Senior Care Franchisees — What’s Your Social Media Plan?

Posted: March 11, 2016

Like most people in business, you are probably aware of the marketing potential of social media. Social media is a powerful and essential plank in your promotional platform, so you can’t afford to ignore it, particularly in the senior care industry, where it’s crucial for you to be able to sell your services and get people to take notice. Unfortunately, mounting a successful social media campaign takes time and energy that you might not have while trying to operate a successful business at the same time.

Thankfully, there are ways for you to fit social-medial management into your busy schedule in a way that’s effective in terms of reaching your marketing goals. But you have to have a plan!

Your Senior Care Social Media Plan

What does your social media presence look like now? Are you posting updates only when you remember to do so? What kind of value are you offering to your followers with your tweets and status updates? Are you actively searching for more followers?

If the previous paragraph overwhelmed you and made you feel like you’re not doing it quite right, that’s okay. Creating a social-media plan for your franchise will streamline the process and make it easy for you to maintain a strong presence on the most popular platforms.

Basically, what you need to do is decide how frequently you want to post updates, and what sort of content those updates will consist of. Remember: if you’re going to be effective, it’s important to stick to the 80/20 rule, which says that 80% of your updates or posts should provide value, with only 20% devoted to promotion.

Then, you need to determine which platforms you’re going to use. If you don’t have a lot of time, it might be smart for you to simply focus on Facebook for now. If you feel like you can afford to be more flexible, you can add Twitter and other platforms like Google + or even LinkedIn.

Take Advantage of Scheduling Apps

The next step is to create a schedule. One of the cool things about social media is that you can schedule your posts in advance, which can be a game-changing time saver. Using apps like Buffer, HootSuite or TweetDeck allows you to schedule all of your posts in advance, and many of these apps give you the ability to post across multiple platforms simultaneously.

You should also create time in your schedule to devote to social media specifically. Otherwise, the work may never get done. If you can afford to do so, it may be a good idea to hire an assistant (virtual or otherwise) who can handle your social media responsibilities. If you know where to look, this can be more affordable than you think.

Get Help from Your Franchisor!

One of the great advantages of franchising is always being able to consult the expertise of your franchisor. Utilize everything that’s made available to you, and be sure to follow recommended best practices. This can ease your work load considerably!

If you’re looking for additional information on using social media to promote an in home senior care franchise, we can help! Download your own copy of our FREE franchising ebook today to learn more.