Originally published on May 9, 2019. Updated May 26th, 2022.
If you are the owner of a medical spa and you are looking for a comprehensive guide to your social media marketing, this is for you. Our team has been marketing for medical spas for years, and we have learned a few things along the way. From choosing the right social platforms your target audience is using to creating aesthetically appealing posts that stand out, we’re here to help. This guide is a compilation of our social media expertise and best practices – with medical spas in mind. Here’s how to successfully make the biggest splash with your social media medical spa marketing.
Start Your Social Media Strategy on Facebook First
Many marketers and medical spa owners alike have begun to move away from Facebook as an effective form of social media marketing. They see bright and shiny platforms like TikTok and Snapchat and silo their strategies to demographics that may not even be their target audience.
Although it is true that TikTok is a promising platform for a younger audience, Facebook still has the lion’s share of active users across all ages. According to the Pew Research Center, almost 75% of online American adults use Facebook. At the end of 2018, monthly active usership for Facebook was 2.32 billion, approximately one-third of the world’s population.
In addition to having a wide user base, Facebook allows for powerful, highly-specific targeting, so you don’t have to worry about painting with a broad brushy – you will reach the primary audience for your medical spa only. You can learn more about Facebook targeting under the boosting and advertising section at the bottom of this guide.
Recommended Posting Schedule
The goal with a posting schedule is to publish consistently enough that your content is familiar to your target audience, but spaced out by intervals so that it stays fresh and original, not dull and repetitive.
We recommend three to five times per week, either once every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or once per day.
Refer to the editorial calendar section of this guide for content ideas.
For a brief summary of the information shared in this blog, watch Social Media Manager Sarah Testen discuss social media marketing on Beacon’s Digital U!
How to Use Instagram for Your Medical Spa
Instagram caters to a younger audience. According to Hootsuite, the most active users on Instagram are between 18 and 29 years old, and the Pew Research Center reports that 72% of teenagers say that they use Instagram.
If your medical spa is serving women in their 20s and 30s, you will want to be on Instagram. If your target demographic is much older than that (as many medical spa clients are), you may be able to get away with a smaller presence on Instagram.
Instagram is a highly visual platform. So, how do you know what looks good on Instagram and what does not? Here at Beacon, we have a rule of thumb: “Everything that goes on Instagram can be shared on Facebook, but not everything that is shared on Facebook should go on Instagram.”
Think of Instagram as an art gallery. The content that performs best on Instagram usually has a few, key defining characteristics:
- It contains interesting subject matter.
- The photo is shot from an artistic perspective.
- It follows a filter or color scheme that fits with the brand.
If you have a young, blossoming photographer on your medical spa team, you may want to consider tasking her with creating content for your Instagram account. Have her capture photos of your location, before and after pictures of your clients, or shots of any products you may carry set in front of beautiful backdrops like the outdoors.
Recommended Posting Schedule
It is more important to be conservative with your posting frequency on Instagram than it is on Facebook. As there are fewer users on Instagram, the posts have a greater tendency to sit in a user’s feed and stay.
Additionally, because you want to limit your Instagram posts to exclusively artistic images, keep your posting down to one to two genuinely strong photos per week.
If you want to learn more best practices for Instagram, read our blog, 14 Ways Businesses Can Optimize Their Instagram Profile Right Now!
Don’t Forget LinkedIn in Your Social Media Toolkit
LinkedIn is the comeback kid of the social media community at the moment. Out of what felt like nowhere, usership began slowly ramping up, the primary demographic being senior-level staff and company decision-makers.
At present, LinkedIn has 154 million users. If you would like to target business men and women who are concerned about maintaining their appearance, LinkedIn could be a strong social media platform for your medical spa. Your content should succeed if you share personal coaching/life advice as well as industry news, as these formats are favored by LinkedIn users.
Recommended Posting Schedule
For LinkedIn, we recommend a posting schedule of three to five times per week, either once every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or once every day.
Use an Editorial Calendar for Your Medical Spa to Publish Consistently
The greatest challenge to succeeding with social media–something we have witnessed with many of our medical spa clients–is publishing consistently. Even so-called “creative geniuses” struggle to come up with brilliant content from time to time. That’s why we have created a tool to keep us and our clients on track, the editorial calendar!
With an editorial calendar in hand, you will have post concepts planned in advance that you can pull from on the good days as well as the bad. The calendar will not only help you publish regularly, but it will also keep the type of content you publish consistent from week to week, something that is very important for your target audience if they are going to understand and engage with what you are doing.
Here is an example page from one of our past editorial calendars (blurred for anonymity), describing a post type to be used once per week:
Depending on the goals of our client’s social media marketing, we may include five to ten recommended post types in their editorial calendar. These post types are the result of extensive, team-wide brainstorming and planning at the beginning of each social media marketing strategy.
Below are some post types that you may want to consider using for your medical spa.
Education About the Medical Spa Industry
Are there some negative perceptions about the medical spa industry or your business that you need to tackle for your target audience? Or some knowledge your target audience could gain about your medical spa to create trust and break down barriers to them coming in?
Then educational posts are a great type to have in your editorial calendar. Not only do these posts tackle negative perceptions and create trust, but they can also establish your medical spa as an authoritative source of information for your community.
Blog/Article Shares
Blogging is great for boosting your website rank, but it is also a fantastic source of content for your social media. Be sure to post the medical spa blogs you write to your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. This kind of linking is good for the blog and it will drive your social media followers to your website to convert.
Human Interest Stories
Everybody loves a good story, and sharing the stories of staff or clients who have faced challenges with their appearance and overcome will generate buckets of positive engagement on social media.
With these posts, we typically share an engaging photo of the person being highlighted along with a quote from them and their story. For a great example of successful human interest content, visit the Humans of New York Facebook page.
Behind-the-Scenes at the Medical Spa
Giving your target audience a sneak peek into what goes on behind the scenes at your medical spa shows transparency and can give your clients a feeling of being “in the know” that creates trust and loyalty.
Take pictures of your team bonding or preparing for a client before they come in. Focus on something that your target audience might not know about your medical spa, but they should, because it’s really cool!
Before and After of Medical Spa Clients
This post type would be especially valuable for your target audience, to see the concrete results of getting work done at your medical spa. Consider sharing before and after photos of your clients, provided they have completed a media release form.
The Medical Spa Lifestyle
If you have not already identified the personas of your target audience–who they are, what they think, and how they live–the best time to do so is now. Your services should directly tie into certain lifestyles that you can use in your social media marketing. For this post type, include happy, smiling photos of your target demographic and illustrate how using your services can create or enhance their ideal lifestyle.
Video Marketing
If you are doing video marketing for your medical spa, the best place to promote it is on social media. Video is the most easily-digestible format of media–if your target audience had not been engaging with your social media content previously, they may be willing to watch a short video. Share any videos you and your medical spa team create to any and all platforms you are using.
Event Shares
Does your medical spa host or sponsor many events in your area? Showcase your community involvement on social media by creating an event page and promoting it there.
Promotions
If you are running any deals or specials at your medical spa, you should be sharing and promoting these on social media as well.
Social Media Contests
We all want to be winners. To earn engagement on social media, consider running a contest for your followers. Our favorite format is a photo contest, where followers must post a photo to your page (relevant to your medical spa or a holiday) with the contest hashtag to enter to win some of your services.
For example, followers could submit “their favorite springtime activity,” tagging the photo with the hashtag #SpringattheSpa to win a free consultation and injection based on the doctor’s recommendations. You could also use flowers, chocolates, gift cards, or other prizes too, but we recommend that at least one of the prizes ties back to your services.
Social Media Quizzes
Social media quizzes are not only a great way to earn engagement with your medical spa, they can also give you contact information for qualified leads if you require an email address to play.
If you have ever visited a website to learn, “Which character from The Office are you?” then you have participated in a social media quiz. An excellent tool for creating social media quizzes is Lead Quizzes, something we use at Beacon for our clients.
Social Media Campaigns
Social media campaigns should be used whenever you would like to push a specific message for your medical spa. For this post type, you will want to prepare in advance a specific branding package including imagery and a branded message.
In addition to an editorial calendar, another great way to ensure you publish consistently to your social media is to schedule posts in advance using Facebook Business Manager or a third-party service, like Loomly.
Try Social Media Boosting and Advertising on for Size
If you have been marketing for your medical spa on Facebook already, you have probably seen the little, blue, “Boost Post” button on some of your posts.
Boosting and paid advertising allow you to target your content to specific audiences that you may have not been reaching before.
This kind of social media marketing can be managed by either clicking the blue button and setting your audience, budget, and timeline, or by using Facebook Ads Manager. Facebook Ads Manager allows you to do more complicated advertising, including A/B testing.
Wow Your Followers With Beacon Media + Marketing
If you would like to launch a comprehensive social media strategy for your medical spa, but you don’t have the time, we would love to talk with you! Beacon Media + Marketing can take care of every part of your medical spa marketing strategy. From building you a beautiful medspa website to taking care of your regular paid advertising, blogging, and social media posting, our cohesive strategy connects you with the perfect clients for your business.
Looking for a digital marketing agency that specializes in medspa marketing? Talk with us!
