Ways to Enhance Your Hospital’s Instagram Presence

With more and more people accessing the social web using a mobile device, it is essential that businesses, including healthcare facilities, have a presence there.

With more and more people accessing the social web using a mobile device, it is essential that businesses, including healthcare facilities, have a presence there.

While many people are using a tablet or smartphone to access Twitter and Facebook, Instagram, the popular-photo sharing social network, has now surpassed Twitter with more active users, according to a report by eMarketer.

While Instagram is solely accessible via mobile devices, (you can view Instagram photos via the web, but only upload via a mobile device) it is important that you are aware of third-party tools available so you utilize the network to its fullest potential.

Here are a few helpful applications you may want to look into:

• Statigram is a website that allows users to access their Instagram community via a computer. The site provides great analytic stats and even allows users to comment back with other users. For a healthcare facility this can be great tool to utilize as different departments can have access to it and be able to almost instantly comment on images related to their specialty.

• Instamap, available for both iOS and Android lets you see geo-tagged Instagram photos around your location or other specific locations around the world. For a healthcare facility this can be a great marketing tool as you can comment on relevant photos near your location, which can lead to potential new patients. For example, comment on a baby photo in your local area and mention how you have a superb neo-natal unit.

• Instatag allows users to tag Instagram photos with the most popular and relevant hashtags currently trending. This will open up the potential of your photo to be seen by additional people not regularly following you. It will also help in getting more followers.

• #NoCrop is a free app that allows you to post full size photos on Instagram so part of the photo doesn’t get cut off. For example, if you post a photo of an upcoming blood drive flyer going on at the hospital you simply open the photo in #NoCrop and within seconds the entire photo will be posted to your stream.

Instagram is getting bigger and bigger everyday. For a healthcare facility not to utilize it in their marketing mix can be a big mistake.