respondents used their Facebook and linkedin pages weekly for networking, promotion, and engagement. I bet the answer is 1% or less.

Our conclusion is that there is not significant data or anecdotal evidence that social media works to general inquiries or referrals in private pay, non-medical home care. We think you should have a presence, and use it to drive SEO to your web site.

Wait a minute, most of this article references home health care and hospice….and now we are on to private duty? Am I missing part of the article? 

The real answer is this:

There are two types of online marketing and both play a significant role in marketing a home care agency (private duty in particular).

1. Website – must be robust in content, and search engine optimized for the local area served. Content includes video, blogs, articles, testimonials and more. (some of this overlaps into social media)

2. Social media marketing: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, these all matter. Why do they matter? Because they overlap into SEO. In fact, Google now grades content based on social interaction, so why would anyone ignore the necessity of social media? 

Facebook- this is not a "set-it-and-forget-it" situation. Facebook does generate leads, and yes we do see that weekly, but it has to be done correctly. It's all about engagement and call to action.

LinkedIn-   this is also not a "set-it-and-forget-it" situation. LinkedIn does generate professional connections, in-person meetings, and referral sources. Each agency marketer must know and understand how to use it effectively.

But don't bet your marketing strategy on it.

No one on our team has ever told an agency owner that social media marketing is all they need to be successful in this industry, and I would question anyone who did say that. 

However, to say unequivocally that it doesn't work is an uneducated and careless statement as far as I'm concerned. 

Steering business owners away from one (note I said "one", not "the only") lead source is a bad idea in this economic environment. 

Educated owners with a good internet team behind them see this every day. Too bad no one asked us.

Regards,

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN

Owner/ Managing Partner

LTC Expert Publications

Phone: 888-404-1513

Email: valerie@ltcep.com