A recent study by Backlinko has revealed that 4.48 billion people currently use social media worldwide, with the average social media user engaging with an average of 6.6 various social media platforms. And these numbers are only set to continue to grow.
Social media is an excellent way for businesses to communicate with their customers, so life science companies should be using it to support the rest of their marketing efforts (in the right way).
Using social media as part of your marketing mix offers many benefits and opportunities, including more exposure for your business, an increase in lead generation and an improvement in sales.
Choosing the right platforms
It may surprise you that the list of social media platforms goes far beyond Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – at least 21 social media platforms in total! When it comes to popular social media platforms for life science companies, the top one is LinkedIn, thanks to its USP of being a professional networking platform; however, there are benefits to having a presence on other platforms too.
We always do a little research when deciding what social media platforms will be right for your business, as the audience you are trying to connect with influences which channels we think would be best to focus on. Some of the things we consider include:
- Target audience demographics such as who is your current customer base? Who are you trying to reach? Where are your target customers based?
- Content types and formats such as What type of content do your customers find valuable? What kind of content do you currently have available? Do you have the budget to create new content?
- Engagement and networking opportunities – can you network with potential customers through groups or hashtags? Is there an option to advertise on social media to ensure your business gets in front of the right people?
Developing a social media strategy
The first step in any social media campaign is to define the goals and objectives you have to give us milestones to work towards. Then we nail these down into key performance indicators (KPIs), such as growing your Twitter following by 5% in the year’s first quarter.
The next step is establishing your brand voice and guidelines to ensure everything we post is consistent, helping create a unique and recognisable brand identity. From there, we will pull together a content calendar to plan your posts and manage your campaign, and we will share this with you to get approval. We will also create graphics and videos that incorporate storytelling and visual elements.
Crafting engaging content
The most essential part of any social media campaign is creating engaging content that will resonate with your target audience. We do this by crafting content that showcases your research and scientific breakthroughs and which educates and informs your potential customers through thought leadership.
Research has shown that 65% of the population are visual learners, and posts with visuals perform 4.4 times better on average than those with just text, so everything we post will incorporate visuals (whether this be images, infographics or videos).
Building trust with your audience is also essential, which is why we encourage using user-generated content and testimonials.
Growing your social media presence
There are various tactics we use to grow your social media presence, and we don’t want to give away all our secrets, but we focus on two areas: building a solid follower base, engaging with your audience, and leveraging hashtags and trending topics.
We adopt a two-prong approach to help us build a solid follower base – organic reach and targeted advertising campaigns. We keep up a solid flow of organic content to keep customers interested and engaged and then back this up with targeted advertising campaigns to pull more customers into the pipeline.
Engaging with your audience is about promptly responding to comments and messages and promoting events such as webinars. While leveraging hashtags and trending topics means we keep you are the forefront of people’s minds.
Measuring and analysing performance
All the above tasks take time and commitment; we don’t just do them in a vacuum. We are constantly tracking key social media metrics and using analytics tools to gain insights – and we report these back to you every month.
This helps us keep track of our performance and allows us to use data-driven decisions to adjust your social media strategy.
As you can see, organic and paid social media can be a crucial part of your life science company’s marketing strategy, and the sooner you make a start, the better.
To learn more about how Zool can work with you to make the most out of your social media marketing efforts, increase your brand presence and capture more leads, please get in touch at 01625 238 770 or email us at [email protected].
Mastering Social Media for Life Science Companies
Organic & Paid Social Media / Jul 3, 2023
A recent study by Backlinko has revealed that 4.48 billion people currently use social media worldwide, with the average social media user engaging with an average of 6.6 various social media platforms. And these numbers are only set to continue to grow.
Social media is an excellent way for businesses to communicate with their customers, so life science companies should be using it to support the rest of their marketing efforts (in the right way).
Using social media as part of your marketing mix offers many benefits and opportunities, including more exposure for your business, an increase in lead generation and an improvement in sales.
Choosing the right platforms
It may surprise you that the list of social media platforms goes far beyond Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – at least 21 social media platforms in total! When it comes to popular social media platforms for life science companies, the top one is LinkedIn, thanks to its USP of being a professional networking platform; however, there are benefits to having a presence on other platforms too.
We always do a little research when deciding what social media platforms will be right for your business, as the audience you are trying to connect with influences which channels we think would be best to focus on. Some of the things we consider include:
- Target audience demographics such as who is your current customer base? Who are you trying to reach? Where are your target customers based?
- Content types and formats such as What type of content do your customers find valuable? What kind of content do you currently have available? Do you have the budget to create new content?
- Engagement and networking opportunities – can you network with potential customers through groups or hashtags? Is there an option to advertise on social media to ensure your business gets in front of the right people?
Developing a social media strategy
The first step in any social media campaign is to define the goals and objectives you have to give us milestones to work towards. Then we nail these down into key performance indicators (KPIs), such as growing your Twitter following by 5% in the year’s first quarter.
The next step is establishing your brand voice and guidelines to ensure everything we post is consistent, helping create a unique and recognisable brand identity. From there, we will pull together a content calendar to plan your posts and manage your campaign, and we will share this with you to get approval. We will also create graphics and videos that incorporate storytelling and visual elements.
Crafting engaging content
The most essential part of any social media campaign is creating engaging content that will resonate with your target audience. We do this by crafting content that showcases your research and scientific breakthroughs and which educates and informs your potential customers through thought leadership.
Research has shown that 65% of the population are visual learners, and posts with visuals perform 4.4 times better on average than those with just text, so everything we post will incorporate visuals (whether this be images, infographics or videos).
Building trust with your audience is also essential, which is why we encourage using user-generated content and testimonials.
Growing your social media presence
There are various tactics we use to grow your social media presence, and we don’t want to give away all our secrets, but we focus on two areas: building a solid follower base, engaging with your audience, and leveraging hashtags and trending topics.
We adopt a two-prong approach to help us build a solid follower base – organic reach and targeted advertising campaigns. We keep up a solid flow of organic content to keep customers interested and engaged and then back this up with targeted advertising campaigns to pull more customers into the pipeline.
Engaging with your audience is about promptly responding to comments and messages and promoting events such as webinars. While leveraging hashtags and trending topics means we keep you are the forefront of people’s minds.
Measuring and analysing performance
All the above tasks take time and commitment; we don’t just do them in a vacuum. We are constantly tracking key social media metrics and using analytics tools to gain insights – and we report these back to you every month.
This helps us keep track of our performance and allows us to use data-driven decisions to adjust your social media strategy.
As you can see, organic and paid social media can be a crucial part of your life science company’s marketing strategy, and the sooner you make a start, the better.
To learn more about how Zool can work with you to make the most out of your social media marketing efforts, increase your brand presence and capture more leads, please get in touch at 01625 238 770 or email us at [email protected].
