Plastic Surgeon Social Media Marketing: Crafting a Unique, Visual Strategy
Thanks to its distinct focus on helping clients become their ideal selves, plastic surgery is best advertised visually. And in today’s advertising marketplace, few widely-visited websites and apps are more visual than social media. As you explore your plastic surgery marketing options, you’ll find social media platforms offer an amazing space to help potential clients see the incredible results and astounding benefits that your business can provide.
How to Pick a Social Media Platform
“Social media” is any website or app that creates a platform for users to make posts and share content. Although most of us are familiar with the biggest names on the block, like Facebook and Twitter, there are other popular social media websites that could offer more fertile ground for your plastic surgery advertising.
Based on the total number of users, the largest social media platforms include:
Facebook – 2.4 billion users
YouTube – 2 billion users
Instagram – 1 billion users
LinkedIn – 675 million users
Twitter – 340 million users
Pinterest –335 million users
Reddit – 300 million users
Snapchat – 241 million users
As advertising is the bread and butter of social media platforms these days, you can easily create an advertising account and post ads on almost any social media platform. That said, you don’t want to default to the largest platforms just because they have more users.
Usage stats are important when making advertising decisions, but they aren’t everything. You may find that what matters more for your plastic surgery advertising is how people are using the social media platform and whether it’s a good fit for the type of services you provide.
For example, while the average age of plastic surgery patients tends to be around 35-50, at least one study suggests that social media is driving that age downward. The key to this is the increased usage of visual-based social media platforms among younger individuals, particularly those in their 20s and 30s.
You’ll find the most photo and video-centric platforms on the block are Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Youtube.
Gender breakdowns matter, as well. Although Instagram has a roughly even male-to-female ratio, Snapchat and Pinterest both have a far larger number of female users. A rather surprising 65% of Pinterest users and 61% of Snapchat users are female. These numbers make Snapchat and Pinterest more readily-aligned to critical plastic surgery demographics.
Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube may offer you more a broader base of users for advertising purposes, but you may have a better return on investment (ROI) by focusing on social media platforms with a higher concentration of your target audience.
That said, every social media platform will allow you to curate your ads based on age, gender, interests, and other demographics. But if you’re focusing your attention on platforms with a larger percentage of your key demographic, you’re more likely to get better results.
Not sure which social media platform works best with your plastic surgery business? Contact Madison Ave Media for help navigating social media marketing.
Best Ad Content for Social Media Marketing
The type of ad content you curate for marketing your plastic surgery business will depend on several factors, including (but not limited to):
The exact service you’re advertising
The type of audience/client you’re hoping to attract
The social media platform you’re using
Visuals work best for advertising, but you’ll also need to help potential clients decide A) why they need that service, and B) why they should trust you to perform it.
Stay focused on truthful visuals
Quite often, you can answer the big “why” questions of your services through an impactful visual with a minimal amount of text. But you’ll want to craft that message carefully to boost your chances of success.
The before/after picture is a common strategy, for example, but it does come with a high degree of skepticism these days. You’ll also have to contend with the fact that less than 40% of users trust social media ads.
Make sure to use truthful ad practices for any type of visual you create for social media advertising. You may also want to avoid tactics that could produce claims of false advertising or that could negatively impact your engagement, such as airbrushing the images to make the surgical results look more impressive.
Apply those same ideas to all of the visuals and content you create for advertising.
Don’t count out text-based approaches
Although visuals are ultimately a key selling point, you can combine them into more text-based social media ads and shares. For example, you may want to make longer, informative blog posts on your website that you share on social media platforms as advertisements.
These blog posts can feature more informative visuals, such as diagrams and infographics, while also supplementing the visuals with descriptive text of your services.
Sharing blog posts doesn’t fit well with every social media platform. For posts that point back to blog content, consider Twitter and Facebook over the more visual-centric options like Instagram and Snapchat.
Understand the culture of the platform
Most people who use social media typically frequent multiple social media sites or apps. But they don’t use each social media website the same way. There are important nuances that could increase or reduce your ad engagement on different sites.
Take the hashtag (#) for example. Hashtags are a huge part of Twitter’s culture, but not as much for Facebook. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use hashtags with your Facebook advertising, however, as the hashtag infrastructure does exist there and it does work. It all comes down to how you use it.
One study found having over 3 hashtags on a Facebook post dramatically reduces user engagement. Meanwhile, another study found that having 2 hashtags on Twitter increases engagement, while more 3 or more won’t negatively impact engagement at all (and may even marginally increase engagement).
Would you have known the difference? Many businesses going it alone may have simply applied the same hashtag strategy across platforms without understanding the subtle differences a few extra hashtags can make on different platforms.
This is why you shouldn’t treat every social media platform the same for advertising purposes. You may be able to use similar or even the same visuals across platforms for advertising, but how you present those visuals can have a big impact on each ad’s success.
How to Create Your Unique Social Media Presence
You’ll find a number of great techniques you can employ to create unique and click-worthy content on social media. Taking the broad advice into consideration, here are a few platform-specific ideas for marketing your plastic surgery business.
Instagram and Snapchat
Instagram and Snapchat are among the most visually-centric social media platforms that heavily rewards original content. But there’s also a major trend now toward unfiltered and authentic posts. You may want to make that your ad focus, as well.
However, there’s still room for more professional-crafted ad content, as well. Just note that for Instagram and Snapchat, focus more on extensive visual storytelling, regardless of the type of ad you create. Like an art gallery painting, the ad’s visual content should speak volumes and speak directly to the audience’s needs or wants.
This award-winning advertisement from a Toronto, Canada business offers a perfect example of complete visual storytelling:
This ad is an incredibly simple, yet deeply impactful ad for nose surgery. The ad is also an excellent model of how to keep ad viewers engaged. It may take them a few seconds to understand the meaning, with a pleasing “ah-ha!” moment that could result in a like and share.
Facebook and Twitter
Your Facebook and Twitter ads can contain much more text than you would include with Instagram or Snapchat. Facebook’s boosted posts option is a great avenue to share more detailed, click-worthy and informative content directly to your target audience. The featured image you use for those posts still matters, however.
Facebook also has more features for you to take advantage of in the ad-creation process. For example, you can create slideshow ads (also available on Instagram) that are perfect for before/after style ads.
Regardless of the social media sites you choose for your ads, take time to try to break the mold. How can you tell a great story in your ads with as few words as possible and with the most possible impact based on your audience’s needs?
How to Get Started with Social Media Marketing
It’s easy to get started marketing your plastic surgery business on social media. Just do the following:
Review your client data and identify which services you want to advertise
Pick the social media platforms you want to use for advertising and create business accounts
Craft your social media posts, or hire a marketer to help you create eye-catching posts that are suited for the platforms you’re using
Send the ads to your targeted audience
Review your engagement data, and refine your approach
There’s no one path to success in social media marketing. However, with an expert at your side, you’ll experience superior results. Your best option is to turn to someone with an intuitive understanding of different social media websites, including website cultures and advertising methods.
If you’re in need of professional, experienced social media marketing, contact Madison Ave Media for a complimentary consultation.