#facebook #homecaremarketing Home Care Agencies Should Be Using Facebook for Community Outreach, Social Signals, and Generating Leads.

I used to tell Home Care Agency owners that Facebook would not generate leads, but in the last couple of years, the usage of Facebook by all age groups has grown so significantly, that there is no denying the need for a lead generation strategy that involves Facebook. Done correctly, you will see an increase in your bottom line.

Here’s the Why and the HOW!

There is no denying that Google is interested in “social signals” from social media accounts – letting Google know that the CONTENT on your website is not only important, but being read, shared, and commented on.

There is also no better way to share your community involvement and outreach than through Facebook.

Do You Have a Facebook Marketing Strategy for Your Home Care Business? If not, You Should!

Your Facebook marketing strategy shouldn’t live in a vacuum—it needs to be integrated with your overall marketing plan.

What You Need to Get Started

Before you start marketing on Facebook, you should have these things in place:

• A good home care website: Your home care website is the hub of your business and should look professional and show your potential customers how you can solved their elder care problems. All content should be posted on your website’s blog, and then delivered seamlessly to your Facebook Business Page.

• An email marketing delivery service: Email still works. You should have a place to collect email addresses when someone requests more information from your website or from content on your Facebook Business Page. There are many email providers out there to choose from. We prefer Mailchimp.com or CampaignMonitor.com

• An optimized Facebook Page: Before you start marketing your home care business on Facebook, get the basic elements of a good Facebook Page in place.

Once you have completed these three things, you can begin to integrate your Facebook marketing with your overall marketing plan. Can’t do these on your own? We can help.

Here are 4 steps to get your Facebook marketing strategy in place.

What are Your Goals for your Home Care Agency on Facebook?

Any home care business strategy begins with goals. What do you want out of your Facebook Page?

Consider some of these Facebook marketing goals for your home care agency:

• Increase community exposure and awareness for your home care agency. This goal can be difficult to measure, but will come in the form of new “likes” to your FB Business Page. A specific and attainable figure to this goal is 1000 new targeted likes in the next 3 months.

• Create a loyal, engaged community for your home care business. This goal will be measured through your engagement metrics such as the “People Talking About This” figure (PTAT). In order for people to do business with you, they usually want to get to know, like and trust you first. Creating an engaged community can help facilitate that trust.

• Establish authority and showcase your knowledge in your local community. Facebook is a perfect place to showcase your content, articles, blog posts, your in-depth knowledge of your subject matter and show your personality in how your company works.

• Gather leads. Using Facebook as a lead generator is a great goal. Using some type of email opt-in is a great way to gather leads from people who may be interested in your product or service.

• Get sales. Selling directly from Facebook is sometimes a challenge, especially for home care agencies. You can’t push your sales messages on your fans too often (I suggest 10%–20% of your posts, max). But you can track your sales. Make sure you have special links when you post your sales messages. Or set up Google Analytics to track conversions. If you are running Facebook ads, make sure you are tracking the ad conversions.

Whatever goals you set up for yourself and your home care business, make sure you are attaching specific numbers and deadlines with each goal. Also make sure you know how you will measure each one of these metrics.

Your Facebook research will include these areas:

• Identify your audience and where they spend their time. If you know your current demographic, you can look at the demographics of any Facebook Page by clicking on the Likes tab to get more information.

• Research your competition and watch what is working for them. Searching for other Pages on Facebook has actually gotten a little more challenging with the new Facebook Graph Search. You can do some basic searching on Facebook, but you are better off using Google to find Facebook Pages.

• Understand the latest techniques. Make sure you know the latest techniques on Facebook that are effective. Keep up with the trends so you know what is working for others.

• No time for research? Consider a service that does it all for you.

Now that you have your goals set up, work backwards from those goals to determine how you will achieve them. Want to get 1000 new fans in the next 3 months? Make sure you either have the activity level or the marketing budget to support that goal.

• Set Up an Editorial Calendar – Having a plan in place for what you will post each week will help you streamline your activity because you can schedule some of the posts, look for good content and be more regular with your posting.

• Set Up an Activity Calendar- The other thing you want to do is plan your activity so you don’t get sucked into the black hole of Facebook by watching too many cat videos. You can schedule your daily activity, weekly activity and monthly activity by using a simple Excel spreadsheet.

Take time to look back at your progress on Facebook so you know if your marketing is working. Understand how Facebook Insights work so you know which posts are working for you. You can sort your posts by Engaged Users to see how many people are interacting with your content in some way (includes likes, shares, comments and link clicks).

• Sort by Engaged Users to see which content is interesting to your community. Understand what you should be measuring on Facebook and also track your goals. Take a few breaks throughout the year to assess and tweak your plan when needed. And give yourself a pat on the back for doing what most marketers don’t do—setting up a plan!

If all of this seems a bit daunting, and something that you have no time to do on your own, let the experts at LTC Expert Publications do it for you!

Here’s what we offer:

FACEBOOK BASIC Package: $99 set up fee and $75 per month. You pay the cost of clicks. Recommended minimum budget $10 per day.

Choosing this package means that you ALREADY have a website, content, you post to FB regularly, and you are already actively engaged with your Facebook Business Page. Home Care Businesses who choose this package are looking for assistance with increasing the number of “likes” on their Facebook Business Page, and increasing local traffic to their website.

FACEBOOK INTERMEDIATE Package: $300 set up fee and $150 per month. You pay the cost of clicks. Recommended minimum budget $10 per day.

Choosing this package means you need more help. This is for the home care agency that has a website, but no blog posts, no content.  This is also for a home care agency who does not regularly engage on Facebook, and does not have the time or staff to do so, but wants the benefit of a robust Facebook Business Page and content. Home Care Businesses who choose this package are looking for assistance with increasing the number of “likes” on their Facebook Business Page, and increasing local traffic to their website, but need content.

• We will either set up a basic blog for you, or you can have your web designer add one to your website.
• We will provide 2 articles per month for blog posting.
• We will set up a feed from your blog to your Facebook Business Page.
• We will set up a Mailchimp.com account for you if you do not already have one.
• We will set up or work with your existing Facebook Business Page.
• We will create 3 ads that can be used to drive traffic to your Facebook Page for “likes”.
• We will use those ads to also drive traffic to your website.
• We will boost a post (a post that you have already placed your Facebook Page) one time per week so that more people in your local community see your activities or calls to action.
• We will set up your advertising campaign using your local area, local demographics and information on your service area.

FACEBOOK ADVANCED Package: $400 set up fee and $300 per month. You pay the cost of clicks. Recommended minimum budget $10 per day.

Choosing this package means you need more help and you want to KNOCK THE BALL OUT OF THE PARK on Facebook. This is for the home care agency that has a website, but no blog posts, no content.  This is also for a home care agency who does not regularly engage on Facebook, and does not have the time or staff to do so, but wants the benefit of a robust Facebook Business Page and content. Home Care Businesses who choose this package are looking for assistance with increasing the number of likes on their Facebook Business Page, and increasing local traffic to their website, but need content.

• We will either set up a basic blog for you, or you can have your web designer add one to your website.
• We will provide 2 articles per month for blog posting.
• We will post other interesting elder care, senior care, caregiving content directly to your Facebook Business Page 3 times per week.
• We will set up a feed from your blog to your Facebook Business Page.
• We will set up a Mailchimp.com account for you if you do not already have one.
• We will set up or work with your existing Facebook Business Page.
• We will create 3 ads that can be used to drive traffic to your Facebook Page for “likes”.
• We will use those ads to also drive traffic to your website.
• We will boost a post (a post that you have already placed your Facebook Page) one time per week so that more people in your local community see your activities or calls to action.
• We will set up your advertising campaign using your local area, local demographics and information on your service area.

 If you have questions or need more information about Facebook lead generation, engagement and advertising, contact Valerie@ltcep.com or George@ltcep.com, or call 888-404-1513

• About
• Latest Posts

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN

Co-Owner, Author at LTC Expert Publications

Valerie VanBooven, Managing Partner/ Co-Owner of LTC Expert Publications

Valerie’s motto and favorite saying is: “Impact is not created by big budgets, impact is created by innovative marketing ideas!”

Valerie is a Registered Nurse and the author of three books, Aging Answers (2003), The Senior Solution (2007) and Priceless Caregiving (2009). Her adventure in internet marketing began as a self-promotion experiment and ended up becoming a full time marketing consulting business for the elder care market.

Valerie has appeared on national television (Today Show), has hosted her own local radio show, and has been interviewed for dozens of publications and radio shows across the country regarding her business and the business of elder care.

She fast became the foremost authority in driving sales via the internet, seminars, and e-mail for senior service providers and elder care entrepreneurs.While Valerie’s best known for her expertise in marketing, her students share that her biggest impact comes from her ability to make things happen quickly, even on a small budget.

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Latest posts by Valerie VanBooven RN BSN (see all)

• Free Webinar: Facebook for Home Care Leads – “Let There Be Home Care Leads!” Part 3 of 4 on TUES Apr 21, 2015 - April 14, 2015
• Home Care Agencies Should Be Using Facebook for Community Outreach, Social Signals, and Generating Leads. - April 14, 2015
• The Home Care Franchise Website Content Dilemma.The Right Way vs. The Wrong Way - April 11, 2015

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